Traian Demetrescu
Encyclopedia
Traian Rafael Radu Demetrescu (also known under his pen name
Tradem or, occasionally, as Traian Demetrescu-Tradem; December 5, 1866 – April 17, 1896) was a Romania
n poet, novelist and literary critic, considered one of the first symbolist
authors in local literature
. Influenced by French
writers such as François Coppée
and the Decadent
Maurice Rollinat
, as well as by the local poet Mihai Eminescu
, he was made popular by his poems, many of which served as the basis of popular romanzas
. Receptive to impressionism
and naturalism, he wrote a number of psychological novel
s and several short stories, some of which are remembered for their melancholic and occasionally macabre
themes.
Also noted for his socialist
convictions and his contributions as a journalist, Demetrescu advocated an original view of literature, which, despite placing emphasis on progressivism
, was distinct from the Marxist
views of his contemporaries Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
and Constantin Mille
. A friend and associate of the influential poet Alexandru Macedonski
, he played a minor part in a lengthy polemic with the conservative
literary society Junimea
, and authored a series of essays and memoirs documenting the Romanian intellectual environment.
Tradem was affected by the infectious disease, tuberculosis
, which his contemporaries said was to be found in the depressive
or exuberant tones in his writings. His original take on poetry served to inspire the Romanian symbolist groups
. He is seen as a predecessor to Ştefan Petică, N. Davidescu and George Bacovia
, while his prose was an influence on Caton Theodorian.
, Traian Demetrescu was the son of a pub owner known by the name of Gherbea; he had a sister, Victoria, and two brothers. One of them, Radu Demetrescu, graduated from the Theatrical Conservatory in Bucharest
, where he befriended actor and future avant-garde
dramatist George Ciprian
, together with whom he was later employed by the National Theater Craiova.
Tradem kept memories of the house where he grew up, and especially of the fact that it was situated "among trees". After attending the Carol I High School in his native city, he was withdrawn by his parents, and sent to work in a shop—he was nonetheless able to complete his studies after taking private lessons in 1884. Later in life, he admitted being upset over having been forced to quit school, and indicated that he had to surmount "a lot of obstacles" in order to improve his situation.
It was during the same period that he debuted as a poet, having one of his pieces, titled Ploaie din senin ("Sudden Rain") published by the local magazine Vocea Oltului. His contributions attracted Alexandru Macedonski
's attention, who praised his abilities and re-published some of his lyrics in his Bucharest-based journal Literatorul. In autumn 1884, on their way to Paris
, Macedonski and his wife Anna stopped in Craiova to meet with Tradem. Four years later, the latter recalled being gripped by "tremors of emotion" upon receiving his mentor's visit.
The two writers grew closer after Macedonski returned from his trip, and frequently engaged in discussions on scientific and philosophical topics. Tradem recalled having spent an entire summer in Macedonski's Bucharest
house. However, they came to disagree and eventually grew estranged—answering to claims that Macedonski was a vain and vindicative man, Tudor Vianu
, his friend and biographer, indicated that this and other splits occurred "without coldness and the heart's versatility".
In March 1888, together with the lawyer G. D. Pencioiu, Tradem founded Revista Olteană, a magazine dedicated to literary and social criticism. In one of his articles, Demetrescu justified the new enterprise, arguing that Craiova displayed "a kind of snoozing, a sickly indifference in respect to intellectual life." He and Pencioiu were soon joined by other journalists, among them Nicolae Basilescu, Eduard Hübsch, Ralian Samitca, Moses Schwarzfeld, and Henric Streitman.
Revista Olteană was loosely based on the socialist magazine Contemporanul
, although their respective ideologies were rather different. Tradem's leftist viewpoints did not set the tone for the publication, and was contrasted by Pencioiu (the latter, although he respected Karl Marx
's views, remained a supporter of liberalism
). The publication met with financial difficulties and ceased to be issued after March 1890, but was revived by its original founder and the poet Carol Scrob in November 1891 (when it became a supplement for the local newspaper Economistul). Demetrescu probably had a disagreement with Scrob, and left soon after—the magazine survived his departure, but suddenly ceased print just months after. In summer 1892, he withdrew to the locality of Cilieni
, where he completed Intim ("Intimate"), his most influential poetry volume.
During that period, Tradem was especially close to the socialist circles, and, in turn, their members held him in high esteem. In 1890-1892, he was also a collaborator for Constantin Mille
's leftist newspaper Adevărul
, one of his notable contributions being a study on the works of poet Théodore de Banville
. During spring 1893, he became a member of the short-lived Romanian Social-Democratic Workers' Party, and helped organize it at a grassroots level, together with, among others, Alexandru Radovici and George Diamandi (Demetrescu ran the Craiova base, Radovici was active in Galaţi
, and Diamandi represented the Romanian diaspora
). Traian Demetrescu defended Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
in his polemic with Junimist leader Titu Maiorescu
, and, after 1893, was among a group of younger socialists to mount a press campaign against Junimea (other people in the group included Dimitrie Anghel
, Anton Bacalbaşa, Emil Fagure, Garabet Ibrăileanu
, Raicu Ionescu-Rion, Sofia Nădejde, Henri Sanielevici, Constantin Stere
, and Avram Steuerman-Rodion
). One other socialist writer with whom Demetrescu came to associate at the time was the future Orthodox
priest Gala Galaction
.
Over the early 1890s, Demetrescu's condition worsened, and he sought treatment for tuberculosis in the Alpine climate
regions of German Empire
and in Austria-Hungary
. In 1894, he was in Munich
and later at the Rheyer Villa in Bad Reichenhall
. He subsequently traveled to Vienna
, where he visited the Cathedral of Saint Stephen. The following year, he was present in the Bukovina
n town of Solca
, where he attempted to cure his illness by living in the close proximity of fir
s and breathing in the scented air. Tradem's efforts were fruitless, and he died one year later, at the age of 29, after a particularly severe episode of hemoptysis
.
described Traian Demetrescu as "one of the first [Romanian] poets with «fits of nerves» and «thrills»". He commented at length on Demetrescu's character and in particular his eccentricities, attributing them to the problems posed by tuberculosis. According to Călinescu, Tradem was "alternatively exuberant and silent", with "unhealthy dumbnesses", and described by his acquaintances as having "a monstrous mixture of virginal purity and horrifying mental ruin". Rumors collected by Călinescu had it that the poet was made emotional by even "the rustling of dresses", and that he could become seriously upset if his friends did not have "good perfumes" in their houses. This was connected to what Călinescu deemed "sensory sharpness" and attributed to his disease: in one instance, Demetrescu was reportedly moved "to the brink of fainting" by the sensory images of a rose garden.
George Călinescu indicated that Demetrescu was a read man, who was well-acquainted with works by some major figures of Medieval literature
(François Villon
), Renaissance literature
and Humanism
(Dante Alighieri
, Petrarch
, Torquato Tasso
), the Age of Enlightenment
(Jean-Jacques Rousseau
, Antoine François Prévost
), and Romanticism
(Giacomo Leopardi
, Edgar Allan Poe
, Alfred de Vigny
, William Wordsworth
). Tradem was especially interested in the literature of his day, and read realist
authors such as Fyodor Dostoevsky
, Dumas fils
, Henrik Ibsen
, Leo Tolstoy
, Ivan Turgenev
, and Jules Vallès
. He was also familiar with the contributions of naturalists, impressionists
, and symbolists,—among them Émile Faguet
, Edmond Haraucourt, José María de Heredia
, Jules Lemaître
, Pierre Loti
, Guy de Maupassant
, Sully Prudhomme
, Jean Rameau, and August Strindberg
—, as well as with members of the Groupe des Vivants—Raoul Ponchon and Jean Richepin
. A noted influence on his choice of subjects was François Coppée
, while Tradem's imagery was many times inspired by the Decadent
author Maurice Rollinat
.
Early in its existence, Revista Olteană published many critical studies by Demetrescu and others, in which they discussed the literary works of the 19th century. Among the figures analyzed by him were Coppée, Louise-Victorine Ackermann
, Paul Bourget
, Alfred de Musset
, as well as the Romanian Romantics Vasile Alecsandri
, Dimitrie Bolintineanu
, Mihai Eminescu
, Veronica Micle
, Nicolae Nicoleanu, and Mihail Zamphirescu. Alongside these pieces were theater chronicles he signed, showing that he closely followed developments on the local scene. He also translated several foreign dramatic pieces into Romanian
.
Despite taking an interest in Symbolism, Demetrescu is known to have declared himself perplexed by their "bizarre originality". Instead, he looked up to Realism and Naturalism, and called on young writers to study the works of Dostoevsky, Maupassant, Georg Brandes
, Alphonse Daudet
, Honoré de Balzac
, Gustave Flaubert
and Émile Zola
. Tradem defined his style of literary criticism as "Impressionist", taking for his model Anatole France
—in this assessment of France's style, he focused on one of the latter's statements ("The good critic is one who recounts his soul's adventures among the masterpieces").
Nevertheless, he was an immediate precursor to the Romanian Symbolist school
, or a representative of its "proletarian
" side. Discussing this latter aspect, literary critic Paul Cernat notes that Demetrescu stood alongside Mihail Cruceanu, Alexandru Toma
and Andrei Naum, all of whom merged a socialist discourse into their poetic vision, thus contrasting with Macedonski's post-Parnassian school, as well as with the ballad
esque literature produced by Ştefan Octavian Iosif
. According to Călinescu, Demetrescu's commitment to Symbolism was especially obvious in his attitudes, which he argued were linked to "spleen
" (a humoralistic
term used by Charles Baudelaire
to define melancholy). In Călinescu's opinion, the Symbolist elements in Demetrescu's writings served to explain his close relationship with Macedonski, which contrasted with their backgrounds and political opinions. Researcher Lidia Bote proposed that Macedonski and Demetrescu were both eclectic
figures representing a period when Symbolism was one of the many competing influences, and argued that a "pure" Symbolism only imposed itself in Romania after 1902, when Ştefan Petică published his earliest poems.
Demetrescu was one of Romania's earliest socialist poets, in the same generation as Constantin Mille
and Ion Păun-Pincio, and a versifier of socialist battle hymns. According to his own words, Demetrescu had studied "the works of great socialist writers". He also took interest in the works of Evolutionists
and Positivists
such as Herbert Spencer
, Jean-Marie Guyau
, and Hippolyte Taine
. His sympathy for the proletariat accompanied his political credo. As Călinescu noted, he was mostly preoccupied with the plight of certain discriminated social groups, such as prostitutes, Jews
, alcoholics
, aging artists, orphans, the insane, as well as strolling performers such as the Romani tribe of the Ursari
; his compassion extended to old dogs that had been chased away by their masters. Several of his poetry writings published by Revista Olteană had an obvious socialist message. In one of the essays published there, Tradem discussed the implications of the 1888 peasants' uprising in the Romanian Old Kingdom
: he rejected the view that rebels had been manipulated by the political class, and argued that the real causes were fatigue and the threat of starvation.
and supported him in conflicts with Titu Maiorescu
, showing that he did not endorse the Junimist views of an "art for art's sake
". He believed Maiorescu was valuable, but no longer relevant. Nevertheless, he was critical of socialist arguments, in particular the notion that the value of literary works resided in their social message. Instead, he mediated between the two visions, arguing in favor of progressive
messages and stressing that "art should not have beauty for its sole purpose". This position was also illustrated in his Positivist critique of Romanticism, which saw Tradem arguing that art "is a product of the social environment". He was however persistent in arguing that there was no absolute connection between social class
es and artistic creation.
In parallel, he was involved in a dispute with Raicu Ionescu-Rion and Garabet Ibrăileanu
, after he allowed psychological novel
techniques to seep into his prose and spoke in favor of the Decadent movement
(placing decadent novels on equal footing with works of social criticism). His primordial interest in the subjective experience
led him to claim that there was no possibility for a completely objective
perspective (an idea akin to his Impressionist tenets). He argued: "I understand the word writing to mean the original, superior and beautiful gift of materializing a personality, an artistic temperament, in the shape of words. But this disposition does not always manifest itself with the exactitude of clocks; it is often capricious and pertains to various exterior and psychic causes. First of all, the artist needs an absolute material self-sufficiency which may lead him away from all common employments that kill or weaken the most beautiful forces of talent. Not all poets are born rich like Alecsandri; and since in our country literature has not yet come to live off public support, it is only natural that one often sees talented poets abducted by political journalism or the glitter of other jobs which provide them with the means of existence..."
His relative independence was visible in his work of essays, Profile literare ("Literary Profiles"), where he attacked writers on both sides with what Călinescu argued were "unforgiving judgments". Thus, when discussing his fellow leftist Mille, Tradem described his poetic works as "boring". In reference to Mille's works, he stated: "Without profound meditation, without sensitivity, without imagination, an artist cannot become anything other than, at most, a fecund and passable worker, and not an illustrious figure that would endure."
Beginning in 1888, Tradem also authored short memoirs of his many meetings with Macedonski, in particular of their conversations. He recalled being familiar with many of Macedonski's original theories on various subjects, including astronomy
and the works of Camille Flammarion
. Demetrescu noted that Macedonski's theories claimed to explain the workings of the Universe in "a different way" and based "on his imagination", but argued that "for a moment [in conversation], it seemed like he could convince anyone". He also recorded that the theistic
Macedonski answered "positive science" with "the grin of skepticism". Nevertheless, according to Tradem, Alexandru Macedonski flirted with Naturalism during the early part of his career, and admired the works of Gustave Flaubert
and Émile Zola
. His memoirs also provided detail on Macedonski's interest in visual arts, indicating that the older poet had always wished to become a painter, and that his determination had instead shaped the artistic career of his son Alexis.
At times, Demetrescu was contradicting himself. Călinescu noted that Tradem initially described Florile Bosforului ("The Flowers of the Bosphorus"), a book of poems by the Bolintineanu, with enthusiasm, but later considered them "banalities [and] light-hearted fantasies". Similarly, he was initially supportive of Vasile Alecsandri when Macedonski derided his works, but later came to consider many of his poems "a husk of banal words, not animated by any powerful thought, and a very often riddled with intolerable grammatical mistakes." In this context, Demetrescu opposed the aging Romantic poet to a new generation of intellectuals and artists, one he believed was expressing and favoring "the fracticious, daring, deep thoughts". However, soon after Alecsandri died in 1890, he wrote: "In these times of neuroses
, of deceptions and pessimism
[...] Alecsandri's poetry is like a harmonious and beneficent music. He was a great poet, an illustrious patriot
, and a joyful person." His views of Mihai Eminescu
also oscillated between rejection and praise, but, with time, the latter became a major influence on his own style.
for mysterious lands", which he found to be one of the poet's main themes. In one of his poems, Tradem pined for a different climate:
Similarly, one of his poems deals with the unknown forces dragging sailors out to sea:
Traian Demetrescu's poetry often included lyrical depictions of depressive
moods. This was notably present in a poem depicting the landscape of winter:
In analyzing Tradem's contributions, George Călinescu also indicated that, especially in interior scenes, the poet focused on images of "boredom", which "immerses [his] soul in the color black". In one such setting, the clock becomes "the satanical and exact instrument measuring the vigil". The poem in question read:
The imagery and tone of Tradem's poetry have been described by Călinescu as "heartbreakingly pathetic". This atmosphere, he argued, gave them originality, although he believed that they were not accomplished pieces ("a great many of his [poems] are prosaic").
In addition, he praised Demetrescu the poet for his musical feel, and especially for his rendition of "the acoustic of fluids" (extending to images of the Olt River
, fields of grain swept by the wind, and currents of air passing through trees on the Danube
shore). Also according to Călinescu, Tradem was a musical person, who loved classical music
, in particular the cello
and the zither
, and who often introduced concrete references to composers of "sad music" in his poems. The latter category included Frédéric Chopin
and Carl Maria von Weber
, whom Tradem invoked as a means to highlight his moods. In one of his poems, he wrote:
s and shorter literary pieces, as well as two novels. According to Călinescu, many of the former two were generally lyrical in nature, being centered on the author's subjective experience
. Themselves melancholic, they were dismissed by the critic for displaying a "sentimental humanism which is foremost loved by the plebs".
Tradem's collected short stories, Refractarii ("The Fracticious Ones"), portrays various misfit characters, and its subjects occasionally turn to the macabre
. In one of them, the protagonist Costin is shown to be heartbroken when a malicious child destroys his favorite flower. In one other novella, a medicine student steals the corpse of a beautiful woman from the morgue
, and hangs her skeleton on his wall. Various of his stories and essays also compliment cultural figures whose works Tradem enjoyed. Alongside mentions of Chopin and Weber, they reference Edgar Allan Poe
, Fyodor Dostoevsky
, and Camille Saint-Saëns
.
His two novels both deal with the subject of unrequited love
, and George Călinescu argued that they were in fact disguised eulogies
. The critic also argued that they showed Tradem to be "too moon-struck to be understood by women". One of them was titled Iubita ("The Lady-Love"), and showed the protagonist, a teacher named Emil Corburescu, falling in love with his pupil's sister—although she does not reject his advances, she eventually marries a more adjusted person. Călinescu concluded that "[Corburescu] is a failure". Similarly, Tradem's Cum iubim ("The Way We Love") deals with Nestor Aldea, a young law student who encounters a beautiful blond woman while promenading in a park: the two fall in love, but she refuses to marry Aldea. They meet each other again after she has married, and end up committing adultery
. Călinescu dismissed the work, stating: "Everything [in it] is vapory, as annoying as a thick fog."
, who used them as lyrics for his songs), while others survive as romanzas
. Among the latter was a stanza
many believe to be anonymous:
According to Călinescu, Tradem's Refractarii, with its depictions of misfits, announces the short stories of Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voineşti, while his intense love for rose gardens recalls the poems of Symbolist Dimitrie Anghel
. Demetrescu's poetry has been a direct influence on Symbolists such as Ştefan Petică, Radu D. Rosetti, N. Davidescu, and especially George Bacovia
. Călinescu noted that Tradem and Bacovia shared important traits: "proletarian sentimentalism, a fracticious attitude, morbid nostalgia, sad «philosophies» and most of all the tone of a heartbreaking romanza". Refractarii has also influenced the non-Symbolist Caton Theodorian.
Both Tudor Vianu
and Davidescu focused on Traian Demetrescu's place of origin as a staple of his style, and spoke of Demetrescu, Macedonski, Ion Minulescu
and others as representatives of "Wallachia
n Symbolism", in contrast with Moldavia
ns such as Bacovia, Petică, and Benjamin Fondane
. In their view, Demetrescu and his fellow Wallachians was less focused on depicting obscurity and melancholy, and more precise in approach.
Tradem's legacy notably comprises his presence in the memoirs of Nicolae Condiescu, a fellow Craiova citizen, and a eulogistic mention in one of Bacovia's poems (titled Amurgul, "The Crepuscule"). Shortly after Demetrescu died, Gala Galaction
wrote an article which proclaimed him as the model intellectual for "the happy days toward which humanity was taking its [...] steps..." In 1950s Communist Romania
, his socialist leanings brought him official endorsement, at a time when many other writers were dismissed as "bourgeois
" (other literary figures to be awarded such recognition due to their political opinions included Ion Păun-Pincio and Dumitru Theodor Neculuţă).
In Craiova, Demetrescu is honored with a bust in his likeness, which was erected some ten years after his death, following intense campaigning by Adevărul
journal. In 1978, the local authorities in that city have instituted the Traian Demetrescu-Tradem National Poetry Contest, which takes place annually. The festivities are occasionally hosted by the descendants of Tradem's relatives. His name was also given to a high school in the city and to the Traian Demetrescu House of Culture (which is itself financed by the local authorities). There is a Traian Demetrescu Street in Craiova, and others of the same name in Braşov
, Sibiu
and Timişoara
.
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
Tradem or, occasionally, as Traian Demetrescu-Tradem; December 5, 1866 – April 17, 1896) was a Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n poet, novelist and literary critic, considered one of the first symbolist
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
authors in local literature
Literature of Romania
Romanian literature is literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language.Eugène Ionesco is one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd....
. Influenced by French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
writers such as François Coppée
François Coppée
François Edouard Joachim Coppée was a French poet and novelist.-Biography:He was born in Paris to a civil servant. After attending the Lycée Saint-Louis he became a clerk in the ministry of war, and won public favour as a poet of the Parnassian school. His first printed verses date from 1864...
and the Decadent
Decadent movement
The Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...
Maurice Rollinat
Maurice Rollinat
Maurice Rollinat was a French poet.-Early works:His father represented Indre in the National Assembly of 1848, and was a friend of George Sand, whose influence is very marked in young Rollinat's first volume, Dans les brandes , and to whom it was dedicated.-Brief fame:After its publication, he...
, as well as by the local poet Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...
, he was made popular by his poems, many of which served as the basis of popular romanzas
Romance (music)
The term romance has a centuries-long history. Applied to narrative ballads in Spain, it came to be used by the 18th century for simple lyrical pieces not only for voice, but also for instruments alone. During the 18th and 19th centuries Russian composers developed the French variety of the...
. Receptive to impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
and naturalism, he wrote a number of psychological novel
Psychological novel
A psychological novel, also called psychological realism, is a work of prose fiction which places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization, and on the motives, circumstances, and internal action which springs from, and develops, external action...
s and several short stories, some of which are remembered for their melancholic and occasionally macabre
Macabre
In works of art, macabre is the quality of having a grim or ghastly atmosphere. Macabre works emphasize the details and symbols of death....
themes.
Also noted for his socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
convictions and his contributions as a journalist, Demetrescu advocated an original view of literature, which, despite placing emphasis on progressivism
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
, was distinct from the Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
views of his contemporaries Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea was a Romanian Marxist theorist, politician, sociologist, literary critic, and journalist....
and Constantin Mille
Constantin Mille
Constantin Mille was a Romanian journalist, novelist, poet, lawyer, and socialist militant, as well as a prominent human rights activist...
. A friend and associate of the influential poet Alexandru Macedonski
Alexandru Macedonski
Alexandru Macedonski was a Wallachian-born Romanian poet, novelist, dramatist and literary critic, known especially for having promoted French Symbolism in his native country, and for leading the Romanian Symbolist movement during its early decades...
, he played a minor part in a lengthy polemic with the conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
literary society Junimea
Junimea
Junimea was a Romanian literary society founded in Iaşi in 1863, through the initiative of several foreign-educated personalities led by Titu Maiorescu, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti and Iacob Negruzzi...
, and authored a series of essays and memoirs documenting the Romanian intellectual environment.
Tradem was affected by the infectious disease, tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, which his contemporaries said was to be found in the depressive
Depression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
or exuberant tones in his writings. His original take on poetry served to inspire the Romanian symbolist groups
Symbolist movement in Romania
The Symbolist movement in Romania, active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, marked the development of Romanian culture in both literature and visual arts...
. He is seen as a predecessor to Ştefan Petică, N. Davidescu and George Bacovia
George Bacovia
George Bacovia was a Romanian symbolist poet. While he initially belonged to the local Symbolist movement, his poetry came to be seen as a precursor of Romanian Modernism and eventually established him in critical esteem alongside Tudor Arghezi, Lucian Blaga and Ion Barbu as one of the most...
, while his prose was an influence on Caton Theodorian.
Biography
Born in CraiovaCraiova
Craiova , Romania's 6th largest city and capital of Dolj County, is situated near the east bank of the river Jiu in central Oltenia. It is a longstanding political center, and is located at approximately equal distances from the Southern Carpathians and the River Danube . Craiova is the chief...
, Traian Demetrescu was the son of a pub owner known by the name of Gherbea; he had a sister, Victoria, and two brothers. One of them, Radu Demetrescu, graduated from the Theatrical Conservatory in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, where he befriended actor and future avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
dramatist George Ciprian
George Ciprian
George Ciprian was a Romanian actor and playwright. His writings make him a precursor of the Theatre of the Absurd.-Biography:...
, together with whom he was later employed by the National Theater Craiova.
Tradem kept memories of the house where he grew up, and especially of the fact that it was situated "among trees". After attending the Carol I High School in his native city, he was withdrawn by his parents, and sent to work in a shop—he was nonetheless able to complete his studies after taking private lessons in 1884. Later in life, he admitted being upset over having been forced to quit school, and indicated that he had to surmount "a lot of obstacles" in order to improve his situation.
It was during the same period that he debuted as a poet, having one of his pieces, titled Ploaie din senin ("Sudden Rain") published by the local magazine Vocea Oltului. His contributions attracted Alexandru Macedonski
Alexandru Macedonski
Alexandru Macedonski was a Wallachian-born Romanian poet, novelist, dramatist and literary critic, known especially for having promoted French Symbolism in his native country, and for leading the Romanian Symbolist movement during its early decades...
's attention, who praised his abilities and re-published some of his lyrics in his Bucharest-based journal Literatorul. In autumn 1884, on their way to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Macedonski and his wife Anna stopped in Craiova to meet with Tradem. Four years later, the latter recalled being gripped by "tremors of emotion" upon receiving his mentor's visit.
The two writers grew closer after Macedonski returned from his trip, and frequently engaged in discussions on scientific and philosophical topics. Tradem recalled having spent an entire summer in Macedonski's Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
house. However, they came to disagree and eventually grew estranged—answering to claims that Macedonski was a vain and vindicative man, Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu was a Romanian literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. Known for his left-wing and anti-fascist convictions, he had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Romanian literature and art...
, his friend and biographer, indicated that this and other splits occurred "without coldness and the heart's versatility".
In March 1888, together with the lawyer G. D. Pencioiu, Tradem founded Revista Olteană, a magazine dedicated to literary and social criticism. In one of his articles, Demetrescu justified the new enterprise, arguing that Craiova displayed "a kind of snoozing, a sickly indifference in respect to intellectual life." He and Pencioiu were soon joined by other journalists, among them Nicolae Basilescu, Eduard Hübsch, Ralian Samitca, Moses Schwarzfeld, and Henric Streitman.
Revista Olteană was loosely based on the socialist magazine Contemporanul
Contemporanul
Contemporanul is a Romanian literary magazine published in Iaşi, Romania from 1881 to 1891 being sponsored by the socialist circle of the city....
, although their respective ideologies were rather different. Tradem's leftist viewpoints did not set the tone for the publication, and was contrasted by Pencioiu (the latter, although he respected Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
's views, remained a supporter of liberalism
Liberalism and radicalism in Romania
This article gives an overview of Liberalism and Radicalism in Romania. It is limited to liberal parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in this scheme...
). The publication met with financial difficulties and ceased to be issued after March 1890, but was revived by its original founder and the poet Carol Scrob in November 1891 (when it became a supplement for the local newspaper Economistul). Demetrescu probably had a disagreement with Scrob, and left soon after—the magazine survived his departure, but suddenly ceased print just months after. In summer 1892, he withdrew to the locality of Cilieni
Cilieni
Cilieni is a commune in Olt County, Romania. It is composed of a single village, Cilieni....
, where he completed Intim ("Intimate"), his most influential poetry volume.
During that period, Tradem was especially close to the socialist circles, and, in turn, their members held him in high esteem. In 1890-1892, he was also a collaborator for Constantin Mille
Constantin Mille
Constantin Mille was a Romanian journalist, novelist, poet, lawyer, and socialist militant, as well as a prominent human rights activist...
's leftist newspaper Adevărul
Adevarul
Adevărul is a Romanian daily newspaper, based in Bucharest. Founded in 1871 and reestablished in 1888, it was the main left-wing press venue to be published during the Romanian Kingdom's existence, adopting an independent pro-democratic position, advocating land reform and universal suffrage...
, one of his notable contributions being a study on the works of poet Théodore de Banville
Théodore de Banville
Théodore Faullain de Banville was a French poet and writer.-Biography:Banville was born in Moulins in Allier, Auvergne, the son of a captain in the French navy. His boyhood, by his own account, was cheerlessly passed at a lycée in Paris; he was not harshly treated, but took no part in the...
. During spring 1893, he became a member of the short-lived Romanian Social-Democratic Workers' Party, and helped organize it at a grassroots level, together with, among others, Alexandru Radovici and George Diamandi (Demetrescu ran the Craiova base, Radovici was active in Galaţi
Galati
Galați is a city and municipality in Romania, the capital of Galați County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, in the close vicinity of Brăila, Galați is the largest port and sea port on the Danube River and the second largest Romanian port....
, and Diamandi represented the Romanian diaspora
Romanian diaspora
The Romanian diaspora is the ethnically Romanian population outside Romania and Moldova. The concept does not usually include the ethnic Romanians who live as natives in the states surrounding Romania, chiefly those Romanians who live in Ukraine and Serbia. The diaspora does include the people of...
). Traian Demetrescu defended Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea was a Romanian Marxist theorist, politician, sociologist, literary critic, and journalist....
in his polemic with Junimist leader Titu Maiorescu
Titu Maiorescu
Titu Liviu Maiorescu was a Romanian literary critic and politician, founder of the Junimea Society. As a literary critic, he was instrumental in the development of Romanian culture in the second half of the 19th century....
, and, after 1893, was among a group of younger socialists to mount a press campaign against Junimea (other people in the group included Dimitrie Anghel
Dimitrie Anghel
Dimitrie Anghel was a Romanian poet.His first poem was published in Contemporanul...
, Anton Bacalbaşa, Emil Fagure, Garabet Ibrăileanu
Garabet Ibraileanu
Garabet Ibrăileanu was a Romanian-Armenian literary critic and theorist, writer, translator, sociologist, Iaşi University professor , and, together with Paul Bujor and Constantin Stere, for long main editor of the Viaţa Românească literary magazine between 1906 and 1930...
, Raicu Ionescu-Rion, Sofia Nădejde, Henri Sanielevici, Constantin Stere
Constantin Stere
Constantin G. Stere or Constantin Sterea was a Romanian writer, jurist, politician, ideologue of the Poporanist trend, and, in March 1906, co-founder Constantin G. Stere or Constantin Sterea (Romanian; , Konstantin Yegorovich Stere or Константин Георгиевич Стере, Konstantin Georgiyevich Stere;...
, and Avram Steuerman-Rodion
Avram Steuerman-Rodion
Avram Steuerman-Rodion, born Adolf Steuerman or Steuermann and often referred to as just Rodion , was a Romanian poet, anthologist, physician and socialist journalist...
). One other socialist writer with whom Demetrescu came to associate at the time was the future Orthodox
Romanian Orthodox Church
The Romanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It is in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox churches, and is ranked seventh in order of precedence. The Primate of the church has the title of Patriarch...
priest Gala Galaction
Gala Galaction
Gala Galaction was a Romanian Orthodox clergyman and theologian, writer, journalist, left-wing activist, as well as a political figure of the People's Republic of Romania...
.
Over the early 1890s, Demetrescu's condition worsened, and he sought treatment for tuberculosis in the Alpine climate
Climate of the Alps
The climate of the Alps is the climate, or average weather conditions over a long time, of the exact middle Alpine region of Europe. As air rises from sea level to the upper regions of the atmosphere the temperature decreases...
regions of German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
and in Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
. In 1894, he was in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
and later at the Rheyer Villa in Bad Reichenhall
Bad Reichenhall
Bad Reichenhall is a spa town, and administrative center of the Berchtesgadener Land district in Upper Bavaria, Germany. It is located near Salzburg in a basin encircled by the Chiemgauer Alps ....
. He subsequently traveled to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, where he visited the Cathedral of Saint Stephen. The following year, he was present in the Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...
n town of Solca
Solca
Solca is a town in Suceava County, Bukovina, Romania, with a population around 2,500 inhabitants. Its name is derived from that of the river flowing through it, in turn derived from Slavic sol — in reference to the area's salty springs....
, where he attempted to cure his illness by living in the close proximity of fir
Fir
Firs are a genus of 48–55 species of evergreen conifers in the family Pinaceae. They are found through much of North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and North Africa, occurring in mountains over most of the range...
s and breathing in the scented air. Tradem's efforts were fruitless, and he died one year later, at the age of 29, after a particularly severe episode of hemoptysis
Hemoptysis
Hemoptysis or haemoptysis is the expectoration of blood or of blood-stained sputum from the bronchi, larynx, trachea, or lungs Hemoptysis or haemoptysis is the expectoration (coughing up) of blood or of blood-stained sputum from the bronchi, larynx, trachea, or lungs Hemoptysis or haemoptysis ...
.
Style
Literary historian George CălinescuGeorge Calinescu
George Călinescu was a Romanian literary critic, historian, novelist, academician and journalist, and a writer of classicist and humanist tendencies...
described Traian Demetrescu as "one of the first [Romanian] poets with «fits of nerves» and «thrills»". He commented at length on Demetrescu's character and in particular his eccentricities, attributing them to the problems posed by tuberculosis. According to Călinescu, Tradem was "alternatively exuberant and silent", with "unhealthy dumbnesses", and described by his acquaintances as having "a monstrous mixture of virginal purity and horrifying mental ruin". Rumors collected by Călinescu had it that the poet was made emotional by even "the rustling of dresses", and that he could become seriously upset if his friends did not have "good perfumes" in their houses. This was connected to what Călinescu deemed "sensory sharpness" and attributed to his disease: in one instance, Demetrescu was reportedly moved "to the brink of fainting" by the sensory images of a rose garden.
George Călinescu indicated that Demetrescu was a read man, who was well-acquainted with works by some major figures of Medieval literature
Medieval literature
Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages . The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works...
(François Villon
François Villon
François Villon was a French poet, thief, and vagabond. He is perhaps best known for his Testaments and his Ballade des Pendus, written while in prison...
), Renaissance literature
Renaissance literature
Renaissance Literature refers to the period in European literature that began in Italy during the 14th century and spread around Europe through the 17th century...
and Humanism
Renaissance humanism
Renaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval...
(Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
, Petrarch
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
, Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata , in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem...
), the Age of Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
(Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
, Antoine François Prévost
Antoine François Prévost
Antoine François Prévost , usually known simply as the Abbé Prévost, was a French author and novelist.- Life and works :...
), and Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
(Giacomo Leopardi
Giacomo Leopardi
Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi was an Italian poet, essayist, philosopher, and philologist...
, Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, Alfred de Vigny
Alfred de Vigny
Alfred Victor de Vigny was a French poet, playwright, and novelist.-Life:Alfred de Vigny was born in Loches into an aristocratic family...
, William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
). Tradem was especially interested in the literature of his day, and read realist
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
authors such as Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays. He is best known for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov....
, Dumas fils
Alexandre Dumas, fils
Alexandre Dumas, fils was a French author and dramatist. He was the son of Alexandre Dumas, père, also a writer and playwright.-Biography:...
, Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
, Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
, Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His first major publication, a short story collection entitled A Sportsman's Sketches, is a milestone of Russian Realism, and his novel Fathers and Sons is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century...
, and Jules Vallès
Jules Vallès
Jules Vallès was a French journalist and author.-Early life:Vallès was born in Le Puy-en-Velay, Haute-Loire. His father was a supervisor of studies , later a teacher, and unfaithful to Jules' mother. Jules was a brilliant student...
. He was also familiar with the contributions of naturalists, impressionists
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
, and symbolists,—among them Émile Faguet
Émile Faguet
Auguste Émile Faguet was a French author and literary critic.Faguet was born at La Roche-sur-Yon, and educated at the École normale supérieure in Paris. After teaching for some time in La Rochelle and Bordeaux, he returned to Paris to act as assistant professor of poetry in the university. He...
, Edmond Haraucourt, José María de Heredia
José María de Heredia
José-Maria de Heredia was a Cuban-born French poet. He was the fifteenth member elected for seat 4 of the Académie française during 1894.-Early years:...
, Jules Lemaître
Jules Lemaître
François Élie Jules Lemaître , was a French critic and dramatist.He was born at Vennecy . He became a professor at the university of Grenoble, but was already well known for his literary criticism, and in 1884 he resigned his position to devote his time to literature...
, Pierre Loti
Pierre Loti
Pierre Loti was a French novelist and naval officer.-Biography:Loti's education began in his birthplace, Rochefort, Charente-Maritime. At the age of seventeen he entered the naval school in Brest and studied at Le Borda. He gradually rose in his profession, attaining the rank of captain in 1906...
, Guy de Maupassant
Guy de Maupassant
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form's finest exponents....
, Sully Prudhomme
Sully Prudhomme
René François Armand Prudhomme was a French poet and essayist, winner of the first Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1901....
, Jean Rameau, and August Strindberg
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
—, as well as with members of the Groupe des Vivants—Raoul Ponchon and Jean Richepin
Jean Richepin
Jean Richepin , French poet, novelist and dramatist, the son of an army doctor, was born at Médéa, French Algeria.At school and at the École Normale Supérieure he gave evidence of brilliant, if somewhat undisciplined, powers, for which he found physical vent in different directions—first as a...
. A noted influence on his choice of subjects was François Coppée
François Coppée
François Edouard Joachim Coppée was a French poet and novelist.-Biography:He was born in Paris to a civil servant. After attending the Lycée Saint-Louis he became a clerk in the ministry of war, and won public favour as a poet of the Parnassian school. His first printed verses date from 1864...
, while Tradem's imagery was many times inspired by the Decadent
Decadent movement
The Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...
author Maurice Rollinat
Maurice Rollinat
Maurice Rollinat was a French poet.-Early works:His father represented Indre in the National Assembly of 1848, and was a friend of George Sand, whose influence is very marked in young Rollinat's first volume, Dans les brandes , and to whom it was dedicated.-Brief fame:After its publication, he...
.
Early in its existence, Revista Olteană published many critical studies by Demetrescu and others, in which they discussed the literary works of the 19th century. Among the figures analyzed by him were Coppée, Louise-Victorine Ackermann
Louise-Victorine Ackermann
Louise-Victorine Ackermann was a French poet.She was born in Nice, but spent her younger days in more rural surroundings near Montdidier, south-east of Amiens...
, Paul Bourget
Paul Bourget
Paul Charles Joseph Bourget , was a French novelist and critic.-Biography:He was born in Amiens in the Somme département of Picardie, France. His father, a professor of mathematics, was later appointed to a post in the college at Clermont-Ferrand, where Bourget received his early education...
, Alfred de Musset
Alfred de Musset
Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.Along with his poetry, he is known for writing La Confession d'un enfant du siècle from 1836.-Biography:Musset was born on 11 December 1810 in Paris...
, as well as the Romanian Romantics Vasile Alecsandri
Vasile Alecsandri
Vasile Alecsandri was a Romanian poet, playwright, politician, and diplomat. He collected Romanian folk songs and was one of the principal animators of the 19th century movement for Romanian cultural identity and union of Moldavia and Wallachia....
, Dimitrie Bolintineanu
Dimitrie Bolintineanu
Dimitrie Bolintineanu was a Romanian poet , diplomat, politician, and a participant in the revolution of 1848. He was of Macedonian Aromanian origins...
, Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...
, Veronica Micle
Veronica Micle
Veronica Micle was an Imperial Austrian-born Romanian poet, whose work was influenced by Romanticism. She is best known for her love affair with the poet Mihai Eminescu, one of the most important Romanian writers.-Biography:Born in Năsăud, Micle was the second child of the shoemaker Ilie Câmpeanu...
, Nicolae Nicoleanu, and Mihail Zamphirescu. Alongside these pieces were theater chronicles he signed, showing that he closely followed developments on the local scene. He also translated several foreign dramatic pieces into Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
.
Despite taking an interest in Symbolism, Demetrescu is known to have declared himself perplexed by their "bizarre originality". Instead, he looked up to Realism and Naturalism, and called on young writers to study the works of Dostoevsky, Maupassant, Georg Brandes
Georg Brandes
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes was a Danish critic and scholar who had great influence on Scandinavian and European literature from the 1870s through the turn of the 20th century. He is seen as the theorist behind the "Modern Breakthrough" of Scandinavian culture...
, Alphonse Daudet
Alphonse Daudet
Alphonse Daudet was a French novelist. He was the father of Léon Daudet and Lucien Daudet.- Early life :Alphonse Daudet was born in Nîmes, France. His family, on both sides, belonged to the bourgeoisie. The father, Vincent Daudet, was a silk manufacturer — a man dogged through life by misfortune...
, Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
, Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
and Émile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
. Tradem defined his style of literary criticism as "Impressionist", taking for his model Anatole France
Anatole France
Anatole France , born François-Anatole Thibault, , was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He was born in Paris, and died in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters...
—in this assessment of France's style, he focused on one of the latter's statements ("The good critic is one who recounts his soul's adventures among the masterpieces").
Nevertheless, he was an immediate precursor to the Romanian Symbolist school
Symbolist movement in Romania
The Symbolist movement in Romania, active during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, marked the development of Romanian culture in both literature and visual arts...
, or a representative of its "proletarian
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
" side. Discussing this latter aspect, literary critic Paul Cernat notes that Demetrescu stood alongside Mihail Cruceanu, Alexandru Toma
Alexandru Toma
Alexandru Toma was a Romanian poet, journalist and translator, known for his communist views and his role in introducing Socialist Realism and Stalinism to Romanian literature...
and Andrei Naum, all of whom merged a socialist discourse into their poetic vision, thus contrasting with Macedonski's post-Parnassian school, as well as with the ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
esque literature produced by Ştefan Octavian Iosif
Stefan Octavian Iosif
Ştefan Octavian Iosif was a Romanian poet and translator of Aromanian origin.-Life:Born in Braşov, Transylvania , he studied in his native town and in Sibiu before completing his education in Paris. While in France, he met Dimitrie Anghel, who would became a long-time friend...
. According to Călinescu, Demetrescu's commitment to Symbolism was especially obvious in his attitudes, which he argued were linked to "spleen
Spleen
The spleen is an organ found in virtually all vertebrate animals with important roles in regard to red blood cells and the immune system. In humans, it is located in the left upper quadrant of the abdomen. It removes old red blood cells and holds a reserve of blood in case of hemorrhagic shock...
" (a humoralistic
Humorism
Humorism, or humoralism, is a now discredited theory of the makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers, positing that an excess or deficiency of any of four distinct bodily fluids in a person directly influences their temperament and health...
term used by Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
to define melancholy). In Călinescu's opinion, the Symbolist elements in Demetrescu's writings served to explain his close relationship with Macedonski, which contrasted with their backgrounds and political opinions. Researcher Lidia Bote proposed that Macedonski and Demetrescu were both eclectic
Eclecticism
Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories in particular cases.It can sometimes seem inelegant or...
figures representing a period when Symbolism was one of the many competing influences, and argued that a "pure" Symbolism only imposed itself in Romania after 1902, when Ştefan Petică published his earliest poems.
Demetrescu was one of Romania's earliest socialist poets, in the same generation as Constantin Mille
Constantin Mille
Constantin Mille was a Romanian journalist, novelist, poet, lawyer, and socialist militant, as well as a prominent human rights activist...
and Ion Păun-Pincio, and a versifier of socialist battle hymns. According to his own words, Demetrescu had studied "the works of great socialist writers". He also took interest in the works of Evolutionists
Evolutionism
Evolutionism refers to the biological concept of evolution, specifically to a widely held 19th century belief that organisms are intrinsically bound to increase in complexity. The belief was extended to include cultural evolution and social evolution...
and Positivists
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
such as Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era....
, Jean-Marie Guyau
Jean-Marie Guyau
Jean-Marie Guyau was a French philosopher and poet.Guyau was inspired by, amongst others, the philosophies of Epicurus, Epictetus, Plato, Immanuel Kant, Herbert Spencer, and Alfred Fouillée, and the poetry/literature of Pierre Corneille, Victor Hugo, and Alfred de Musset.- Life :Guyau got his...
, and Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism, and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate...
. His sympathy for the proletariat accompanied his political credo. As Călinescu noted, he was mostly preoccupied with the plight of certain discriminated social groups, such as prostitutes, Jews
History of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
, alcoholics
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, aging artists, orphans, the insane, as well as strolling performers such as the Romani tribe of the Ursari
Ursari
The Ursari or Richinara are the traditionally-nomad occupational group of animal trainers among the Roma people.An endogamous category originally drawing the bulk of its income from busking performances in which they used brown bears...
; his compassion extended to old dogs that had been chased away by their masters. Several of his poetry writings published by Revista Olteană had an obvious socialist message. In one of the essays published there, Tradem discussed the implications of the 1888 peasants' uprising in the Romanian Old Kingdom
Romanian Old Kingdom
The Romanian Old Kingdom is a colloquial term referring to the territory covered by the first independent Romanian nation state, which was composed of the Danubian Principalities—Wallachia and Moldavia...
: he rejected the view that rebels had been manipulated by the political class, and argued that the real causes were fatigue and the threat of starvation.
Literary disputes
Traian Demetrescu was influenced by Constantin Dobrogeanu-GhereaConstantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea
Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea was a Romanian Marxist theorist, politician, sociologist, literary critic, and journalist....
and supported him in conflicts with Titu Maiorescu
Titu Maiorescu
Titu Liviu Maiorescu was a Romanian literary critic and politician, founder of the Junimea Society. As a literary critic, he was instrumental in the development of Romanian culture in the second half of the 19th century....
, showing that he did not endorse the Junimist views of an "art for art's sake
Art for art's sake
"Art for art's sake" is the usual English rendering of a French slogan, from the early 19th century, l'art pour l'art, and expresses a philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only "true" art, is divorced from any didactic, moral or utilitarian function...
". He believed Maiorescu was valuable, but no longer relevant. Nevertheless, he was critical of socialist arguments, in particular the notion that the value of literary works resided in their social message. Instead, he mediated between the two visions, arguing in favor of progressive
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
messages and stressing that "art should not have beauty for its sole purpose". This position was also illustrated in his Positivist critique of Romanticism, which saw Tradem arguing that art "is a product of the social environment". He was however persistent in arguing that there was no absolute connection between social class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
es and artistic creation.
In parallel, he was involved in a dispute with Raicu Ionescu-Rion and Garabet Ibrăileanu
Garabet Ibraileanu
Garabet Ibrăileanu was a Romanian-Armenian literary critic and theorist, writer, translator, sociologist, Iaşi University professor , and, together with Paul Bujor and Constantin Stere, for long main editor of the Viaţa Românească literary magazine between 1906 and 1930...
, after he allowed psychological novel
Psychological novel
A psychological novel, also called psychological realism, is a work of prose fiction which places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization, and on the motives, circumstances, and internal action which springs from, and develops, external action...
techniques to seep into his prose and spoke in favor of the Decadent movement
Decadent movement
The Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...
(placing decadent novels on equal footing with works of social criticism). His primordial interest in the subjective experience
Qualia
Qualia , singular "quale" , from a Latin word meaning for "what sort" or "what kind," is a term used in philosophy to refer to subjective conscious experiences as 'raw feels'. Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, the experience of taking a recreational drug, or the...
led him to claim that there was no possibility for a completely objective
Objectivity (philosophy)
Objectivity is a central philosophical concept which has been variously defined by sources. A proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are met and are "mind-independent"—that is, not met by the judgment of a conscious entity or subject.- Objectivism...
perspective (an idea akin to his Impressionist tenets). He argued: "I understand the word writing to mean the original, superior and beautiful gift of materializing a personality, an artistic temperament, in the shape of words. But this disposition does not always manifest itself with the exactitude of clocks; it is often capricious and pertains to various exterior and psychic causes. First of all, the artist needs an absolute material self-sufficiency which may lead him away from all common employments that kill or weaken the most beautiful forces of talent. Not all poets are born rich like Alecsandri; and since in our country literature has not yet come to live off public support, it is only natural that one often sees talented poets abducted by political journalism or the glitter of other jobs which provide them with the means of existence..."
His relative independence was visible in his work of essays, Profile literare ("Literary Profiles"), where he attacked writers on both sides with what Călinescu argued were "unforgiving judgments". Thus, when discussing his fellow leftist Mille, Tradem described his poetic works as "boring". In reference to Mille's works, he stated: "Without profound meditation, without sensitivity, without imagination, an artist cannot become anything other than, at most, a fecund and passable worker, and not an illustrious figure that would endure."
Beginning in 1888, Tradem also authored short memoirs of his many meetings with Macedonski, in particular of their conversations. He recalled being familiar with many of Macedonski's original theories on various subjects, including astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
and the works of Camille Flammarion
Camille Flammarion
Nicolas Camille Flammarion was a French astronomer and author. He was a prolific author of more than fifty titles, including popular science works about astronomy, several notable early science fiction novels, and several works about Spiritism and related topics. He also published the magazine...
. Demetrescu noted that Macedonski's theories claimed to explain the workings of the Universe in "a different way" and based "on his imagination", but argued that "for a moment [in conversation], it seemed like he could convince anyone". He also recorded that the theistic
Theism
Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists.In a more specific sense, theism refers to a doctrine concerning the nature of a monotheistic God and God's relationship to the universe....
Macedonski answered "positive science" with "the grin of skepticism". Nevertheless, according to Tradem, Alexandru Macedonski flirted with Naturalism during the early part of his career, and admired the works of Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
and Émile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
. His memoirs also provided detail on Macedonski's interest in visual arts, indicating that the older poet had always wished to become a painter, and that his determination had instead shaped the artistic career of his son Alexis.
At times, Demetrescu was contradicting himself. Călinescu noted that Tradem initially described Florile Bosforului ("The Flowers of the Bosphorus"), a book of poems by the Bolintineanu, with enthusiasm, but later considered them "banalities [and] light-hearted fantasies". Similarly, he was initially supportive of Vasile Alecsandri when Macedonski derided his works, but later came to consider many of his poems "a husk of banal words, not animated by any powerful thought, and a very often riddled with intolerable grammatical mistakes." In this context, Demetrescu opposed the aging Romantic poet to a new generation of intellectuals and artists, one he believed was expressing and favoring "the fracticious, daring, deep thoughts". However, soon after Alecsandri died in 1890, he wrote: "In these times of neuroses
Neurosis
Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving distress but neither delusions nor hallucinations, whereby behavior is not outside socially acceptable norms. It is also known as psychoneurosis or neurotic disorder, and thus those suffering from it are said to be neurotic...
, of deceptions and pessimism
Pessimism
Pessimism, from the Latin word pessimus , is a state of mind in which one perceives life negatively. Value judgments may vary dramatically between individuals, even when judgments of fact are undisputed. The most common example of this phenomenon is the "Is the glass half empty or half full?"...
[...] Alecsandri's poetry is like a harmonious and beneficent music. He was a great poet, an illustrious patriot
Patriotism
Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...
, and a joyful person." His views of Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...
also oscillated between rejection and praise, but, with time, the latter became a major influence on his own style.
Poetry
Călinescu linked Demetrescu's Symbolist-like "spleen" this to a "nostalgiaNostalgia
The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form.The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of , meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and , meaning "pain, ache"...
for mysterious lands", which he found to be one of the poet's main themes. In one of his poems, Tradem pined for a different climate:
La nord, în ţări ploioase, Cu melancolice popoare, Sunt visători ce plâng şi sufăr De nostalgii de soare... |
Up north, in rainy lands, With melancholic peoples, There are dreamers who sob and suffer Due to nostalgias for the sun... |
Similarly, one of his poems deals with the unknown forces dragging sailors out to sea:
De la o vreme, marinarul Trăia mai trist şi mai retras, Şi veşnic părea dus pe gânduri În ascultarea unui glas... Era un cântec de departe, Un imn de-oceanuri şi de mări, Pe care-l auzea întruna Ca nişte triste aiurări [...] |
For a while now, the sailor Has been growing sadder and more secluded, And always seemed to be deep in thought Listening to a voice... It was a song from far away, A hymn of oceans and of seas, One he kept hearing As sad ravings [...] |
Traian Demetrescu's poetry often included lyrical depictions of depressive
Depression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
moods. This was notably present in a poem depicting the landscape of winter:
Ninge! Ninge!... Alb e satul!... Ninge! Ca un cântec e iubire Soarele în nori se stinge Ninge! Ninge!... Alb e satul!... Ninge! Câinele sub şoprul putred Urlă... Rar o cucuvaie ţipă Într-o dărâmată turlă... Câinele sub şoprul putred Urlă... |
It's snowing! It's snowing!... White is the village!... It's snowing! Like a song of love The sun extinguishes in the clouds It's snowing! It's snowing!... White is the village!... It's snowing! Under the rotten shed, the dog Is barking... From time to time, an owl shrieks In some run-down steeple... Under the rotten shed, the dog Is barking... |
In analyzing Tradem's contributions, George Călinescu also indicated that, especially in interior scenes, the poet focused on images of "boredom", which "immerses [his] soul in the color black". In one such setting, the clock becomes "the satanical and exact instrument measuring the vigil". The poem in question read:
Şi-mi măsoară insomnia Şi durerea cu compasul Prins în zid, în taină bate Ceasul... |
And it measures my insomnia, And my pain, with a compass Hung on the wall, secretly pounding, The clock... |
The imagery and tone of Tradem's poetry have been described by Călinescu as "heartbreakingly pathetic". This atmosphere, he argued, gave them originality, although he believed that they were not accomplished pieces ("a great many of his [poems] are prosaic").
In addition, he praised Demetrescu the poet for his musical feel, and especially for his rendition of "the acoustic of fluids" (extending to images of the Olt River
Olt River
The Olt River is a river in Romania. It is the longest river flowing exclusively through Romania. Its source is in the Hăşmaş Mountains of the eastern Carpathian Mountains, near the village Bălan. It flows through the Romanian counties Harghita, Covasna, Braşov, Sibiu, Vâlcea and Olt...
, fields of grain swept by the wind, and currents of air passing through trees on the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
shore). Also according to Călinescu, Tradem was a musical person, who loved classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
, in particular the cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
and the zither
Zither
The zither is a musical string instrument, most commonly found in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary citera, northwestern Croatia, the southern regions of Germany, alpine Europe and East Asian cultures, including China...
, and who often introduced concrete references to composers of "sad music" in his poems. The latter category included Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
and Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school....
, whom Tradem invoked as a means to highlight his moods. In one of his poems, he wrote:
Erau în miez de noapte, târzii şi tainici ore... Parcă simţeam pe Weber lângă clavir murind!... |
Come midnight, there were late and secretive hours... It seemed I could sense Weber dying by the piano!... |
Prose
Demetrescu's prose works include a series of novellaNovella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s and shorter literary pieces, as well as two novels. According to Călinescu, many of the former two were generally lyrical in nature, being centered on the author's subjective experience
Qualia
Qualia , singular "quale" , from a Latin word meaning for "what sort" or "what kind," is a term used in philosophy to refer to subjective conscious experiences as 'raw feels'. Examples of qualia are the pain of a headache, the taste of wine, the experience of taking a recreational drug, or the...
. Themselves melancholic, they were dismissed by the critic for displaying a "sentimental humanism which is foremost loved by the plebs".
Tradem's collected short stories, Refractarii ("The Fracticious Ones"), portrays various misfit characters, and its subjects occasionally turn to the macabre
Macabre
In works of art, macabre is the quality of having a grim or ghastly atmosphere. Macabre works emphasize the details and symbols of death....
. In one of them, the protagonist Costin is shown to be heartbroken when a malicious child destroys his favorite flower. In one other novella, a medicine student steals the corpse of a beautiful woman from the morgue
Morgue
A morgue or mortuary is used for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification, or removal for autopsy or disposal by burial, cremation or otherwise...
, and hangs her skeleton on his wall. Various of his stories and essays also compliment cultural figures whose works Tradem enjoyed. Alongside mentions of Chopin and Weber, they reference Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays. He is best known for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov....
, and Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
.
His two novels both deal with the subject of unrequited love
Unrequited love
Unrequited love is love that is not openly reciprocated or understood as such, even though reciprocation is usually deeply desired. The beloved may or may not be aware of the admirer's deep affections...
, and George Călinescu argued that they were in fact disguised eulogies
Eulogy
A eulogy is a speech or writing in praise of a person or thing, especially one recently deceased or retired. Eulogies may be given as part of funeral services. However, some denominations either discourage or do not permit eulogies at services to maintain respect for traditions...
. The critic also argued that they showed Tradem to be "too moon-struck to be understood by women". One of them was titled Iubita ("The Lady-Love"), and showed the protagonist, a teacher named Emil Corburescu, falling in love with his pupil's sister—although she does not reject his advances, she eventually marries a more adjusted person. Călinescu concluded that "[Corburescu] is a failure". Similarly, Tradem's Cum iubim ("The Way We Love") deals with Nestor Aldea, a young law student who encounters a beautiful blond woman while promenading in a park: the two fall in love, but she refuses to marry Aldea. They meet each other again after she has married, and end up committing adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
. Călinescu dismissed the work, stating: "Everything [in it] is vapory, as annoying as a thick fog."
Legacy
Many of Tradem's poems gained popularity for their musical nature. Many of them served as inspiration for composers (such as George StephănescuGeorge Stephanescu
George Stephănescu was a Romanian composer, one of the main figures in Romanian national opera.He graduated from the Bucharest Academy of Music...
, who used them as lyrics for his songs), while others survive as romanzas
Romance (music)
The term romance has a centuries-long history. Applied to narrative ballads in Spain, it came to be used by the 18th century for simple lyrical pieces not only for voice, but also for instruments alone. During the 18th and 19th centuries Russian composers developed the French variety of the...
. Among the latter was a stanza
Stanza
In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...
many believe to be anonymous:
Călugărul din vechiul schit O zi la el m-a găzduit, Şi de-ale lumii am vorbit... Iar când să plec l-am întrebat: "Ce soartă rea te-a îndrumat Să cauţi loc printre sihaştri?" El mi-a răspuns: "Doi ochi albaştri!" |
The monk from the old hermitage Has hosted me for one full day, And we discussed matters of the world... And when I was to leave I asked: "What cruel fate has directed you To seek a place among the recondites?" He answered me: "Two blue eyes!" |
According to Călinescu, Tradem's Refractarii, with its depictions of misfits, announces the short stories of Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voineşti, while his intense love for rose gardens recalls the poems of Symbolist Dimitrie Anghel
Dimitrie Anghel
Dimitrie Anghel was a Romanian poet.His first poem was published in Contemporanul...
. Demetrescu's poetry has been a direct influence on Symbolists such as Ştefan Petică, Radu D. Rosetti, N. Davidescu, and especially George Bacovia
George Bacovia
George Bacovia was a Romanian symbolist poet. While he initially belonged to the local Symbolist movement, his poetry came to be seen as a precursor of Romanian Modernism and eventually established him in critical esteem alongside Tudor Arghezi, Lucian Blaga and Ion Barbu as one of the most...
. Călinescu noted that Tradem and Bacovia shared important traits: "proletarian sentimentalism, a fracticious attitude, morbid nostalgia, sad «philosophies» and most of all the tone of a heartbreaking romanza". Refractarii has also influenced the non-Symbolist Caton Theodorian.
Both Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu was a Romanian literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. Known for his left-wing and anti-fascist convictions, he had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Romanian literature and art...
and Davidescu focused on Traian Demetrescu's place of origin as a staple of his style, and spoke of Demetrescu, Macedonski, Ion Minulescu
Ion Minulescu
Ion Minulescu was a Romanian avant-garde poet, novelist, short story writer, journalist, literary critic, and playwright. Often publishing his works under the pseudonyms I. M. Nirvan and Koh-i-Noor , he journeyed to Paris, where he was heavily influenced by the growing Symbolist movement and...
and others as representatives of "Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
n Symbolism", in contrast with Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
ns such as Bacovia, Petică, and Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane or Benjamin Fundoianu was a Romanian and French poet, critic and existentialist philosopher, also noted for his work in film and theater. Known from his Romanian youth as a Symbolist poet and columnist, he alternated Neoromantic and Expressionist themes with echoes from Tudor...
. In their view, Demetrescu and his fellow Wallachians was less focused on depicting obscurity and melancholy, and more precise in approach.
Tradem's legacy notably comprises his presence in the memoirs of Nicolae Condiescu, a fellow Craiova citizen, and a eulogistic mention in one of Bacovia's poems (titled Amurgul, "The Crepuscule"). Shortly after Demetrescu died, Gala Galaction
Gala Galaction
Gala Galaction was a Romanian Orthodox clergyman and theologian, writer, journalist, left-wing activist, as well as a political figure of the People's Republic of Romania...
wrote an article which proclaimed him as the model intellectual for "the happy days toward which humanity was taking its [...] steps..." In 1950s Communist Romania
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
, his socialist leanings brought him official endorsement, at a time when many other writers were dismissed as "bourgeois
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
" (other literary figures to be awarded such recognition due to their political opinions included Ion Păun-Pincio and Dumitru Theodor Neculuţă).
In Craiova, Demetrescu is honored with a bust in his likeness, which was erected some ten years after his death, following intense campaigning by Adevărul
Adevarul
Adevărul is a Romanian daily newspaper, based in Bucharest. Founded in 1871 and reestablished in 1888, it was the main left-wing press venue to be published during the Romanian Kingdom's existence, adopting an independent pro-democratic position, advocating land reform and universal suffrage...
journal. In 1978, the local authorities in that city have instituted the Traian Demetrescu-Tradem National Poetry Contest, which takes place annually. The festivities are occasionally hosted by the descendants of Tradem's relatives. His name was also given to a high school in the city and to the Traian Demetrescu House of Culture (which is itself financed by the local authorities). There is a Traian Demetrescu Street in Craiova, and others of the same name in Braşov
Brasov
Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....
, Sibiu
Sibiu
Sibiu is a city in Transylvania, Romania with a population of 154,548. Located some 282 km north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Cibin River, a tributary of the river Olt...
and Timişoara
Timisoara
Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
.
Works published anthumously
- Poezii (poetry, 1885)
- Freamăte (poetry, 1887)
- Amurg (poetry, 1888)
- Cartea unei inimi (poetry, 1890)
- Săracii (poetry, 1890)
- Profile literare (essay, 1891)
- Intim (poetry, 1892)
- Sensitive (poetry, 1894)
- Iubita (novel, 1895)
- Privelişti din viaţă (1895)
- Aquarele (poetry, 1896)
- Cum iubim (novel, 1896)
- Simplu (1896)