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Mateiu Ion Caragiale (also credited as Matei or Matheiu; Mateiŭ is an antiquated version;[1][2] March 25 [O.S. March 12] 1885-January 17, 1936) was a Romanian poet and prose writer, best known for his novel Craii de Curtea-Veche, which portrays the milieu of boyar descendants before and after World War I. Caragiale's style, associated with Symbolism, the Decadent movement of the fin de siècle, and early modernism, was an original element in the Romanian literature of the interwar period. In other late contributions, Caragiale pioneered detective fiction locally, but there is disagreement over whether he actually achieved this goal. The scarcity of writings he left is contrasted by their critical acclaim and popularity. Also known as an amateur heraldist and graphic artist, the young Caragiale published his works sporadically, seeking instead to impose himself in politics and pursuing a career in the civil service. He was associated with the Conservative-Democratic Party, and then the People's League, and ultimately raised controversy by supporting the Central Powers during their occupation of Romania. He afterwards focused on literature, and, during the late 1920s and early 1930s, published most of his prose texts in the magazine Gândirea. The illegitimate and rebellious child of influential playwright Ion Luca Caragiale, he was the stepbrother of Luca Caragiale, an avant-garde poet who died in 1921, and was married into the family of author Gheorghe Sion. Mateiu Caragiale was noted for his dandyism and eccentricity, which contrasted with his career choices, becoming a prominent figure of the Bohemian society, and, for much of his life, a regular presence in the intellectual circle formed around Casa Capşa restaurant. His associates included the controversial political figure Alexandru Bogdan-Piteşti, cultural animator Mărgărita Miller Verghy, and poet Ion Barbu, who was also one of his most dedicated promoters.
[edit] Biography[edit] Early lifeA native of Bucharest, he was born out of wedlock to Ion Luca Caragiale and Maria Constantinescu, an unmarried Town Hall employee[3] who was 21 at the time.[4] Living his first years at his mother's house on Frumoasă Street, nearby Calea Victoriei (until the building was sold),[5] Mateiu had a half-sister, his mother's daughter from another extra-conjugal affair.[6] In 1889, his father married Alexandrina Burelly, bringing his son into his new family.[7] In following years, he was progressively estranged from his father, and, according to Ecaterina, the youngest of Ion Luca Caragiale and Burelly's children, "Mateiu alone confronted [his father] and contradicted him systematically."[8] The young Caragiale was sent to school at Anghel Demetrescu's Sfântul Gheorghe College in Bucharest, where he discovered a passion for history and heraldry.[9] At around that time, he was probably introduced to Demetrescu's circle, which included the doctor Constantin Istrati, the writer Barbu Ştefănescu-Delavrancea, the physicist Ştefan Hepites, the literary critic N. Petraşcu, and the architect Ion Mincu.[10] During a 1901 summer trip to Sinaia, where he sojourned with the Bibescu family, Mateiu was acquainted with George Valentin and Alexandru Bibescu (in a letter he wrote at the time, he described the latter as "only too crazy and a frantic maniac").[11] In 1903, with Ion Luca, Burelly and their children, he traveled through large portions of Western Europe, visiting Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, Italy and France; during the trip, he recorded the impressions left on him by the various European art trends.[12] In 1904, his father moved to Berlin, bringing Mateiu with him—in hopes that he could be persuaded to study law at the Frederick William University—, but Mateiu spent his time reading and exploring the Imperial German capital.[13] He would later refer to this period using a French term, l'école buissonière ("the vagrant school"),[14] and stressed that "[it] was of great use to me".[15] Ecaterina Caragiale indicated that one of her brother's favorite pastimes was "admiring the secular trees in the Tiergarten",[16] and he is also known to have spent entire days at the National Gallery, especially fond of paintings by Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruysdael.[17] Dissatisfied with Mateiu's attitude, Ion Luca sent him back to Romania in 1905, where he enrolled at the University of Bucharest Law School, but quit one year later.[18] [edit] Father-son conflict and literary debut
The conflict with his father was to prolong itself for as long as the latter was alive.[19][20] It was most likely sparked in 1904, after the death of his aunt Lenci, when Ion Luca took over his son's inheritance, and aggravated by his father's decision to cease subsidizing him, which left the latter without a stable source of income.[21] He was thus supposed to provide for his mother and sister, until Ion Luca transferred the inheritance resulting from the death of his aunt Catinca Momuloaia, to his former lover.[6] He also indicated that his father had made him attend the Frederick William University without advancing money for tuition.[22] Some time after returning to Romania, he began attending the Symbolist literary circle formed around the poet and leftist political agitator Alexandru Bogdan-Piteşti, who provided the young Caragiale with money and often invited him to supper.[23] In spring 1907, despite the ongoing father-son tensions, Mateiu, who was recovering from a severe form of measles, returned to Berlin, where Ion Luca's family was still residing.[24] He soon became the lover of a local woman, an affair which reportedly caused his father to declare himself scandalized.[25] Over the same year, Mateiu Caragiale was fascinated with rumors of the Romanian Peasants' Revolt violence, recording various exaggerated news about its character and extent,[26] and describing it as "a fine thing".[27] Mateiu Caragiale had his first thoughts on Craii de Curtea-Veche ("The Rakes of the Old Courtyard") in 1910.[28][2] Two years later, during a trip to Iaşi,[29] he published his first 13 poems in the literary magazine Viaţa Românească, winning the praise of poet Panait Cerna.[30] Literary critic Şerban Cioculescu stressed that these had been printed following his father's interventions with the magazine's staff.[31] Caragiale later published other such pieces in Constantin Banu's magazine, Flacăra.[32] His father died in June 1912, which, according to Şerban Cioculescu (who cited Mateiu's correspondence), left him indifferent.[33] By then, Caragiale-son resented Ion Luca's alleged exploitation of his popularity for material gains, and, later in the same year, commented that, "for a small fee", Caragiale-father could be persuaded to read his works at the fair in Obor.[34][35] Despite his love for Berlin, he was also dissatisfied with his father's move to the city, and spread the rumor that, in the eyes of his family and friends, Ion Luca's departure was interpreted as "insane" (while alleging that Caragiale-father was planning to author plays in German, with assistance from Mite Kremnitz, the one-time lover of poet Mihai Eminescu).[36] At the funeral ceremony, he reputedly shocked pianist Cella Delavrancea by coldly stating in French: Je suis venu voir feu mon père ("I came to see my late father").[23] [edit] Entry into the civil service
Caragiale returned to Bucharest, where, in October, he became the chief of staff in the Ministry of Public Works in the second Titu Maiorescu executive, under Minister Alexandru Bădărău.[37] He had manifested a relative interest in politics around 1908, after his father rallied with Take Ionescu and his Conservative-Democratic Party; at the time, he criticized Ion Luca's political choices, but nonetheless noted that it could serve as a means for his own advancement ("From now on I'll have political lode [...], something certain, if there ever was certainty on Earth.")[25] Four years after this comment, soon after making his literary debut, he clashed with his father over having considered a cabinet appointment in Ionescu's executive.[31] As Caragiale senior died, Mateiu initially planned to join the mainstream Conservative Party and demand a post from Grigore Gheorghe Cantacuzino, the Mayor of Bucharest and a close associate of Bogdan-Piteşti.[38] Nevertheless, he came to define this position as a "a bad solution",[39] and, as Maiorescu and Ionescu formed an alliance, he successfully requested appointment from Bădărău, eventually obtaining it through the means of a decree signed by King Carol I.[40] Caragiale later commented: "[Bădărău] entrusted me with this golden key, which I had wanted for so long, and which, for all of this, I had not been desperate to obtain."[41] This contradicted another one of his accounts, in which he confessed that, initially received with indifference by Bădărău, he had claimed that him joining the Conservative-Democrats had been Ion Luca's dying request.[42] Cioculescu would comment: "There could not have been a more complete distortion of a parent's last wish!"[42] He assumed office on November 7, 1912, but, as he later confessed, official records were modified to make it seem that he had been a civil servant since October 29.[43] As he later recounted, he led talks with a delegation from the Kingdom of Serbia involving the initiative to build a bridge over the Danube to link the two states.[44] In 1913, Caragiale wrote the story Remember, while continuing his contributions to Viaţa Românească.[37] His office ended on January 17, 1914, as the National Liberal cabinet of Ion I. C. Brătianu came to power.[43] [edit] World War IDuring the early stages of World War I, as Romania remained a neutral country, he reportedly recorded that his friend Bogdan-Piteşti was acting as a political agent of the Central Powers, and that money he made available had been provided by German propaganda funds.[45] At the time, Caragiale visited the Germanophile literary circle set up by Mărgărita Miller Verghy.[35] A frequenter of the renowned restaurant Casa Capşa, he was constantly surrounded by a tight group of party-goers, which included the Indépendence Roumaine chronicler Rudolf Uhrinowsky[46] and the aristocrat Gheorghe Jurgea-Negrileşti.[47] They were later joined by the Russian admiral Vessiolkin, who was allegedly the illegitimate son of Emperor Alexander III.[47] In mid summer 1916, Caragiale donated money to a fund whereby the Bellu Cemetery tomb of Ştefan Luchian, a recently deceased painter and protegé of Bogdan-Piteşti, was to be decorated with a bust by sculptor Dimitrie Paciurea (the world conflict and later events prevented this from happening).[48] As Romania joined the Allied Powers and the Romanian Campaign began, overlooked by conscription in the Romanian Army,[23] Caragiale drafted the first of Craii de Curtea-Veche's three sections, titled "Întâmpinarea crailor" ("Meeting the Rakes").[49] He did not follow the authorities and Take Ionescu's supporters as they redeployed in Moldavia when southern Romania fell to the Central Powers, and remained in Bucharest.[23] After the government of Alexandru Marghiloman signed the May 1918 capitulation in front of the Central Powers, he switched his support to the pro-German Conservative Party: on June 29, 1918, he and his half-brother Luca were among the signers of a letter addressed to the aging Petre P. Carp, the former Conservative leader, asking him to take over rule of the country.[23] The political choice was highly controversial, and later contributed to the end of Caragiale's political career.[23] In a 1970 biographical essay critical of Mateiu Caragiale, Cioculescu attributed Mateiu authorship of the document, and claimed that Luca had agreed to join in only as a result of his brother's pressures.[23] In 1919, as Ionescu gained political influence through his alliance with the People's League, he became head of the press bureau of the Minister of Internal Affairs, serving until 1921.[50] Later writings of his show that he was deeply dissatisfied with the office, which he equated with "a demotion",[44] and that he resented Ionescu not having assigned the diplomatic office of consul.[44] He thus resigned and left the Conservative-Democrats, an action which he later defined as "a grave error".[44] Also in 1921, a first draft of his Remember saw print in Viaţa Românească.[51] The second part of Craii..., "Cele trei hagialâcuri" ("The Three Pilgrimages"), was sporadically written between 1918 and 1921 (according to Caragiale himself: "it was written on restaurant tables, in the gambling den, in the meeting hall at the Justice of the Peace").[49] He married Marica Sion, the daughter of poet and nobleman Gheorghe Sion, in 1923, thus becoming the owner of a plot of land named Sionu, in Fundulea (although he resided in downtown Bucharest).[52] His wife, whom he had most likely met before 1916, while attending Miller Verghy's soirées,[35] was his senior by 25 years.[53][20] Despite owning land in the country and living a comfortable life in the city, Caragiale confessed a nostalgia towards the houses he had been raised in, and especially for his mother's Bucharest home.[54] [edit] Craii de Curtea-Veche and Italian sojournMateiu Caragiale published Remember as a volume the following year;[55] from 1922, he began work on "Spovedanii" ("Confessions"), the third and final section of Craii..., which, as he recounted, coincided with "the most terrible crisis" of his life.[49] Several of his poems were published in a 1925 collection edited by Perpessicius and Ion Pillat (Antologia poeţilor de azi), and were accompanied by an ink portrait signed Marcel Janco; at the time, Caragiale announced that he was going to publish a series of poems under the title Pajere[51] (it was to be printed only after his death).[56] In the 1925-1933 period, Caragiale's notes show that he was seeing his life as marked by existential cycles and crucial moments.[57] In March 1926-October 1928, Tudor Vianu's Gândirea magazine published his novel Craii de Curtea-Veche as a series.[58] He completed the last additions to the text in November 1927, as its first sections were already in print.[49] As the last episode was featured by Gândirea, to widespread acclaim, he noted: "From the time when the first of its parts saw print, this work was received with unprecedented fervor in Romanian literature. For the work it required, as well as for the tiresome obsession to which it had me submitted I bear it no grudge: it is truly magnificent [...]."[59] Literary historian Eugen Lovinescu, who criticized Gândirea 's later moves towards traditionalism and a far right ideology (a turn which coincided with Vianu's departure), argued that Caragiale had been an important gain for the literary venue. In his belief, Caragiale and other "writers of talent" helped the magazine, which had no "critic of authority" at its helm.[60] By 1926, he rallied with the People's League, and unsuccessfully asked Octavian Goga to assign him a candidature for a Parliamentary seat during the elections of that year.[44] In January 1928, he again became pursuing a career in the diplomatic service, and sought an appointment for himself at the Romanian Consulate in Helsinki, Finland;[61] he thus visited Foreign Minister Nicolae Titulescu in Italy, at Sanremo.[62][63] His passage through Lombardy coincided with major floods.[62] Titulescu received him at the Miramare Hotel, but talks between them were inconclusive.[64][63] According to Perpessicius, the failure was generated by the adversity other politicians had towards Caragiale.[65] The writer was nonetheless pleased with his visit, having been deeply impressed by the Italian landscape, and, as a result, attempted to create an atmosphere of, in his words, "profound Italian rustic quietude" on his property in Fundulea.[59] [edit] Later years and deathCaragiale also began work on the fragmentary writing Soborul ţaţelor ("The Council of Busibodies", 1929) and the detective story Sub pecetea tainei ("Under the Seal of Secrecy", 1930), but they would remain unfinished. In its first draft, Sub pecetea tainei was published by Gândirea in April 1930-April 1933,[66] while Soborul ţaţelor was kept in three different variants.[58] In a 1985 essay later published as a preface for Sub pecetea tainei, literary critic Nicolae Manolescu proposed that, while the story was not given a finishing touch, its plot was meant to seem ambiguous, and thus had led other commentators to wrongly assume that the text ended abruptly.[67] During this period, Caragiale was occasionally involved in events affecting the cultural scene. In May 1930, he was present at a banquet in honor of Italian author Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the ideologue of Futurism. Organized by the Romanian Writers' Society and the Italo-Romanian Cultural Association, it was also attended by many other cultural figures, most of which, including artist Marcel Janco and the writers Ion Vinea, Jacques G. Costin, Ion Minulescu and Camil Petrescu, were associates of the magazine Contimporanul.[68] In January 1934, linguist and publisher Alexandru Rosetti signed a contract with Caragiale, through which the latter agreed to complete Sub pecetea tainei and have it published by Rosetti's Editura Fundaţiilor Regale.[69] He ceased most literary activities later in the year, and confessed in his diary: "My spiritual state is probably the same as that of people who feel their final hour nearing and lose all hope".[58] The writer was probably planning to move out of the city and into Fundulea, breaking all connections with his peers.[70] Despite this abrupt change, Caragiale had not entirely abandoned his writing career. In 1931, the Oradea-based cultural magazine Cele Trei Crişuri published his memoir, titled Vechi impresii de spectator ("Old Impressions of a Spectator").[57] In it, Caragiale stated having reached "a serene maturity",[71] and indicated: "I now placidly begin the rhythm of a new life."[72] He was planning to write a biography of Albrecht Joseph Reichsgraf von Hoditz, an extravagant Silesian nobleman of the 18th century, who is briefly mentioned in "Cele trei hagialâcuri",[73] and was also interested in the works of two French classics, Antoine Furetière and Honoré de Balzac.[74] He was preoccupied with death, which he feared greatly.[75] In early 1935, soon after reading Stefan Zweig's texts on faith healing, he recorded the effect it had on his life as "the revelation of my intellectual superiority, my intuition and my power of reflection, as well as the latent forces that I feel at the foundation of my being."[76] Reputedly, he renounced his hectic lifestyle, while giving up alcohol and coffee.[34] Mateiu Caragiale died two years later in Bucharest, at the age 51, after suffering a stroke.[34] Despite his explicit wish and opposition from his widow, speeches were held at his funeral ceremony, including ones by Alexandru Rosetti and Adrian Maniu.[20] Rosetti and Eugen Lovinescu later recounted an unusual incident sparked by the event: Iancu Vulturescu, a friend of Caragiale's and frequenter of Casa Capşa, looked intensely upon the dead body as he was paying his respects; later in the evening, he committed suicide in a hotel room.[20] [edit] Caragiale's style and works[edit] Views and mannerisms
Mateiu Caragiale's interest in heraldry and genealogy mirrored his tastes and outlook on the world, which have been described as "snobbery", "aestheticism", and "dandyism",[77][2][20][78][79] as well as the love of history he displayed throughout his career.[80] It was sparked during his college years, when he would fill his notebooks with sketches of blazons, and as attested by various drawings he produced throughout his life.[80] He also developed an enduring curiosity for astronomy, magic, as well as botany and agronomy.[81] These skills, as well as his tastes and talents as a causeur, consolidated his reputation as an erudite in spite of his lack of formal studies.[81] The cultivation of aesthetic goals had seemingly guided the writer throughout his life—the poet and mathematician Ion Barbu, who was one of Caragiale's greatest admirers,[82][79][83] recounted with amazement that the writer would periodically visit the Romanian Academy's just to look over a certain page in a manual of arithmetics outlining the rule of three (he reportedly said to Barbu: "Remembering its splendor provides me with a ceaseless drive to reread it").[84] At the same time, he was attracted by esotericism, alchemy and mystical subjects such as numerology, all of which form background elements in his prose.[85] A characteristic of Mateiu Caragiale's life was his search for noble origins, contrasting his illegitimate status. According to historian Lucian Nastasă, it clashed with his father's discreetness in relation to his Greek ancestors—Ion Luca is known to have described his origins as uncertain, even though these had been well recorded, and to have later commented that noble lineage in Romania relied on spurious genealogies.[86] Caragiale-father is also thought to have discouraged his son's claims, and to have mockingly noted that their own family's origin could not have been aristocratic.[2] Early in his youth, Mateiu jokingly referred to himself as "Prince Bassaraba-Apaffy", mixing the title used by the early Basarab Wallachian princes and the Apaffy family of Hungarian nobility.[6] Letters he wrote while still a student show that he was envisaging a marriage of convenience as a means to increase his wealth and status.[87][20][79] In his permanent search for nobility rights, occasionally ascribed to an inferiority complex,[88][78]he indicated that his mother's origins were in Austria-Hungary: before his marriage to Marica Sion, he claimed that he had lost his birth certificate, and, upon completing a new one, that his mother resided in Vienna, and that he himself had been born in the Transylvanian town of Tuşnad.[89] In Tudor Vianu's view, Caragiale's quest for "an elective heredity" saw him joining a diverse group of writers with similar interests, among whom were Balzac, Arthur de Gobineau, and Stefan George.[90] Commenting that "heredity has, after all, only the value of a psychological fact",[90] he stressed: "[Caragiale] thus had the right to seek his ancestry on the ascents of history and even to be ready to believe, from time to time, that he had found it."[81] Between 1907 and 1911, Caragiale studied Romanian heraldry and, to this goal, read Octav-George Lecca's Familii boiereşti române ("Romanian Boyar Families"). Many of the comments added by him to his copy of the book are polemic, sarcastic, or mysterious, while the sketches he made on the margin include portrayals of boyars being put to death in various ways, as well as caricatures (such as a blazon displaying a donkey's head, which he mockingly assigned to Octav-George Lecca himself).[78] Several of the heraldic objects he created were destined for his own use. In June 1928, he raised a green over yellow ensign he created for the Caragiale family at his property in Fundulea.[91] He also hoisted other symbols, including the flag of Hungary, which, he claimed, underlined his foreign origin.[92] Other eccentricities Caragiale adopted included wearing a "princely gown" of his own design, developing unusual speech patterns,[92] as well as a noted love for decorations—official honors which he tried to obtain for himself on several occasions.[93][20][79] With pride, he listed that, after 14 months of governmental service, he had become Knight of Coroana României, and had received the Bene Merenti and Bărbăţie şi credinţă medals first Class (while claiming that he had refused the Serbian Kingdom's Order of St. Sava after it was offered to him with a rank lower than he had asked).[94] Mateiu Caragiale had a reputation for being a secretive man. In a late interview, Cella Delavrancea described him as "made up of [...] small patches, so well sewn together that one never knew what he had said, what he had meant to say, what he is thinking."[95] Eugen Lovinescu, who described Caragiale's personality as "bizarre", also referred to him as "colorful and sterile."[96] Literary historian George Călinescu recalled having seen a middle-aged Caragiale taking walks through downtown Bucharest: amused by the writer's everyday clothes, which he depicted as of an archaic fashion and slightly deteriorated, compared him to "a butler on Sunday leave".[97][2] Călinescu also told that, during winter, Caragiale would only touch metal with his hand while wearing suede gloves.[17] In 1926, he began wearing a ring bearing the seal of Mercury, which, essayist Ion Vartic supposes, evidenced his trust in the psychopomp god's powers.[71] Vartic also describes Caragiale's late obsession with death as a form of "neurosis".[54] For a while in 1908, Caragiale had a brief affair with a reportedly unattractive Frenchwoman, Mariette Lamboley, who had been a Roman Catholic nun.[63][20] In letters he sent to his close friend, Nicolae Boicescu, Caragiale bragged about his sexual exploits with Lamboley, and of having exposed her to "the most terrifying sadisms" (which included allowing her to be raped by a stranger in the Cişmigiu Gardens).[63] Despite his hectic lifestyle, Caragiale lashed out at Bohemianism, stressing that "it kills, and many times not just figuratively".[98] Notes in his diaries show that he discreetly resented Alexandru Bogdan-Piteşti: aside from claiming to expose his patron's alleged financing by the Central Powers before and during World War I, Caragiale discussed Bogdan-Piteşti's homosexuality in disparaging terms (calling him "a blusterer of the anti-natural vice"), and even laying out a plan to rob his residence.[99] Caragiale's diary also dealt with Bogdan-Piteşti's wife, the socialite Domnica, depicting her as an immoral woman.[100] [edit] Literary styleWriting shortly after Caragiale died, Vianu defined him as "a figure, possibly a delayed one, from that aesthetic generation of around 1880, who professed a concept of the supremacy of artistic values in life."[90] This allowed him to draw a parallel between Mateiu Caragiale and the older Symbolist poet Alexandru Macedonski, with the one essential difference provided by their level of involvement in cultural affairs.[90] Unlike his half-brother Luca, Caragiale tended to stay away from the literary movements of his age, and placed his cultural references in the relative past, being inspired by Romantic and Symbolist authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly,[101] and José María de Heredia.[32] Noting the manifest difference in style between the realist Ion Luca and his two sons, Vianu pointed out that the three shared, as characteristic traits, "The cultivation of fully-developed forms, the view of art as a closed system resistant to the anarchic forces of reality".[102] According to Cioculescu, Mateiu's work would be "minor, unless placed alongside that of Ion Luca Caragiale".[79] Elsewhere, Cioculescu indicated that a letter written by Mateiu Caragiale in his early youth, which featured his first pieces of social commentary, imitated his father's calligraphy to the point where George Călinescu initially believed they were the work of Ion Luca.[103] Literary critic Paul Cernat proposes that the clashes between father and son evidenced Mateiu's "maternal attachment and a break with paternal authority", and, in particular, his "Oedipus complex", which he also sees manifested in the personality of modern Romanian writers such as the avant-garde founding figure Urmuz and the co-founder of Dadaism, Tristan Tzara.[104] Discussing Mateiu Caragiale's originality, Călinescu saw in him "a promoter (maybe the first) of literary Balkanism, that greasy mix of obscene phrases, lascivious impulses, awareness of an adventurous and fuzzy genealogy, everything purified and seen from above by a superior intelligence".[105][2] In relation to Romanian literature, he believed to have discovered a common trait of "Balkan" writers of mostly Wallachian origin, citing Mateiu Caragiale in a group that also included Caragiale-father, the early 19th century aphorist and printer Anton Pann, the modern poets Tudor Arghezi, Ion Minulescu and Ion Barbu, and Urmuz.[106] He went on to define this gathering as "the great grimacing sensitive ones, buffoons with just too much plastic intelligence."[107] In parallel, Lovinescu saw Caragiale as one in a group of modernist prose writers who sought to reshape the genre through the use of lyricism, and were thus paradoxically outdated by 20th century standards.[108] Among other traits which set Caragiale apart from his fellow Romanian writers was his highly creative vocabulary, partly reliant on archaisms and words occurring rarely in the modern Romanian lexis (including ones borrowed from Turkish and Greek,[109] or even from Romani).[110] In certain cases, he used an inventive spelling—for example, he consistently rendered the word for "charm", farmec, as fermec.[111] Vianu noted that this habit was similar to experiments presents in Ion Barbu's cryptic poetry, ascribing both cases to "the intent of underlining the differentiation between the written and the spoken words".[112] Craii de Curtea-Veche introduces a large array of words present in early 20th century slang and Romanian profanity, as well as rendering the then-common habit of borrowing whole sentences from French to express oneself[113] (a trait notably present in Mateiu Cargiale's own day-to-day vocabulary).[114] The novel's tone, often irreverent, and the book's foray into the mundane have been seem by some as tributary to the informal style cultivated by Bogdan-Piteşti.[35] Although his works are characterized by precision in defining the moment and location for the plot,[72] the general lines of the narrative are often subject to a calculated fragmentation, an innovative technique which, Vartic writes, attests the author's familiarity with Antoine Furetière's vision.[74] Vartic also indicates that Balzac's La Comédie humaine, in particular its Thirteen cycle—which is known to have been one of the books Caragiale treasured most—, influenced the general structure of his stories.[115] Most of Caragiale's prose is interconnected through allusions to himself, and, occasionally, the narratives discreetly refer to one another.[116] [edit] Novel_ILR_899.jpeg)
A first-person narrative, Craii de Curtea-Veche traces and satirizes Romanian society in the early decades of the 20th century (it probably depicts events from ca. 1910).[117] A core group of three persons, all withdrawn, Epicurean and decadent figures, allow the intrusion of Gore Pirgu, a low-class and uncultured self-seeker, whose character comes to embody the new political class of Greater Romania.[118][119] Researcher Constantin Amăriuţei proposed that there is an intrinsic connection between Pirgu and Mitică, a voluble clerk depicted in several sketch stories by Ion Luca Caragiale, and best remembered as a stereotype of Bucharesters; according to Amăriuţei, Pirgu is "the eternal and real Mitică of the Romanian world".[110] According to literary historian Matei Călinescu, the story is intertextually shaped by two of Ion Luca's prose works: one of them, titled Inspecţiune... ("Inspection..."), is part of the Mitică cycle, while the other, Grand Hotel "Victoria română", is one of the earliest depictions of anxiety in the literature of Romania.[119] For Matei Călinescu, Pirgu and the other protagonists stand as allegories for a set of essentially Romanian traits that, he argues, were still observable in the early 21st century.[119] In direct reference to Craii..., George Călinescu wrote: "Reality is transfigured, it becomes fantastical and a sort of Edgar Poe-like unease agitates [the main characters], these good-for-nothings of the old Romanian capital."[105] This, he argued, validated placing Caragiale's novel among Surrealist writings, and alongside the works of eclectic authors such as Barbu and Ion Vinea.[105] Literary historian Eugen Simion notes that Barbu believed himself thought Caragiale's prose was equal in value to the poetry of Romania's national poet Mihai Eminescu, and argues that this perspective was exaggerated.[79] Writing in 2007, Cernat also noted a similarity between Vinea's 1930 collection of novellas, Paradisul suspinelor ("The Paradise of Sighs"), and Caragiale's Craii..., defining the two books as "poetic, mannerist and fantastic", and stressing that they both portray decadent characters.[120] Building on the observations of his older colleague Simion Mioc, Cernat commented that that Vinea, Mateiu Caragiale, N. Davidescu and Adrian Maniu, all members of the same "post-Symbolist" generation, ultimately traced their inspiration to Alexandru Macedonski and his Symbolist work Thalassa, Le Calvaire de feu. He also proposed that, less directly, Macedonski's themes and style also influenced similar prose works by Arghezi and Urmuz.[120] Several critics and researchers have pointed out that Caragiale used characters and dialogs to illustrate his own perspective on the world.[121][78] Among the rich cultural references present in the novel, Şerban Coiculescu identified several direct or hidden portrayals of Caragiale's contemporaries, several of which point to his own family. Thus, Cioculescu argued, the character Zinca Mamonoaia is the writer's step aunt Catinca Momuloaia,[122] while an entire passage sheds a negative light on Ion Luca (the unnamed "leading writer of the nation" who prostitutes his trade).[123] Commenting on the brief mention of one of Pirgu's associates, "the theosophist Papura Jilava", the critic concluded that it most likely referred to novelist and traveler Bucura Dumbravă.[124] Cioculescu stressed that several other characters, including Pirgu and two secondary characters, the homosexual diplomat Poponel and the journalist Uhry, were Caragiale's companions: the latter two were based, respectively, on Uhrinowsky and a member of "an old Oltenian family".[124] In addition, Barbu Cioculescu believed to have identified other traits shared by the narrator and author, as well as a covert reference to Marica Sion.[35] Perpessicus noted that, in one of his outbursts, the character Paşadia criticizes the Brâncovenesc style developed in 17th century Romanian art, which he contrasts with "the tumultous flowering of the baroque", only to have the narrator speak out against him (in the process, the latter allows the reader to deduce that he has training and tastes in art that are similar to Caragiale's).[125] [edit] Other prose worksRemember is a fantasy novella set in Berlin, depicting dramatic events in the life of dandy Aubrey de Vere. Perpessicius argued that the main protagonist was "taken, apparently, from a short story by Oscar Wilde",[126] while Călinescu noted a direct reference to the 19th century writer Aubrey de Vere and an indirect one to Poe's Lenore (the lyric: "And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?- weep now or nevermore!").[127] The mysterious events standing at the center of the writing have been interpreted by several critics as an allusion to de Vere's homosexuality.[128][2][35] Probably taking place in 1907,[117] it contrasts Caragiale's other, more tenebrous, writings of its kind—one of its main traits is the writer's nostalgia towards the German capital, which serves to give the story an atmospheric rather than narrative quality.[126] Its depiction of hallucinatory visions probably owes inspiration to Gérard de Nerval,[126] while, according to historian Sorin Antohi, the main character is reminiscent of Joris-Karl Huysmans' Des Esseintes (see À rebours).[2] Lovinescu praises the story for "the gravity of its tone, [...] the cadence of its sumptuous, cultured and noble style."[128] George Călinescu, who referred to the narrative as "a pastiche", and to Berlin as portrayed in Caragiale's story as "a Berlin-Sodom", concluded that the text allowed readers to form "the direct sensation" of Bucharest as a "Balkan Sodom" to be discerned from the German landscape.[127] Caragiale's Sub pecetea tainei has been the subject of debates in the literary community. One disagreement refers to its nature: some see it as a standalone novella, while others, including Alexandru George, view it as an unfinished novel.[129] In this context, a singular position was held by Ovid Crohmălniceanu, who believed that Caragiale was building up to a sequel of his Craii....[130] The other point of contention involves its artistic value. Ovidiu Cotruş saw the story as proof that Mateiu Caragiale was running out of "narrative resourcefulness"[131] and creating "the [writing] most detached from his work's obsessions",[76] while Şerban Cioculescu deplored Caragiale's move to abandon work on Soborul ţaţelor (which he considered a more promising venture) in order to "implant a sort of Romanian detective novel".[132] Written as a frame story, Sub pecetea tainei comprises the recollections of Teodor "Rache" Ruse, a retired Police officer. Punctuated by willing omissions, for which rows of ellipses are employed, the text is structured into accounts of three unsolved cases: that of a missing person, the clerk Gogu Nicolau, who may or may not have been murdered by his wife; that of an epileptic minister whom Ruse is supposed to guard and who, after going missing and returning, presents his resignation and dies, leaving the general public clueless as to his fate; finally, that of a Viennese couple of con artists and presumed murderers (one of whom may be a transvestite woman) whose arrival in Bucharest poses a threat on the life of their female host, Lena Ceptureanu.[133] Ruse's accounts, which oblique references in the text seem to place in 1930,[117] form part of his conversations with the unnamed narrator, which are set in Caru cu bere restaurant and in the narrator's Bucharest home; this, Manolescu notes, echoes scenes in Craii....[130] A recurring element in the plot is the role played by secretive women, who may be directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of male characters.[134] Commentators have since attempted to match several of the protagonists with real people in Caragiale's life. Such theories identify Rache Ruse himself with Cantuniari, a policeman whom Caragiale had befriended, the minister with the leading Conservative Party member Alexandru Lahovary, and the female character Arethy with Miller Verghy.[135] According to Manolescu, Mateiu Caragiale took direct inspiration from foreign works of detective fiction when outlining his story, but also mocked their conventions by having Ruse rely on literature and even cartomancy for his crime solving techniques.[136] Vartic drew a parallel between Caragiale's style and that of two 20th century foreign authors of crime fiction—Dashiell Hammett and Giorgio Bassani.[137] The general intent, Manolescu notes, is not in realistically depicting police procedures, but in showing "the human mystery."[136] Thus, Ion Vartic argues, Gogu Nicolau may be Caragiale's attempt to see himself from the outside, and his disappearance may be a clue that the writer was planning to sever links with the cultural milieu.[138] The work's title and its generic meaning are found in Ruse's final statement: "There are such things meant to always remain—since forever—under the seal of secrecy."[139] [edit] PoetryCaragiale's symbolist poems, including a series of sonnets, also display his profound interest in history.[140] Pajere, which reunited all of the poems Caragiale had published in Viaţa Românească and Flacăra, was defined by Lovinescu as a series of "archaically-toned tableaux of our ancient existence",[32] while George Călinescu remarks their "savant" character.[17] The same critic also noted that Pajere, which drew inspiration from Byzantine settings, were more accomplished versions of a genre first cultivated by Dumitru Constantinescu-Teleormăneanu.[141] According to Perpessicius, Caragiale had "a certain outlook [...], according to which the past [...] should not be sought in books, but in the surrounding landscape".[142] He illustrated this notion with a stanza from Caragiale's Clio:
Călinescu noted that, in several of his poems, Mateiu Caragiale had infused his search for aristocratic heredities.[17] He saw this present in the poem Lauda cuceritorului ("In Praise of the Conqueror"):
[edit] Legacy[edit] Mateiu Caragiale's influencePajere was published in spring 1936, edited by Marica Caragiale-Sion and Alexandru Rosetti.[73] Later in the year, a volume of collected works, Opere, was published by Rosetti and featured prints made by Mateiu Caragiale at various moments during his lifetime.[73] Caragiale's work exercised some influence from early on. Ion Barbu coined the terms mateist and matein, referring, respectively, to supporters of and things connected to Caragiale's literature.[79] Barbu is also credited with having set up and presided the first mateist circle.[83] The traditionalist poet Sandu Tudor took up the genre of Byzantine portraits as cultivated by him and by Constantinescu-Teleormăneanu, creating a piece titled Comornic (roughly, "Cellar" or "Cellar-Keeper").[144] Around the same period, the writer known as Sărmanul Klopştock took inspiration from the style of his novels.[145] Mateism, growing during the late stages of the interwar period, took the aspect of an underground cultural phenomenon during the communist regime. Taşcu Gheorghiu, a Surrealist author whose Bohemian lifestyle was itself described as a reflection of Craii..., had memorized large sections of the novel and could recite them by heart.[146][79] According to Eugen Simion, dramatist Aurel Baranga is reputed to have done the same.[79] During communism, Gheorghiu published a translation from Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard, which literary critic Carmen Muşat believes was marked by the tone of mateism.[119] Caragiale's aesthetics contrasted with those of the 1950s Socialist Realist establishment. However, after the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin signaled a relative change in cultural tenets, Communist Party affiliate and writer Petru Dumitriu wrote in favor of recovering supposed "realistic sections" of works by both Mateiu Caragiale and Tudor Arghezi.[147] Eugen Simion writes that, late in the same decade, students at the University of Bucharest were investing their time trying to determine the exact location of houses described in Craii....[79] Also according to Eugen Simion, an attempt by poet Anatol E. Baconsky to republish the volume was met with a stiff reaction from the censorship apparatus, and, as a consequence of this episode, the main Communist Party organ, Scînteia, renewed its campaign against Caragiale.[79] Matei Călinescu recalled that, "during the dark 1950-60 decade", he clandestinely read Craii... and shared his thoughts on it with a group of friends, noting that this was part of a "secret life" which contrasted with the rigors one had to obey in public.[119] Caragiale was completely recovered in mainstream cultural circles after the Romanian Revolution of 1989. Craii de Curtea-Veche was chosen "best Romanian novel of the twentieth century" in an early 2001 poll conducted among 102 Romanian literary critics by the literary magazine Observator Cultural.[148][149] Also in 2001, his collected writings, edited by Barbu Cioculescu, were republished in a single edition.[79] His copy of Octav-George Lecca's Familii boiereşti române, featuring his many comments and sketches, was the basis for a 2002 reprint.[78] In 2007, Remember was issued as an audiobook, read by actor Marcel Iureş. In contrast to his father Şerban, who was often a vocal critic of Mateiu Caragiale's literature and lifestyle choices, Barbu Cioculescu is one of the writer's most noted promoters, and has occasionally been described as a mateist.[35][79] Among contemporary writers to have claimed inspiration from Caragiale is Ştefan Agopian, who acknowledged he pursued his stylistic concerns in his 1981 novel Tache de catifea ("Tache de Velvet").[150] According to Barbu Cioculescu, the poetry of Virgiliu Stoenescu was influenced by "the charm of word appositions" he saw present in Caragiale's poems.[151] Large portions of the diaries kept by Mateiu Caragiale are lost. The transcript made by Perpessicus was criticized for having selectively discarded much content, while originals kept by Rosetti were mysteriously lost during the Legionnaires' Rebellion of 1941.[20] Additional notes, which notably featured Caragiale's criticism of his father, were preserved for a while by Şerban Cioculescu, before being borrowed to Ecaterina Logadi, Ion Luca's daughter, and never recovered.[20] A significant number of his drawings and paintings, which Vianu assumed had survived by 1936,[81] have also been misplaced.[20] [edit] Tributes and portrayalsMateiu Caragiale is mentioned in Gheorghe Jurgea-Negrileşti's book of memoirs, Troica amintirilor. Sub patru regi ("The Troika of Recollections. Under Four Kings"). The work depicts notable episodes in his Bohemian life, including a scene where the overweight and inebriated Admiral Vessiolkin leaps over tables at Casa Capşa and recites English-language quotes from William Shakespeare to an audience comprising Caragiale and various by-standers.[47] In 1947, Ion Barbu wrote the poem Protocol al unui Club ("The Protocol of a Club"), intended as an homage to his friend's memory.[79] Nineteen years later, | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
