Traian Demetrescu

First page of Aquarele, 1896

Literary historian George Călinescu described Traian Demetrescu as "one of the first [Romanian] poets with «fits of nerves» and «thrills»".[1] He commented at length on Demetrescu's character and in particular his eccentricities, attributing them to the problems posed by tuberculosis.[14] 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".[1] 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.[1] 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.[15]

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).[1] 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.[1] 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.[1] A noted influence on his choice of subjects was François Coppée,[1] while Tradem's imagery was many times inspired by the Decadent author Maurice Rollinat.[16]

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.[7] Alongside these pieces were theater chronicles he signed, showing that he closely followed developments on the local scene.[7] He also translated several foreign dramatic pieces into Romanian.[7]

Despite taking an interest in Symbolism, Demetrescu is known to have declared himself perplexed by their "bizarre originality".[1] 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.[17] 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").[7]

Nevertheless, he was an immediate precursor to the Romanian Symbolist school,[1][7] or a representative of its "proletarian" side.[18] 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 balladesque literature produced by Ștefan Octavian Iosif.[18] According to Călinescu, Demetrescu's commitment to Symbolism was especially obvious in his attitudes, which he argued were linked to "spleen"[1] (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.[19] 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.[20]

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.[21] According to his own words, Demetrescu had studied "the works of great socialist writers".[1] He also took interest in the works of Evolutionists and Positivists such as Herbert Spencer,[1] Jean-Marie Guyau, and Hippolyte Taine.[17] 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.[1] Several of his poetry writings published by Revista Olteană had an obvious socialist message.[7] 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.[7]

First page of Profile literare, 1891

Traian Demetrescu was influenced by Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea and supported him in conflicts with Titu Maiorescu, showing that he did not endorse the Junimist views of an "art for art's sake".[22] He believed Maiorescu was valuable, but no longer relevant.[17] Nevertheless, he was critical of socialist arguments, in particular the notion that the value of literary works resided in their social message.[22] 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".[22] This position was also illustrated in his Positivist critique of Romanticism, which saw Tradem arguing that art "is a product of the social environment".[7] He was however persistent in arguing that there was no absolute connection between social classes and artistic creation.[17]

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).[17] 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).[17] 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..."[17]

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".[15] Thus, when discussing his fellow leftist Mille, Tradem described his poetic works as "boring".[15] 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."[17]

Beginning in 1888, Tradem also authored short memoirs of his many meetings with Macedonski, in particular of their conversations.[4] He recalled being familiar with many of Macedonski's original theories on various subjects, including astronomy and the works of Camille Flammarion.[5] 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".[23] He also recorded that the theistic Macedonski answered "positive science" with "the grin of skepticism".[24] 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.[25] 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.[26]

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".[15] 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."[7] 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".[7] 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."[7] His views of Mihai Eminescu also oscillated between rejection and praise, but, with time, the latter became a major influence on his own style.[7]

Călinescu linked Demetrescu's Symbolist-like "spleen" this to a "nostalgia for mysterious lands", which he found to be one of the poet's main themes.[1] 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.[27] 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".[28] In one such setting, the clock becomes "the satanical and exact instrument measuring the vigil".[28] The poem in question read:

The imagery and tone of Tradem's poetry have been described by Călinescu as "heartbreakingly pathetic".[28] This atmosphere, he argued, gave them originality, although he believed that they were not accomplished pieces ("a great many of his [poems] are prosaic").[28]

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).[15] Also according to Călinescu, Tradem was a musical person, who loved classical music, in particular the cello and the zither,[15] and who often introduced concrete references to composers of "sad music" in his poems.[28] The latter category included Frédéric Chopin and Carl Maria von Weber, whom Tradem invoked as a means to highlight his moods.[28] In one of his poems, he wrote:

First page of Iubita, 1895

Demetrescu's prose works include a series of novellas 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.[28] Themselves melancholic, they were dismissed by the critic for displaying a "sentimental humanism which is foremost loved by the plebs".[27]

Tradem's collected short stories, Refractarii ("The Fracticious Ones"), portrays various misfit characters, and its subjects occasionally turn to the macabre.[15] In one of them, the protagonist Costin is shown to be heartbroken when a malicious child destroys his favorite flower.[15] In one other novella, a medicine student steals the corpse of a beautiful woman from the morgue, and hangs her skeleton on his wall.[15] 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.[15]

His two novels both deal with the subject of unrequited love, and George Călinescu argued that they were in fact disguised eulogies.[15] The critic also argued that they showed Tradem to be "too moon-struck to be understood by women".[15] 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.[15] Călinescu concluded that "[Corburescu] is a failure".[15] 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.[15] Călinescu dismissed the work, stating: "Everything [in it] is vapory, as annoying as a thick fog."[15]