Alice Botez Or the Memory of Ireality. a Monography

UNIVERSITATEA „ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA” IAŞI FACULTATEA DE LITERE ŞCOALA DOCTORALĂ DE STUDII FILOLOGICE ALICE BOTEZ OR THE MEMORY OF IREALITY. A MONOGRAPHY CONDUCĂTOR ŞTIINŢIFIC PROF. UNIV. DR. LĂCRĂMIOARA PETRESCU DOCTORAND: MIHAELA ȚICALO, căs. GRĂDINARIU IAȘI - 2016 La data de 9 decembrie 2016, orele 11:00, în sala Seminar Al. Dima, drd. Mihaela Țicalo, căs. Grădinariu, va susține, în ședință publică, teza de doctorat cu denumirea „Alice Botez sau memoria irealității. O monografie” , în vederea obținerii titlului de doctor în domeniul Filologie. Comisia de doctorat are următoarea componență: Președinte: Prof. Univ. Dr. Magda Jeanrenaud, Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iași Conducător Științific: Prof. Univ. Dr. Lăcrămioara Petrescu, Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iași Referenți: Prof. Univ. Dr. Ștefan Borbely, Universitatea „Babeș-Bolyai” din Cluj-Napoca Prof. Univ Dr. Pompiliu Crăciunescu, Universitatea de Vest din Timișoara Prof. Univ. Dr. Antonio Patraș, Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iași Having studied the works of literary history and literary criticism published in the Romanian space of the last decades, we have noticed that the life and work of writer Alice Botez are fairly unknown. The writer fits with great difficulty in the panoply of Romanian literature, as she cannot match the generalist patterns hemming and labelling with the help of the ever- changing critical works. After more than three decades since the death of the author (1985), the studies dedicated to her are very few and present only fragments of her literary activity. With few and notable exceptions, the literary critics have focused only on the novels (Fimbulwinter, The Forest and Three Days.The Scene Alternative, Longing Hemisphere, The Eclipse) and the dramatic poem Driopte or Dialogue at the Caucasian Wall. Historic Evocation, while her publicist works, the volume of her short stories The White Island and The Book of Fantastic Realities. Journal are either treated superficially or completely ignored. The paper aims at analysing the main aspects of the biography and work, an investigation and systematisation of the information (dispersed and fragmented) regarding the life of Alice Botez, as well as the analysis of the corpus of texts signed by the author in order to correctly and comprehensively understand her life and writing. The monographic perspective of the paper imposes an analytical approach of the entire published work, during her lifetime and posthumously, both the writings published in volumes (Fimbulwinter, Editura pentru Literatură, Bucharest, 1968; The Forest and Three Days. The Scene Alternative, Editura Eminescu, Bucharest, 1970; Driopte or Dialogue at the Caucasian Wall, Editura Eminescu, Bucharest, 1975; Longing Hemisphere, Editura Eminescu, Bucharest, 1979; The Eclipse, Editura Cartea Românească, Bucharest, 1979; The White Island, Editura Eminescu, Bucharest, 1984; The Book of Fantastic Realities. Journal, under the supervision of Fabian Anton, Bucharest, Editura Curtea Veche, 2001), and the witings published in periodicals („Vremea”, „Izvoare de filosofie”, „Luceafărul”, „România Literară”). In addition to the published volumes and the texts published in magazines, „The Documentary Fund Alice Botez” (FDAB) of the Bucharest Metropolitan Library was the basis of this research. The fund comprises three files with photos, personal documents, correspondence and a few unpublished manuscripts (work charts, summaries, translations, sketches for short stories and sixteen versions of a poem). The reasons behind the choice of theme are multiple: the generosity of the theme, the very few preoccupations which offer a complete painting of the life and work of a very complex, the fascination of the symbols integrated in the literary works. The work of Alice Botez must be approached from an integrating cultural perspective, retrieving and focusing on less known aspects of her formation by establishing and extending links between biography and philosophical and literary preoccupations. Of course, the discussed themes are also partially present with other authors, but what distinguishes the creation of Alice Botez is the personal mode of approach of the themes. Another reason why we consider our undertaking necessary is the possibility to apply modern narratology theories on the literary texts (journal, novels and dramatic poem), especially French theories regarding feminine writing, autobiographies, intimate journal, the frontiers of the fantastic, the time of memory, the role of stage directions in the dramatic text, historic memory and internal memory, conscious otherness, refused otherness. As critical approaches to the work of Alice Botez are rare (and the secondary bibliography, implicitly), we consider that the research undertaking has as the main gain the novelty of the approach, the personal vision in the analysis of literary works. By going through and re-evaluating a rich critical bibliography, we have managed to circumscribe the themes of the works, to focus the discursive strategies (narrative and dramatic), to reach a more profound understanding of temporal dynamics, of the vision of the space as fiction generator and to underline the force of the dissimulation of the tragic character of personal histories. The research respected the requirements of a scientific enterprise of the monographic type, starting with the definition of the problem to be researched, followed by the identification of the text corpus (published in volume and periodicals), the discovery, transcription, description and interpretation of the novel documentary resources (the Documentary Fund Alice Botez) and of the secondary bibliographic reference points (in volume, in periodicals or in electronic format). The compilation, interpretation and systematisation of data regarding the life of the writer (the historical, political, social, cultural context and strictly biographical elements) based on a logical plan, the investigation, study case and comparison have been another important step in the reconstruction of the auctorial profile. Enlarging the data base regarding the new tendencies of the literary theory and criticism and the application of these modern concepts on the text corpus by the analysis (followed by a synthetizing vision) of the discursive and dramatic strategies have also been part of the research undertaking. The paper is structured in five chapters, comprising a number of 207 pages. Before them, a comprehensive Introduction presents the object of the research, the text corpus used, the present stage of the research on the author Alice Botez, the actuality and necessity of the research theme, the new ideas followed in the research. The thesis also contains Conclusions followed by a Bibliography divided in the sections Text Corpus (in volume and in periodicals), Memoirs writings about Alice Botez, Literary Histories, Literature dictionaries, Critical texts in volume about Alice Botez, Critical texts in periodicals about Alice Botez, General Critical Bibliography, in volume and in electronic format. The Annexes contain some letters and novel texts, transcribed from the FDAB folders. Chapter I, Biographic Profile, follows the information on Alice Botez, very rare because of the loss of a great number of the family documents in time, but especially in two essential moments (the demolition of the house in Uranus in 1984 and then the death of the writer’s mother in 1985). The few known documents, gathered in three very thin files under the name of the Documentary Fund Alice Botez (FDAB, inv. No 295/ 2006) are available at the Bucharest Metropolitan Library, but unfortunately can only be described and transcribed as the internal regulations of the library ban their photocopying and publication in any form. This is why the reconstruction of the biography was based on the few articles in the literature dictionaries and in literary histories, on journals written by Jeni Acterian, Arşavir Acterian and Gena Geamănu, on the memoirs of two writers who crossed paths at various times in their lives (Stefan Agopian and Florin Iaru) and on a few letters, either published as Addenda to journals, or valorised from the documentary fund mentioned above. The biography, with no particular event line, is followed chronologically, with the most important moments of the writer’s life outlined: her studies, the special relationship with professor Nae Ionescu, her jobs, then the marriage with artist Constantin Bulat, her debut in periodicals and late debut in volume (1968), the interactions with her very few friends. There emerges the image of a highly educated personality, fluent and translating from French and German, with an opening to the vast spaces of philosophy and an exceptional literary talent, who always refused to register with the unwritten laws of a destructive era and found salvation in the act of writing. Chapter II, The Works of Alice Botez Published in Periodicals, sets the important reference points of the period between the two world wars, characterised by unprecedented effervescence, among which there is the periodical “Vremea”, where Alice Botez will publish literary chronicles for two months (November – December 1940). We considered that the analysis of these chronicles is necessary because they are not very known as they have never been compiled and published in a critical edition. Secondly, the chronicles underline a profoundly original vision, clear and complete, mostly due to the vast literary, historical and philosophical

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