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SCIENTIFIC COLLECTION «INTERCONF» | № 2(38)

PHILOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS

Iordan Corina doctoral student Moldova State University, Republic of Moldova

LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CREANGĂ’S SPEECH

Abstract: This paper is a study of the linguistic and cultural characteristics of Creangă’s speech. Ion Creangă is considered to be one of the classic writers of Romanian , especially because of his autobiographical work Childhood Memories. Apart from the fact that the human formation and modeling is rendered in the novel, the specificity of the environment is also reflected, the author presenting the universe of rural life. In order to present a traditional village, the author uses many elements specific to the Romanian culture, for example: proverbs and sayings, fragments of folk songs, folk phrases, wise remarks etc. All these give the text a profound national character, as well as an authentic folk style. All these folk expressions make this novel difficult to translate into other languages. Keywords: Romanian rural novel, Childhood Memories, fiction, elements specific to Romanian culture, translation.

Ion Creangă is considered to be a brilliant brother of folk storytellers (Ovidiu Bîrlea) [1, p. 229], and his work represents a creation of language that contains “a specific, original speech, exemplary in its category, full of charm and productively suspicious. The individuality, the originality of the work continues inside this specific speech, with the situations of existence that the prose writer brings in the epic discourse” [2, p. 172]. Regarding the author, we would like to highlight some brief data. Ion Creangă is considered to be one of the classic writers of , especially due to his

520 SCIENCE, EDUCATION, INNOVATION: TOPICAL ISSUES AND MODERN ASPECTS autobiographical work Childhood Memories, but also due to the mastery with which he wrote stories and fairy tales. He was born in Humuleşti, in a large family (7 brothers and sisters), who would inspire his characters. The essential moments of his artistic life were the meeting with in 1864, and with in 1875, with whom he formed a beautiful friendship. The latter, realizing his storytelling talent, supported and encouraged his friend, suggesting that he should put on paper what he was telling with such humor, and then publish his works. Creangă wrote for various newspapers and magazines of the time and designs textbooks. He appeared in various literary circles (Eminescu introduced him to the literary circle of ) where he impressed with his humorous stories and tales. Between 1875 and 1883 he wrote numerous works. Between 1883 and 1889 he was affected by his illness and died in 1889. However, he remained immortal through the work he had written, namely: a) fairy tales: Capra cu trei iezi (1875), Punguţa cu doi bani (1875), Soacra cu trei nurori (1875), Dănilă Prepeleac (1876), Povestea porcului (1876), Fata babei şi fata moşneagului (1877), Povestea lui Harap - Alb (1877), Făt Frumos, fiul iepei (1877), Povestea lui Ionică cel prost (1877), Povestea lui Stan - Păţitul (1877), Povestea poveştilor (1877-1878), Ivan Turbincă (1878), Povestea unui om leneş (1878); b) short stories: Acul şi barosul (1874), Inul şi cămeşa (1874), Prostia omenească (1874), Moş Ion Roată şi Unirea (1880), Păcală (1880), Ursul păcălit de vulpe (1880), Ion Roată şi Cuza-Vodă (1882), Cinci pâini (1883); c) novellas: Moş Nichifor Coţcariul (1877), Popa Duhul (1879); d) the autobiographical novel: Amintiri din copilărie (the first three parts were published between 1881-1883, and the fourth part was published posthumously, in 1892) [4, p. 371-372]. According to Emil Alexandrescu, Childhood Memories is the first Romanian rural novel and, at the same time, Creangă’s most important work, due to the fact that it offers us “an image of the Romanian rural universe from the mid-nineteenth century” [5, p. 232].

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Given that for a long time, ordinary readers, as well as historians and literary critics have confused the dimension of fiction with Creangă’s biography, we must emphasize that Childhood Memories is not an autobiographical work, but only contains certain autobiographical elements. Ion Valeriu Hiu has the same opinion, stating that fiction predominates in relation to the documentary aspect [6, p. 11]. As for Eugen Simion, he proposes to place the biographical writing in the “spacious compartment of autofiction” [7, p. IX]. The exegete explains that there is a difference between the autobiographical confession and the memorialistic one (neighbouring genre), which consists in the fact that in the narrative a greater emphasis is placed on the artistic function than on the historical and objective one. And comments, such as: “Nu știu alții cum sunt”, “Stau câteodată și-mi aduc aminte”, “Vreau să-mi dau seama despre satul nostru, despre copilăria petrecută în el, și atâta-i tot...” have the role to emphasize that great distance between the time of writing and the time of living, as the narrator must relate facts that took place a long time ago and, also, create portraits of people who have remained only in his memory. Due to his humor, Creangă easily and quickly overcomes this alienation [7, p. LXII]. The writer Ion Creangă is understood and adored by all categories of readers, because, as said, the classic writer of national literature from Humulești is “a creative force within a unitary peasant civilization”. He also adds that Ion Creangă “can be read and understood by absolutely all Romanian social categories in all provinces”, this being due to the fact that in the reading process the reader encounters “no resistance, no inaccessible particularism - with all his Moldovan language”. M. Eliade even wonders at one point: “In what other European literature can a classic writer be accessible to absolutely all categories of readers?” [8, p. 246]. The answer to this question is implied - in none! Speaking of the structure of this novel, we can say that it consists of 4 chapters, which are structured on two levels, namely: the universe of peasant life and the main character’s process of formation. In the first chapter, the text contains episodes from the school life of the main character, Nică; in the second chapter, events from the child’s life at the parental home are described; in the third

522 SCIENCE, EDUCATION, INNOVATION: TOPICAL ISSUES AND MODERN ASPECTS chapter, stories from school life in Fălticeni, Târgu-Neamț are recounted; and in the last chapter, the novel ends with Nică leaving for the Socola Seminary in Iași. George Călinescu stated that in Childhood Memories Ion Creangă tells about the “childhood of the universal child”, in this work “any child’s destiny is symbolized: to make the parents happy and upset and to take it slowly on the same path that everyone took and everyone will take. In Creangă’s Memories there is nothing individual, nothing of a confessional or journalistic character that would configure a new soul complexity [9, p. 236]”. Creangă writes the following in his work: “Aşa eram eu la vârsta cea fericită, şi aşa cred ca au fost toţi copiii, de când e lumea şi pământul, măcar să zică cine ce-a zice” [10, p. 182]. This means that he studied the phenomenon of childhood which was marked by happiness, joy, spontaneity, innocence, etc. And considering the fact that this phenomenon is characteristic of any man on earth, the writer passes from the particular to the general, because whole generations can recognize their own childhood in that of the narrator. In addition to the fact that the novel shows human formation and modeling, it also reflects the specifics of the environment, the author presenting the universe of peasant life, namely, “an image of the Romanian village from the mid-nineteenth century” [5, p. 245]. Garabet Ibrăileanu synthesized the importance of Creangă’s work in a statement that later became famous: “Creangă’s work is the epic of the Romanian people”, and he said about the narrator that he is “our Homer”. He, also, stated that “In Creangă live the beliefs, traditions, customs, language, poetry, morals, philosophy of the people, as they were formed in thousands of years of adaptation to the circumstances of the Dacian land, below the fluctuations on the surface of national life. Creangă is a perfect representative of the Romanian soul among peoples; of the Moldovan soul among ; of the peasant soul among Moldovans; of the soul of the mountain man among the Moldovan peasants.” [3, p. 78]. In order to provide an image of a traditional village, the author uses many elements specific to Romanian culture, for example:

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1. proverbs and sayings: “nu plătește bogatul, ci vinovatul”, “apără-mă de găini, că de câini nu mă tem”, “când nu sunt ochi negri săruți și albaștri”, “fiecare pentru sine croitor de bine”, “Să dea D-zeu tot anul să fie sărbători şi numai o zi de lucru, şi atunci să fie praznic şi nuntă”, “La plăcinte râde gura / La vărzare şi mai tare“,“La plăcinte înainte, La război înapoi.”, “Poftim punga la masă / Dacă ți-ai adus de- acasă.”, “Că e laie, Că-i bălaie, Că e ciută, Că-i cornută.”, “Decât la oraș codaș? Mai bine-n satul tău fruntaș”. 2. fragments of folk songs: “Fă-mă Doamne val de tei / Și m-aruncă-ntre femei.”, “Auraș, păcuraș, / Scoate apa din urechi, / Că ți-oi da parale vechi; / Și ți-oi spăla cofele / Și ți-o bate dobele!”. 3. folk expressions: “Na-ţi-o frântă că ţi-am dres-o”, “acu-i acu”. 4. wise remarks: “Dacă-i copil, să se joace; dacă-i cal, să tragă; şi dacă-i popă, să citească.”, “Vorba ceea: un nebun aruncă o piatră în baltă şi zece înţelepţi n-o pot scoate”. All this gives the text a deep national character, as well as, an authentic folk style element. At the same time, we must emphasize that all these folk expressions make Childhood Memories a difficult text to translate into other languages. Anca Mureșan in her article The Stylistics of the Parts of Speech in Memories of Childhood emphasizes that Ion Creangă uses in his work a specific vocabulary in order to create a rustic environment, because these lexical elements are a feature of the peasant’s speech, and their presence in the text is imposed by the context. She, also, adds that the text is quite difficult, causing problems in terms of vocabulary. Creangă’s regional and folk speech poses serious and various problems for a translator. Among the lexical problems, it is necessary to mention the use of the numerous terms related to the life and the rural system, the church service, superstitions, etc. [11]. In conclusion, we can say that Ion Creangă is considered to be one of the classic writers of Romanian literature, especially due to his autobiographical work Childhood Memories, but also due to the mastery with which he wrote stories and fairy tales. In order to provide an image of a traditional village, the author uses many elements

524 SCIENCE, EDUCATION, INNOVATION: TOPICAL ISSUES AND MODERN ASPECTS specific to Romanian culture, for example: proverbs and sayings, fragments of folk songs, folk expressions, wise remarks. All this gives the text a deep national character as well as an authentic folk style element. At the same time, all these folk expressions make Childhood Memories a difficult text to translate into other languages.

References: 1. BÎRLEA, O. Poveștile lui Creangă. București: Editura pentru Literatură, 1967. 317 p. 2. SIMION, E. Ion Creangă. Cruzimile unui moralist jovial. Iaşi: Princeps Edit, 2011. 182 p. 3. IBRĂILEANU, G. Studii literare. Bucureşti: Albatros, 1976. 264 p. 4. HAN, B. O. Traducerea de literatură – formă de (auto)comunicare (I) studiu de caz - Amintiri din Copilărie de Ion Creangă. In: The Proceedings of the International Conference “Communication, Context, Interdisciplinarity”. “Petru Maior” University Press, 2010. pp. 369 – 377 5. ALEXANDRESCU, E. Limba română în sinteze și analize. București: Ed. Didactică și Pedagogică, 2010 [visited 15.06.2018] Available: http://laurastanica.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/51717640/Literatura-Romana-in-Analize-si- Sinteze-1.pdf 6. HIU, I. V. Ion Creangă - Clasic al literaturii române. Pitești: Colegiul Național „Zinca Golescu”, 2014. 103 p. [visited 25.03.2019] Available: https://ro-static.z- dn.net/files/d7b/1b074402dba16b127d9408d347bddeb0.pdf 7. SIMION, E. Introducere. În: Ion Creangă, Opere, col. „Opere fundamentale” a Academiei Române, Bucuresti, 2000. p. V-LXXXI 8. ELIADE, M. Drumul spre centru. București: Univers, Humanitas, 1991. 607 p. ISBN 972—34-0144-7 9. CĂLINESCU, G. Ion Creangă (Viața și opera). Chișinău: Litera, 1998. 335 p. ISBN 9975-74-029-3 10. CREANGĂ, I. Amintiri din copilărie. București / Chișinău: Internațional, 2002. 308 p. ISBN 973-8358-41-8 / ISBN 9975-74-395-1 11. MUREȘAN, A. The Stylistics of the Parts of Speech in Memories of Childhood. În: ABC Journal. Sibiu: Universitatea , 2004, Vol. 5. ISSN 1841-964X [visited 22.05.2020] Available: http://abcjournal.ulbsibiu.ro/Anca%20Muresan.html

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