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Rethinking Ionesco’s Absurd: The Bald Soprano in the Interlingual Context of Vichy and Postwar France

Julia Elsky Loyola University Chicago, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Elsky, Julia. Rethinking Ionesco’s Absurd: The Bald Soprano in the Interlingual Context of Vichy and Postwar France. PMLA, 133, 2: 347-363, 2018. Retrieved from Loyola eCommons, Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications and Other Works, http://dx.doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2018.133.2.347

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Rethinking Ionesco’s Absurd: The Bald Soprano in the Interlingual Context of Vichy and Postwar France julia elsky

UGÈNE IONESCO’S LA CANTATRICE CHAUVE (THE BALD SOPRANO) IS E one of the most performed plays in the world. It debuted in May 1950 at the Parisian héâtre des Noctambules, and since 16 February 1957, actors at the héâtre de la Huchette in the Latin Quarter of Paris have been performing it ive times a week, follow- ing the director Nicolas Bataille’s original conception. To date, the Huchette’s Le spectacle Ionesco (he Ionesco Show), which includes La cantatrice chauve and La leçon (he Lesson), has been staged over eighteen thousand times and seen by more than two million viewers (“L’histoire”). hroughout most of its performance history, scholars have understood La cantatrice chauve along the lines of an article by Martin Esslin, published in 1960 and later expanded into a book, in which he coined the term “heatre of the Absurd” to explain the avant- garde theater movement that developed ater the Second World War (“heatre” and heatre). he movement included igures such as Ionesco, Arthur Adamov, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, and Har- old Pinter. Esslin focuses on postwar antitheater’s representation of passive and empty language, envisioning incoherent language as representing the meaninglessness of language in a conformist post- war bourgeois world. Scholars, even those who react against Esslin’s reading, have retained the postwar narrative of the development of the theater of the absurd and thus have not appreciated the extent to JULIA ELSKY is assistant professor of which the play is inseparable from its almost unknown dual linguistic French at Loyola University, Chicago. political context. It is well-known that in the play Ionesco parodies She is completing a book manuscript en- the Assimil method of the En glish- language textbook L’anglais sans titled “Writing Occupation: Jewish Émi- gré Writers and Wartime France.” This peine (“English without Pain”), a method that is based on “acquisi- essay is part of her second book project, tion automatique” (“automatic acquisition”; Chérel 1) and features a on Eugène Ionesco and the origins of prominent irst stage described as “entièrement passif” (“entirely pas- the theater of the absurd. sive”; 2). However, the interlingual implications of the play’s origins in

© 2018 julia elsky PMLA 133.2 (2018), published by the Modern Language Association of America 347 348 Rethinking Ionesco’s Absurd [ PMLA

a language- teaching manual, which by deini- opted language. With signiicant exceptions, tion crosses language barriers, have yet to be recent scholarship avoids discussion of his in- explored. Moreover, little discussion has been volvement in Romanian cultural diplomacy devoted to Ionesco’s original version of La can- under Ion Antonescu’s authoritarian military tatrice chauve, the Romanian play Englezește dictatorship while he was in Vichy France fără profesor (“En glish without a Teacher”), composing the original play.3 In contrast, I which was written in 1943, during the war, trace Ionesco’s double-language experience and is in part based on a Romanian- language and its political exploitation. he Romanian textbook with a similar name, Engleză fără play and its context reveal what the transla- profesor (“En glish without a Teacher”).1 his tion theorist Lawrence Venuti deems the “eth- version, irst published in a Romanian review nocentric violence that is inherent in every in 1965 (Ionescu, “En gle zește”), takes its inspi- translation process” (22). Ionesco was writing ration not only from a passive- learning text- during a period of strained and violent rela- book but also from language pedagogies that tions between those nations whose languages point to active engagement in language learn- were the topics of the textbooks he used; these ing.2 An interlingual account of La cantatrice were the languages he moved between during chauve and its Romanian origins reveals that the Second World War as a cultural secretary in the French version of the play, Ionesco for the Romanian delegation to Vichy France, writes about language acquisition as an ac- when English was the language of the enemy. tive political event linked to a specific local As he was composing Englezește fără profe- context. In the wartime version, language is a sor, Ionesco was directly involved in wartime tool of political violence; in the postwar ver- propaganda to promote Romanian and Ro- sion, Ionesco transforms the play to relect on manian language learning in French universi- the possibility of viewing language acquisition ties. he Romanian play depicts language and as an act of meaning making in the postwar language acquisition as implements of politi- period. By recontextualizing the play, we can cal violence. In the French version of the play, reevaluate the long- held view of its place in the he almost entirely erases this wartime politi- theater of the absurd. cal dimension. Despite La cantatrice chauve’s If we move beyond the borders of France reputation for indicting language as an empty to explore Ionesco’s Romanian background yet violent gesture, the play is actually an at- and his work for the Romanian government’s tempt to replace the earlier version’s more delegation to the French collaborationist Vi- troubled and more troubling attitude about chy government, our view of the play shits: crossing language barriers with a meditation the play is no longer about meaninglessness. on how speakers create meaning through lan- Instead, a multilingual analysis reveals it to be guage learning. We thus can understand Io- a political play largely about language acquisi- nesco in a new way: he was not writing a play tion. I read La cantatrice chauve in the context revealing the meaninglessness of language in of the Romanian version and alongside archi- a conformist world; rather, he was envision- val documents dating from Ionesco’s career ing the productive politics of communication in Vichy France, including La terre roumaine across languages. (“he Romanian Land”), his irst French play, which was broadcast on Radio Marseille in A Romanian in Vichy France 1943 and is unknown to critics (Ionesco et al.). In his wartime works, the confrontation Ionesco was not a distant bystander to the between languages in occupied France plays linguistic politics of the Second World War. out in the drama of communicating in an ad- he narrative that casts him as a Romanian 133.2 ] Julia Elsky 349

émigré writer in France who adopted French began to write for the theater; until recently as his literary language is overly simple. Born many scholars, with notable exceptions—in- in Slatina, Romania, in 1909, raised between cluding Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine, Marta France and Romania, he negotiated in his Petreu, Eugen Simion, and Ana- Maria Stan— youth a dual-language existence. He wrote of have ignored it or provided misinformation belonging and repeated displacement in terms about it.6 he scholars who do discuss this pe- of language, speciically language acquisition, riod disagree about how much Ionesco iden- or, as he put it, “[c]et apprentissage, ce désap- tiied with the delegation’s politics as well as prentissage, ce réapprentissage” (“this learn- the exact nature of his activities in France. ing, this unlearning, this relearning”; Entre la My focus here is on how his work on Roma- vie 23). Ater inishing his degree in French nian propaganda and his cultural diplomacy literature at the University of Bucharest and in Vichy France inluenced his wartime writ- completing his teaching certiication, Ionesco ings’ treatment of linguistic exchange—that taught high school French in Bucharest in is, how people communicate across languages the 1930s. He then began his literary career, and how languages come into contact with publishing literary criticism and joining vari- each other. ous circles of Francophile and oten Franco- Ionesco arrived in France as a member of phone writers. He looked toward France as a the Romanian propaganda team on 30 June cultural center—not only as the capital of the 1942, during the period when Antonescu in- “world republic of letters,” to use Pascale Ca- tensified his lobbying of France to support sanova’s term, but also as Romania’s link to Romanian control of territories that Romania western Europe. Ater a stay in Paris to start a had lost in 1940 to Hungary, one of France’s doctoral thesis, he returned to Bucharest fol- main prewar allies (“Demande” [1957]; Notes lowing the French defeat of June 1940.4 But al- 3).7 In April 1943, Ionesco became one of most immediately aterward, Ionesco sought the principal cultural secretaries of the del- to return to France, especially ater Romania egation and was put in charge of Nice, Tou- joined the Axis powers. He felt that France louse, Montpellier, and Marseille (Dragu, was his true home and yet later wrote that the Report 1158, 10; Mareş 113). Rather than only legal way for him to move to France was government- to- government work, Ionesco’s to take an oicial post in the Romanian gov- cultural diplomacy targeted the French lit- ernment (Présent passé 183). His bilingual ca- erary and academic public to gain support reer took an ironic turn when he relocated to for Romania.8 His diplomatic and political France in 1942 as a cultural secretary for the initiatives included networking, publish- Romanian delegation to Vichy France under ing translations of Romanian literature into Antonescu’s military dictatorship.5 French, encouraging Romanian language For the delegation, Ionesco helped orga- learning, finding positions for Romanian- nize language learning as a political tool in language teachers at the university level, and ways that scholars have previously ignored. keeping up with publications in occupied He worked on the propaganda team in Vi- France. A few days before Ionesco arrived chy France that promoted Romanian and in France, his superior, Ion Dragu, wrote a Romanian language learning in France. He report that summarizes the department’s was at the heart of Axis propaganda as one of goals in the southern zone. Using military the press secretaries for the Ministry of Na- language to emphasize culture’s role in the tional Propaganda (Ministerul Propagandei war efort, Dragu explains that propaganda Naţionale) in 1942 (Mareş 113). Critics usu- in France is “arma psihologică” (“the psy- ally gloss over this period of his life, when he chological weapon”; Report 559, 1) that he 350 Rethinking Ionesco’s Absurd [ PMLA

and his staff members use in an organized, nesco even hired the Romanian Jewish émigré methodical, and scientific manner. He rec- poet Ilarie Voronca, who was living in hiding ommends launching a propaganda campaign in Rodez, France, to write oicial translations that speaks to the French through the press from Romanian into French under a pseu do- and on the radio: “trebuie să îmbrace haina şi nym.9 Ionesco’s actions leave his position am- să ia toiagul pelegrinului spre a cutreera toate biguous at best. Clearly, however, his view of drumurile Franţei” (“it must don the coat and the politics of language learning and his be- take the pilgrim’s staf to travel all the roads lief in theater’s capacity to express them were of France from one end to the other”; 2). he shaped by his career in Vichy France. pilgrim metaphor suggests that Dragu wants Ionesco’s ambivalent position in Vichy his staf members to permeate France not as France as a promoter of Romanian language foreigners but as those who belong in France and culture is crucial to understanding his by virtue of the sanctity of their mission. composition of Englezește fără profesor, in Taking the pilgrim’s staf meant understand- which Ionesco engages with language pedago- ing, absorbing, and reporting on the politi- gies and manuals. He began the work around cal, economic, and cultural atmosphere of 1943, while he was negotiating his role in France. Romanian oicials thus saw language wartime France as a Romanian diplomat pro- and culture as explicitly political activities. moting the study of Romanian to the French. Ionesco now took on the same dual Franco- Englezește fără profesor is shorter than La Romanian linguistic identity of the prewar cantatrice chauve, since it does not include years but from a strange new position: the war the French version’s ireman scenes (from the made this disaffiliated Romanian speaker, middle of scene 7 through scene 10), and fea- who identified as a French speaker, into a tures a radically diferent ending.10 Whereas Romanian official making a pilgrimage to many of the dialogues are almost identi- France. At the same time, this constant navi- cal in the two versions, and whereas, like gation between French and Romanian took La cantatrice chauve, the Romanian version place as martial propaganda combated a third draws on the Assimil En glish manual with hostile language: Hungarian. he propaganda its grammar-translation method, Englezește was part of a strategy designed to contest fără profesor also draws on other Romanian Hungary’s claims to northern Transylvania, textbooks with signiicantly diferent pedago- which had been part of Romania from 1918 gies. It opens with the Smiths’ discussion of until 1940, when Germany and Italy gave it to their acquaintances and favorite foods: “D-na Hungary in the Second Vienna Award. Smith: E ora nouă. Am mîn cat supă, pește, Nevertheless, Ionesco’s national and eth- carne cu cartoi, salată și am băut bere. Co- nic position in the delegation had gray areas. piii au băut apă. Am mîncat bine, astăseară” While at the heart of authoritarian propa- (“Mrs. Smith: It is nine o’clock. I ate soup, ganda of one of the most important countries fish, meat with potatoes, salad and I drank involved in Axis propaganda, Ionesco main- beer. he children drank water. I ate well, this tained ties with Jewish intellectual friends. evening”; Ionescu, “En gle zește” 58). Ionesco He located and cultivated networks that were follows the type of exercises commonly found collaborationist or critical of Vichy France: in language manuals, which typically ask stu- on the one hand, the right- wing, anti- Semitic dents to discuss where they live, their family French writer Paul Morand (his counterpart situations, and other details of daily routines. working for France in Romania); on the other, Mr. and Mrs. Martin stop by for dinner. he Jean Ballard, at the Cahiers du Sud, who characters utter commonplaces in Roma- helped many Jewish intellectual refugees. Io- nian and in English, like “Casa unui englez 133.2 ] Julia Elsky 351 este adevăratul său castel” (“An En glishman’s sections as well as dialogues linked to active house is his true castle”; 63) and “Charity engagement with phonetics, lexical principles, begins at home” (64).11 Rhyme is featured in spelling, and advanced grammar. Later sec- seemingly nonsensical lines that resemble tions revolve around readings with exercises. false adages, for example: “Mai bine o leasă Ionesco incorporates into the Romanian într- o casă, decît o plasă într- o rasă” (“Better version of the play elements of these kinds of a thread in a shed than a lace in a race”; 63).12 language manuals, in addition to those of As- But a deeper study of the wartime context of simil, not to argue that language is meaning- the Romanian play, as well as its basis in Ro- less but rather to demonstrate the strange and manian textbooks and in Assimil, challenges oten chaotic process through which language our understanding of the text as an absurdist learners create meaning. As the Martins wait play illed with meaningless language. for the meal to be served, the situation de- Ionesco wrote this play with his knowl- volves into chaos. Ionesco features the rep- edge of language pedagogy that, unlike As- etition of sounds and letter pronunciations simil, implicitly acknowledges and attempts along with lines of nonsensical alliterations to overcome the difficulty of language ex- and conventional sayings. Four lines of dia- change through active learning. He would logue are not just individual letters but also have learned this pedagogy at the University phonemes—“A, e, i o, u, a, e, i . . . bî, cî, dî, fî, of Bucharest in preparation for his teach- gî . . . oaie, aie, uie, oa, ea, ua, ou, ou, ou”— ing certiication before he moved to France. and six sections of sound repetition (Ionescu, Englezește fără profesor draws on language “Englezește” 65). he repetitions feature the manuals other than Assimil, manuals that words “castraveții” (“cucumbers”; 64), “întîi involve far more active participation by the cucoanele” (“ladies first”; 64), followed by language learner. Although a 1930s version of “întîi cuptoarele” (“ovens irst”; 64), the non- Engleză fără profesor is nowhere to be found, sensical “oubou” (65), and the scatological the Central University Library of Bucharest rhyme “casă căcasă” (a play on “house” and holds numerous language manuals from the “excrement”; 64), as well as the name Andrei period, potentially the very books Ionesco Marin (65). This combination of random might have consulted: I am learning En glish: words, which perhaps include a reference to Curs practic de limba engleză (“I Am Learn- Alfred Jarry’s Ubu roi, resembles the kind of ing En glish: Practical En glish Language knowledge gained in the first sessions of a Course”), by Ion- Aurel Candrea (1938); En­ language class. he name Andrei Marin is not glish book for the first year: Metoda Maud a random choice, as has long been thought; Griiths­Belbin (“En glish Book for the First it was the name of Ionesco’s high school Year: he Maud Griiths- Belbin Method”), teacher of ancient Greek, who was principal by Sanda I. Mateiu (1937), which follows the when Ionesco taught at the same high school method of the tutor to the children of Marie, from 1940 to 1942 (Register). he sounds at queen of Romania; and Curs de corespondență the end of Ionesco’s Romanian play are not comercială engleză (“Commercial English meaningless repetitions, a parody of a lan- Correspondence Course”), by Zoe Ghetu guage manual. hey are the kinds of sounds (1935).13 Unlike Assimil, the approach of students repeat to practice pronunciation these textbooks is heavily grammatical, with when they learn a new language. hey are not many grammar charts and rules, requir- nonsensical; they construct the foundation of ing active participation by the student at all meaningful expression in another language. stages. Instead of being divided into active heir seeming impenetrability registers the and passive stages, these textbooks contain difficulty of moving from one language to 352 Rethinking Ionesco’s Absurd [ PMLA

another. They correspond to phonetics ex­ weapon” for political purposes. his exploita­ ercises, which are done with vowel charts tion is the basis of violence in the play. or lists of consonants and useful words to A project Ionesco worked on the year be­ practice those sounds. For example, Ma­ fore writing Englezește fără profesor provides teiu’s textbook asks students to practice front some insight into his thoughts on the politics vowels through reading a chart that lists the of language exchange during the war. By Sep­ words bead, bid, bayed, bed, bared, and bad; tember 1942, Ionesco was in contact with Bal­ then the students must read back vowels in lard about creating a special issue of Cahiers a chart, using the words cooed, could, code, du Sud that would include French translations cud, card, cord, and cod (16).14 In the light of of Romanian poetry (Ionescu, Report 576). the language manuals, the Romanian play Io nesco had also considered the journal Pyré- appears as a text that stages not the mean­ nées for similar purposes. He was working to inglessness of language but rather its build­ publish Romanian literature in noncollabo­ ing blocks. It highlights pedagogy and thus rationist journals as a form of propaganda. dramatizes how language learners confront a First, publishing in a French literary journal, new language and struggle to communicate rather than in a propaganda organ, would through new sounds. he Romanian, French, give the delegation direct access to larger and En glish languages that come together French audiences. Second, Cahiers du Sud show the particular struggle to create mean­ (like Pyrénées) represented French Mediter­ ing in speech in a polylingual setting. The ranean culture; the journal’s inclusion of Ro­ play, and the pedagogy on which it is built, manian texts in translation would underscore constitute a meditation on the ramiications Romanian’s status as a Romance language of multilingualism and language acquisition. linked to the Mediterranean world (Ionescu, he play does not adopt a language manual Report 783). These translations would thus to highlight the absurdity of language. The connect Romania to France and provide a lin­ characters’ shouting and ighting at the end of guistic kinship that secured their wartime ties the dinner party do not prove the emptiness (Ionescu, Report 576, 2). Ionesco used Roma­ of their words; instead, they ight precisely to nian poetry to elevate Romanian to the status communicate through language acquisition. of “occidental,” in his terms, and to exclude its Ionesco’s work for the delegation dur­ Eastern or, as he puts it, Balkan associations. ing the period when he wrote Englezește fără In his diary from the 1940s he writes, “Une profesor renders the elements of linguistic ‘culture’ balkanique originale et authentique practice borrowed from textbooks distinctly ne peut être vraiment européenne. L’âme bal­ political. he shouts at the dinner party in the ka nique n’est ni européenne ni asiatique. Cela play reveal a struggle for meaning making in n’a rien à voir avec l’humanisme occidental” language learning but in a particular wartime (“An original and authentic Balkan ‘culture’ context. More speciically, Ionesco’s reports cannot really be European. he Balkan soul is on his translation propaganda projects, in neither European nor Asian. It’s nothing like which the playwright spells out the linguistic occidental humanism”; Présent passé 181).15 policy of the Romanian delegation, suggest he higher registers of Romanian literature, that language in the play is far from meaning­ he continues, are only imported through less—quite the contrary. Ionesco was acutely French and German literature. Here, Ionesco aware of the meaning and utility of language expresses more than Francophilia; he deems acquisition for authoritarian politics. Lan­ the eastern facets of Romanian literature and guage is not to be derided; its multilayered culture to be inferior. For Romanian intellec­ history is to be exploited as a “psychological tuals, the Balkans signiied a Romanian Ori­ 133.2 ] Julia Elsky 353 ent and served as markers for antimodernism Harmonies”), which was broadcast on Radio (Spiri don 381).16 The use of language—in- Paris in October 1943 and again in January formed by the delegation’s psychological 1944 (Radio announcement [13 Oct. 1943] weapons—for wartime alliances was driven and Radio announcement [25 Jan. 1944]). he by cross- linguistic exchange through selective proile of the radio stations on which Iones- translation and assertions about language af- co’s work was aired is conspicuously indicated inity. Englezește fără profesor’s closing scenes by a diferent show that he did not write but of ighting take on these invented hierarchies that immediately followed Harmonies euro- of national languages. péennes: Les Juifs contre la France (“he Jews One year later Ionesco was involved in against France”; Radio announcement [25 another project that explains even further Jan. 1944]). he juxtaposition of these broad- the violence of language exchange in Vichy casts illustrates how he was implicated in the France: the hitherto unknown radio play La alliance between occupied France and Roma- terre roumaine, which openly exposes the nia under Antonescu. violence between national languages. Ionesco In his praise of linguistic diversity in Ro- collaborated on the play, broadcast by Radio manian, Ionesco acknowledges the violence Marseille on 29 September 1943, as part of his underlying language. Romanian is made up work for the Romanian delegation (Ionescu, of the languages of invading forces: Latin and “Asupra”). he radio transcript of the play in- Greek irst, then Slavic languages and Turkish. dicates that he translated the Romanian po- he irst scene of La terre roumaine, in which ems into French and transformed them into the voices talk about the richness of Roma- dialogues, but—most important—in his re- nian, suggests that the source of this linguistic ports to the Ministry of National Propaganda, wealth is war and invasion (Ionesco et al.): Ionesco noted that he controlled the entire project (Ionesco et al.). La terre roumaine is 1e voix: Craiova, Cetatea, Alba, Cernautsi . . . about the richness of Romanian culture and 2e voix: Constantza, Braila, Bucuresti . . . language. “Voix” (“Voices”), rather than char- 3e voix: Iasi, Ploesti, Bagargig . . . acters, speak in French of Romania’s beauty 4e voix: Villes roumaines. and recite traditional folktales and modern 1e voix: Noms aux consonances variées venues des diférents idiomes de ceux qui tour à tour poetry. he play, which includes translations les ont faites, les ont détruites, ou ont contribué of Tudor Arghezi’s poetry, as well as texts by à les reconstruire, comme ils ont contribué à Morand, reveals the linguistic policy of the faire leur langue. Romanian delegation to Vichy France at a 2e voix: Noms latins! time when diferent languages were sites of 3e voix: Noms grecs! contestation. In a twist on his dual linguis- 4e voix: Noms slaves! tic experience, Ionesco now uses French to 1e voix: Noms turcs! extol the Romanian language in this French- 2e voix: Noms fondus et harmonisés dans le nom language radio broadcast. He depicts the Ro- qui les englobe tous! Tara Romaneasca, La terre manian language as a Latin- derived language, roumaine. (2; ellipses in the original) a major element in delineating the link to the Voice 1: Craiova, Cetatea, Alba, Cernăuți . . . “Occidental” (Présent passé 181), echoing Voice 2: Constanța, Brăila, București . . . the alliance with Vichy France and distanc- Voice 3: Iași, Ploești, Bagargig . . . ing Romania from an orientalized Balkans Voice 4: Romanian cities. (Ionescu, Report 939, 3). Ionesco’s other con- Voice 1: Varied-sounding names that come tributions to radio programming include the from the diferent idioms of those who in their show Harmonies européennes (“European turns made them [the cities], destroyed them, 354 Rethinking Ionesco’s Absurd [ PMLA

or co ntributed to reconstructing them, as they Mr. Martin leaves the stage. The play within contributed to making their language. the play ends, and the ictional audience grows Voice 2: Latin names! angry that the entire play is a prank; a long- Voice 3: Greek names! awaited dinner turns out to be bodily waste Voice 4: Slavic names! on a plate. Twenty ictional audience members Voice 1: Turkish names! storm the empty stage, yelling and wielding Voice 2: Names merged and harmonized into the clubs. hen comes the sound of machine guns, name that embraces them all: Ţara Româneascaˇ, the Romanian land.17 and the audience members fall dead. he au- thorities arbitrarily defend the author and their Even while celebrating language, Ionesco authority over language. The commissioner couches words in terms of war and invading of police and “jandarmi în uniformă” (“gen- populations. He accepts violence as the basis darmes in uniform”) barge onto the stage along of language exchange, glorifying Romanian with the ictional author and theater director. not as a pure national language but rather as he director congratulates the commissioner, an amalgam of languages achieved through and the author thanks the director for defend- the violent interaction of nations. One lin- ing him against “măgarii ăștia” (“these asses”), guistic source that is conspicuously absent pointing to the ictional audience. he director from the dialogue in the play is Hungarian: insults the remaining “îngroziți” (“terriied”; Ionesco likely omitted it because of the long 65) ictional audience members, calling them battles between Hungary and Romania to dogs, and uses questionable logic to exclaim control Transylvania. heir hostile rapport that they have no place in the theater. he di- can be seen in the many reports on Hungar- rector calls on one audience member and asks ian propaganda in the Romanian Ministry of his profession; he answers that he is a cobbler. National Propaganda iles. He is told cobblers belong at the shoe repair he political ending of Englezește fără pro- shop. he director repeats the process with a fesor, which represents the most striking dif- doctor and a washerwoman. he author inter- ference from the later French version, and its venes in the conversation: comment on the role of nationalism in the the- ater, clearly link it to La terre roumaine and to AUTORUL: De ce veniți aici și ne- ncurcați? Eu mă Ionesco’s propaganda activities. Englezește fără duc să fac ghete în locul cismarului, să spăl rufe în locul spălătoresei, să-ncurc pe doctor la spital? profesor’s ending stages the inherent violence in Nu. Eu aici sînt doctor ș i- mi văd de treaba mea. language controlled by the state. he conclud- Cis marii la cismărie, actorii la te a tru, iecare să-și ing scene, the dinner at the Smiths’, is revealed vadă de treaba lui și lumea o să meargă mai bine. to be a play within a play. The Smiths and UN ALT SPECTATOR (din fundul sălii, se ridică): the Martins, we learn, have been performing Dar spectatorii, la spectacol. scenes watched by a ictional audience, one that COMISARUL (Roșu de furie): Cum îndrăznești să is provoked by the play’s inal lines. he Smiths vor bești, cînd eu tac, obraznicule? (Către toată announce that the dinner of “pitie de escre- sala): Derbedeilor, să vă astîmpărați, să vă băgați mente de pasăre” (“jellied bird excrement,” a min țile în cap, să vă fie învățătură de minte! play on head cheese [pitie de porc]) and “pipi (Arată cadavrele pe de scenă): Cum au pățit ăș- de iapă” (“mare pee”) is served. Mr. Martin tia, așa puteți să pățiți și voi. (Către sală): Voi ști exclaims while “rîzînd de plăcere” (“laughing să apăr cea mai nobilă instituție de cul tură na- țională, teatrul, acest templu de actrițe. Dreepți! with pleasure”): “O, domnule, vreți să glumiți!” Ie șiți afară! Să nu vă mai prind aici! (65–66) (“Oh, sir, you must be kidding!”), as the or- chestra plays, but mutely, “O Tannenbaum” THE AUTHOR: Why do you come here and get in (Ionescu, “Englezește” 65). he orchestra stops; our way? Do I go and make boots instead of the 133.2 ] Julia Elsky 355

cobbler, wash clothes instead of the washer- he seems to be admitting—and expressing woman, get in the doctor’s way at the hospital? discomfort with—his role in the Romanian No. Here I am the doctor, and I mind my own authorities’ propaganda, as well as portraying business. Cobblers in the shoe repair store, actors ambivalently how language acquisition be- in the theater; people should attend to their own comes an instrument of the state—something business and the world will run more smoothly. he could do only in a play that was never pro- ANOTHER AUDIENCE MEMBER (from the back of the room, stands up): But spectators at the duced and that was possibly never intended spectacle. to be produced. THE COMMISSIONER (Red with anger): How dare you speak, when I’m quiet, cheeky fellow? (To La cantatrice chauve in Postwar France the entire room): Rascals, quiet yourselves down, knock some sense into your heads, let this be a Although a hallmark of postwar theater, La lesson to you! (He indicates the corpses on stage): cantatrice chauve has roots in its wartime As it happened to them, so it can happen to you. history. he context of the 1943, Romanian (To the room): I will know how to protect the version, and Ionesco’s particular wartime noblest institution of national culture, the the- view on the status of linguistic contact, en- ater, this temple of actresses. Attention! Get out! I had better not catch you here again! able a new reading of the play. Ionesco be- gan to write the French version that scholars The author-as- character turns out to be on and students know today around 1948 in his the side of the authorities who hold that the adopted home of Paris. He attempted to fo- theater represents national culture. Ionesco cus, not on the context of wartime political invites the spectator to see that language— violence, but on the struggle to create mean- here, dramatic language inspired by language ing in an adopted language. he play should manuals—is subject to political situations be seen in the light of his engagement in lan- and that the authorities deem theatrical lan- guage acquisition and not understood as a guage a tool for upholding national identity. commentary on the meaninglessness of lan- Ionesco, however, questions the control of na- guage in a conformist world. tional language; when Mr. Martin asks if the Ionesco’s use of the Romanian language talk of excrement for dinner is a joke, he also manuals challenges the common assump- seems to be asking if the entire play, the entire tion that La cantatrice chauve is based on the linguistic approach, is a prank. When the au- mostly passive- learning method and repetitive dience members protest, as if to question the quality of the Assimil textbook and is thus a language on stage, they are met with machine commentary on the emptiness of language. guns. he play contains a strange mix of ter- In 1929 Alphonse Chérel created the Assimil ror and laughter. he authors of La terre rou- method, which focuses heavily on listening maine, like the ictional author of Englezește and repeating dialogues. It is divided into two fără profesor, did glorify national language on phases. he irst is passive: learners simply re- behalf of the authorities. he interlingual dia- peat the lines they hear on the recordings that logues—interlingual because they are based come with the textbook. Assimil is short for on manuals to learn a second language—are assimilation, and learners are meant to assim- controlled by a nationalist program that de- ilate language knowledge. Only ater the iti- clares the dominance of Romanian. hrough eth lesson does the active stage begin. In this his work in the Romanian delegation, Ionesco stage, learners are expected to compare French involved himself in the same drama of politi- and English versions of the dialogues. Esslin cal control over language, a drama he put on (Theatre 137), Emmanuel Jacquart (“No- stage in Englezește fără profesor. In the play, tice” 1462), and others have taken the passive 356 Rethinking Ionesco’s Absurd [ PMLA

method of the Assimil textbook as proof that tures “a radical devaluation of language” that the play is about the passivity and inefective- relects the meaninglessness that writers saw ness of language and thus a source for the in the ravages of postwar Europe (heatre 26). absurd, or derision of the human condition. His belief that the play parodies a language As he does in Englezește fără profesor, Ionesco textbook only seems to demonstrate further condenses dialogues from Assimil and in- that for Ionesco, writing ater the war and in cludes clichés like “Charity begins at home” reaction to its horrors, language did not func- (La cantatrice chauve 40), as well as seemingly tion or contain meaning. Esslin conirms this meaningless rhymes and sounds. Scholars view of the playwright by citing an essay that have connected the repetition reminiscent Ionesco wrote in 1958, entitled “La tragédie of the Assimil method to the emptiness of du langage” (“The Tragedy of Language”). language and the absurdity of bourgeois life, In it, Ionesco explains that La cantatrice through clichés and empty speech that disin- chauve is about the vacuity of language (any tegrate into sounds. However, Ionesco’s previ- language) in the petit bourgeois conformist ous work on language in the ministry and as a world that followed the war: teacher, and his use of the Romanian manuals in the precursor of La cantatrice chauve, in- Il s’agit, surtout, d’une sorte de petite bour- dicate that Ionesco was an active professional geoi sie universelle, le petit- bourgeois étant in language education and a member of the l’homme des idées reçues, des slogans, le con- political establishment that put in place each formisme de partout: ce conformisme, bien building block of language. sûr, c’est son langage automatique qui le ré- he play has typically been read only in vèle. Le texte de La Cantatrice chauve ou du terms of meaningless clichés in the postwar manuel pour apprendre l’anglais (ou le russe, ou le portugais), composé d’expressions context. According to Esslin’s foundational toutes faites, des clichés les plus éculés, me reading, the displacements and alienation of ré vé lait, par cela même, les automatismes du the war years, forced or voluntary, caused an lan gage, du comportement des gens, le “par- upheaval that changed absurdist playwrights’ ler pour ne rien dire.” . . . (159) view of the world ater the war. Esslin notes especially that the major igures of the absurd It is above all a matter of a kind of universal were exiles: petite bourgeoisie, the petit bourgeois being the man of preconceived notions, of slogans, [T]he exile, from his country or from soci- the conformism that is everywhere: this con- ety, moves in a world drained of meaning, formism, of course, is revealed by its auto- sees people in pursuit of objectives he cannot matic language. he text of he Bald Soprano comprehend, hears them speak a language or the manual for learning En glish (or Rus- that he cannot follow. he exile’s basic experi- sian or Portuguese), composed of ready-made ence is the archetype and the anticipation of expressions, of the most hackneyed clichés, twentieth-century man’s shock at his realiza- revealed to me, in this very way, the automa- tion that the world is ceasing to make sense. tisms of language, of people’s behavior, the (Introduction 18) “speaking to say nothing.” . . .

In Esslin’s reading, the writer who is dis- According to Ionesco, clichés and seem- placed by the horrors of war and as a result ingly meaningless lines of dialogue express adopts a strange language is in the ideal po- conformists’ inability to think and speak for sition to see that the world no longer makes themselves. Despite the languages Ionesco sense. It is a world in which language ceases lists, Esslin assumes that the playwright is to function. Esslin’s theater of the absurd fea- criticizing the Communist bloc in the post- 133.2 ] Julia Elsky 357 war period. For all his cultural acumen, Es­ violence, instead expressing how learning a slin understood Ionesco’s absurd theater as new language conveys meaning (and not only a strictly postwar phenomenon, but Esslin’s political messages). La cantatice chauve should argument and periodization need to be re­ be read as a play about exchange across lan­ thought. Ionesco associates the play with guages. In addition, we might reexamine Io­ the victors of the war (England, the United nesco’s “La tragédie du langage,” the essay that States, Russia) and with a neutral country, Esslin uses to deine the theater of the absurd, albeit one with a fascist ruler (Portugal). Io­ to revisit the question of language. Ionesco nesco, in Esslin’s view, thus avoids the politics devotes only a small portion at the end of this of language acquisition on which he centered essay to the emptiness of language, “parler the play written in Romanian during the war. pour ne rien dire” (“speaking to say nothing”; Other scholars, such as Jacquart (héâtre 159); in fact, most of the essay is about learn­ 33) and Michael Y. Bennett (10), have taken ing a new language. His interest in interlin­ Esslin’s reading to task and shown that Io­ gual exchange is one expression of his concern nesco is instead exploring how to ind mean­ with the process of language learning that ing in the absurd universal human condition. recurred throughout his long literary career. hey disagree with Esslin’s assumption that His interest in exile and alienation is another, the playwrights of the absurd accept that life but perhaps not the central one, as has been is futile. Yet despite their contributions, they argued. Furthermore, the essay is the text of write within the framework of Esslin’s post­ a talk Ionesco gave at the Institut Français war view of Ionesco’s postwar pronounce­ in Italy, which organized courses in French ments about postwar language. Similarly, for Italian speakers. In his speech, he related scholarship on Ionesco’s experience of immi­ that he irst thought he had failed to learn En­ gration addresses the bilingual quality of the glish, despite his use of the Assimil method. play but still links it to the alienation of exile, But then he had a realization: “Il ne s’agissait the breakdown of language, and the absurdity plus pour moi de parfaire ma connaissance de of language (Chafee 180; Hubert 62–64). In la langue anglaise” (“For me, it was no longer one of the few texts that analyze the original, a matter of perfecting my knowledge of the Romanian play, Alexandra Hamdan, who En glish language”). His goal was no longer dates Englezește fără profesor to 1948 rather “enrichir mon vocabulaire anglais, apprendre than to 1943, argues that the French play is des mots, pour traduire en une autre langue a purposely “‘bad’ translation” (“une ‘mau­ ce que je pouvais aussi bien dire en français, vaise’ traduction”) of the Romanian version, sans tenir compte du ‘contenu’ de ces mot, de and a “parody of translation” (“une parodie ce qu’ils révélaient” (“to enrich my En glish vo­ de la traduction”; 163). Ionesco’s literal trans­ cabulary, to learn words, in order to translate lations from the Romanian into the French into another language that which I could just create a hybrid and seemingly nonsensical as easily say in French, without taking into language. hey also take “la désarticulation account the ‘content’ of these words, of what du langage à son paroxysme” (“the disarticu­ they revealed”). He realized he had succeeded lation of language to its limit”; 21). in an unanticipated way when he reread his Ionesco deliberately removed the theme of notes and copies of lines of dialogue from the language violence in the postwar publication textbook: “Mon ambition était devenue plus but not the fact that language contains mean­ grande: communiquer à mes contemporains ing. By separating the play from its original les vérités essentielles dont m’avait fait prendre political context, he shifted the focus away conscience le manuel de conversation franco­ from language exchange as a political tool of anglaise” (“My ambition had become greater: 358 Rethinking Ionesco’s Absurd [ PMLA

to communicate to my contemporaries the of these truths, or the truth of these banali- fundamental truths that I was made to learn ties, makes their communication even more by my Franco- En glish conversation manual”; poignant. Ionesco experienced the enormity 157). Studying a second language revealed of these truths and banalities only by en- “fundamental truths,” truths he knew but had countering them in his nonnative tongue. never really thought about. Learning a new He based his play on language manuals and language also awakened a need to “commu- included what could appear to be meaning- nicate” them. less clichés, not to show that language fails to Banal statements are fundamental truths, convey meaning, but to explore how interlin- arrived at through another language. The guistic exchange leads to discovery. themes of time, travel, and family, taken from In “La tragédie du langage,” Ionesco de- language manuals, reveal how people expe- scribes this kind of writing as “théâtre didac- rience temporal and familial structures in tique” (“didactic theater”; 157). According to their daily lives. For example, in La cantatrice him, didactic theater should not be original chauve, Mr. Smith tells Mrs. Smith on which but transmit received knowledge. He is draw- days of the week the Bobby Watsons (all trav- ing on a practice of language teaching that eling salespeople) have the least competition: goes back as far as the Renaissance. As Mary “Le mardi, le jeudi et le mardi” (“Tuesdays, homas Crane and Susan Miller have shown, Thursdays, and Tuesdays”; 14). Instead of adages and citations drawn from common- reading this as nonsense, we should see it as place books have long been used to teach lan- a relection on the human experience of the guages.18 he sayings in La cantatrice chauve week—namely, some days seeming like rep- are not clichés; they are loci communes, or etitions of the previous day. hroughout the commonplaces, in the tradition of received play, the clock strikes numbers that are difer- wisdom transmitted from one language to ent from the actual time or strikes numbers another. Only at the end of “La tragédie du out of sequence: first, seven o’clock, then— langage” does Ionesco discuss what critics moments later—five o’clock. A language commonly focus on: that while he wrote it, learner almost always encounters this notion the play was turned upside down, and his in- of nonlinear time in a typical textbook re- telligent characters began to speak incoher- production of diferent images of clocks that ently, as ighting broke out among them. He students are meant to read aloud (Candrea realized he was not writing didactic theater 101–02). Again, nonlinear time is not absurd but something else, “la tragédie du langage.” but rather a representation of how time does It is only at this point, at the end of the essay, not seem to move regularly, especially during that he realizes that the breakdown of “di- a boring conversation or at an uncomfortable dactic theater”—a result of conformism, or dinner party. Another common textbook loss of individuality and interior life—leads theme, travel by train (220–24), becomes a re- to empty language. Words and speech attain lection on marriage. In La cantatrice chauve, meaning as they move from one language to Mr. and Mrs. Martin reason backward that another. So too in the play, meanings found they do in fact know each other from the in translated adages of discovery—not cli- train but also from their marriage and bed- chés—break down only ater cross- linguistic room (scene 4). Instead of highlighting the truths collapse. absurd here, Ionesco shows how a married Yet traces of the violence of multilingual- couple can no longer recognize each other, ism from the war years remain in La canta- or how a couple can live together for years trice chauve. Reading the Romanian version and not truly know each other. he banality draws out the incipient violence of the French 133.2 ] Julia Elsky 359 version, in which the meal never arrives and distancing himself from the wartime Roma- in which a ireman comes in hope of inding nian roots of the play. In the postwar version, a ire, since business has been slow. he play now written in the victors’ languages, he can loops back to the beginning and starts again openly criticize the same violence in language in an endless cycle, this time with the Martins that he depicted with discomfort and ambiva- in place of the Smiths in the opening scene. lence in the Romanian version. he ending is oten directed as escalating into Perhaps the most obvious trace of po- shouts and anger (La cantatrice chauve [Ba- litical violence in the French play is the tar- taille]; La cantatrice chauve [Lagarce]). But the get language of the textbooks Ionesco used: violence on display is not about the ferocity of English. In 1950, learning the language of conformity; rather, it is a trace of the linguis- Great Britain—one of the Allied victors, now tic politics of the Second World War. In the France’s ally—fell in line with the postwar Romanian version, the political ending that order. But in Vichy France in the 1940s, En- links the theater to national values clariies glish was the language of the enemy. Ionesco the surprising moment in the French version worked in a France where language learning when the ireighter explains that only some was a site of war. His propaganda work and people in En gland have the right to have their the presence of nonnative people on French ires put out: the neighbor Durand “n’est pas soil contributed to this war. Listening to Brit- Anglais. Il est naturalisé seulement. Les natu- ish radio was an action punishable by forced ralisés ont le droit d’avoir des maisons mais labor or capital punishment. Also, under pas celui de les faire éteindre si elles brûlent” Nazi occupation, the number of French stu- (“is not English. He’s only naturalized. Natu- dents taking German language classes sky- ralized people have the right to own houses rocketed (Wieviorka 23; Burrin 300–05). By but not to have them extinguished if they are choosing to use English, the language of the burning”; Ionesco, La cantatrice chauve 30). enemy, as the target language referred to in his seemingly out-of- place mention of citi- the play, Ionesco writes the play in languages zenship may refer back to the origins of the made mutually hostile by the circumstances play and Vichy France, where a lower level of of war. his approach is consistent with the rights and, eventually, the dissolution of even way he worked as a member of the Roma- those rights for the recently naturalized were nian delegation, whose policies set languages major topics. In the French play, the French against each other. During the war, Ionesco character, Durand, who has a common French used language manuals in Englezește fără pro- name, is the foreigner. Ionesco reminds us fesor to point to how national governments we have been in a double-language situa- use language to deine the borders of inclu- tion; we have been hearing English spoken in sion and exclusion, of ally and enemy. As a French. Even someone who seems as though Romanian civil servant in Vichy France, he he should belong, a Frenchman in a play moved between languages, layering one on mostly in French, is linguistically displaced top of the other, at a time when foreign lan- as the characters ventriloquize an En glish guages were politically charged. His critical point of view. his moment hints at the inher- attitude toward ethnocentrism and the dom- ent nationalism in language, the same kind inance of some languages over others can of language Ionesco questioned in the end- help us understand the multilingual aspects ing of Englezește fără profesor. In the French, of the French play, the untranslated English postwar version, he plays with cross- linguistic phrases, as well as the translated portions devices that reach back to incipient national of the play’s Romanian-En glish and French- violence in language only to negate it, further English textbooks. 360 Rethinking Ionesco’s Absurd [ PMLA

The wartime Romanian play’s origins [passably] [with diiculty]”). he French of­ in linguistic conlict leave their mark on La icial who illed out this paperwork selected cantatrice chauve despite Ionesco’s efforts the option “correctement” (“well”) for his to remove it. he French play does not pre­ language level. He did not assess Ionesco as sent clichés and sounds as a sign of conform­ a fluent speaker (one who speaks “couram­ ist language; rather, it deals with discovery ment” [“luently”]). At this point in his career, through translation and linguistic exchange, Ionesco was well on his way to becoming an as well as the oten chaotic struggle to com­ important French author, and yet a minor municate, a struggle in which interlingual bureaucrat considered his French to be infe­ exchange can, but is not destined to, collapse. rior to that of a native speaker. his amazing On stage we ind the constructive politics of statement only further demonstrates that in communication across languages. By reading his ability to move between languages—in his the French play in historical, archival, and acquisition of a language that opened up the multilingual contexts, we can form a new possibilities of personal expression—he could understanding of it. In this reading, the play not escape the state’s purview. he irony of revolves around the possibilities of communi­ his life is that despite his literary success, he cation through language acquisition and the still struggled to fulill the possibility of in­ way political regimes can manipulate the very terlingual exchange. building blocks of language.

Echoes of the “apprentissage,” “désap­ prentissage,” and “réapprentissage” from NOTES Ionesco’s dual­ language youth continued into the postwar years, as Ionesco discov­ For their help and support I would like to thank Alice ered that in his life language acquisition was Kaplan, Ari Friedlander, Catherine Clark, Vlad Dima, linked to control by the state. When he was and Eli ana Văgălău, as well as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the VolkswagenStitung, and the Freiburg in the process of applying for French nation­ Institute for Advanced Studies. ality in the 1950s, he was already known in 1. Translations of French and Romanian throughout France as a French playwright. But a form in the article are my own, unless otherwise indicated. Al­ his naturalization file entitled “Procès ver­ though the titles of the play and textbook difer (Englezește bal d’assimilation” (“Statement of Assimi­ means “in English”), they are translated in the same way. he critics who have discussed the Romanian play are Si­ lation”) demonstrates that one of the main mion, Călinescu, and Hamdan. Impey laments: “much of categories in this assessment of his assimila­ the criticism devoted to Eugène Ionesco’s theater utterly tion to France was his language level: “nous disregards the irst drat of he Bald Soprano, which we avons constaté dans la mesure où nos moy­ now know was written in Romania in the thirties” (xiii). I have not found any proof that a version earlier than the ens d’investigations nous l’ont permis, qu’il one from 1943 exists. Few scholars address the Romanian est (parfaitement) (bien) (assez bien) (peu) version at length, aside from dating the French play to assimilé par ses mœurs, son état d’esprit, ses 1948 on the basis of a previous Romanian version, oten sentiments et qu’il parle (couramment) (cor­ undated (Jacquart, “Chronologie” lxxix and “Notice” 1461; Le Gall 265; Petreu 106; Plazy 59–60). Hamdan writes that rectement) (passablement) (diicilement) la Ionesco began the play in Romanian in 1948 (144). Neither langue française” (“we have observed insofar Chafee nor Lane mentions the Romanian version. Bogdan as our means of investigations have allowed holds that Ionesco laid the foundations of the play during us, that he is [perfectly] [well­] [rather well] the war but does not specify the language and says it is im­ [little] assimilated in terms of his customs, possible to establish the exact circumstances of the play’s origins (163). Vida mentions the Romanian version as an mind­set, and sentiments and that he speaks “Ur­Cantatrice” but does not analyze it and assumes that it the French language [fluently] [correctly] too was based on the Assimil method. Vida deals not with 133.2 ] Julia Elsky 361 the original wartime play but with the fascinating question guists have used for a number of textbooks. A textbook of how to translate La cantatrice chauve into Romanian. with a similar title was irst published by Levițchi and 2. Simion discusses the original Romanian version in Duțescu in the 1950s, too late for Ionesco to have used terms of the meaninglessness of language (317–38). Like it. In addition, J. F. Magnasco published a textbook in Hamdan, he anchors Ionesco’s theater of the absurd in 1912 whose title includes the expression fără profesor. As the tradition of the Romanian avant- garde writers Ion I have not located copies from the 1930s and 1940s, I do Luca Caragiale and Urmuz. not rely on the content of the exercises, but instead I re- 3. My approach builds on important research by fer to the overall pedagogical philosophy of Levițchi and Laignel- Lavastine, Petreu, Simion, and Stan. Duțescu as well as of textbooks of Ionesco’s time, as il- 4. His exit visa was issued on 4 June 1940 (“Demande” lustrated by examples from Candrea; Mateiu; and Ghetu. [1940]). 14. Later editions of the Fară profesor textbooks that are 5. For a discussion of Antonescu’s policies and rise to available include similar charts, indicating that phonetics power, see Deletant; Haynes. exercises are part of the method (Levițchi and Duțescu 26). 15. Présent passé (1968) contains excerpts of Ionesco’s 6. Jacquart writes in the preface to the Pléiade edi- diaries from the 1940s. tion of Ionesco’s plays that Ionesco took refuge in the free zone in Marseille in 1942 and did translations for the Ro- 16. Spiridon has studied how starting from the 1848 manian delegation from time to time (“Préface” xxxix). revolutions in Moldavia, Walachia, and Transylvania In “Chronologie” Jacquart states more speciically that against Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian rule, Romanian Ionesco joined the delegation, although Jacquart implies intellectuals structured identity discourse through borders, it was for inancial reasons and ater Ionesco’s arrival in and especially symbolic spatial perimeters like the Danube. Marseille (lxxix). Lane simply states that Ionesco “spent 17. Note that the names of the cities are given in Roma- the years 1942–44 in Marseille before settling in Paris in nian in the original text but that the accents are missing. 1945” (3). Lamont writes in her chronology of Ionesco’s 18. According to Crane, the practice of compiling the life, “1942: The Ionescos move to Marseille. They are commonplace book “created for En glish humanists a cen- poor refugees” (266). Esslin makes only one comment on tral transaction with antiquity” and a means to “frame” Ionesco’s wartime activities: “At the outbreak of war Io- discourse. Commonplace books did not just contain imi- nesco was at Marseille. Later he returned to Paris” (he- tations or mnemonic devices but also created a space in atre 136). Călinescu writes that Ionesco took a purely which intellectuals and students fashioned and interacted cultural position without compromising himself politi- with authorial voices (3). Miller treats commonplaces as cally or intellectually and argues that his post was even a “textual memory” and the books in which they were writ- form of legitimate self- defense (90). Hubert dedicates one ten down as “a graphic site of participatory policy making sentence to Ionesco’s return to France in 1942, without through cultural continuities and social inventions” (6). specifying what the playwright did during the war (36). Hamdan writes that Ionesco settled in Paris in 1938 but does not mention his wartime activities (12). WORKS CITED 7. For a discussion of Antonescu’s politics, see Stan 442, 484. Bennett, Michael Y. Reassessing the heatre of the Absurd: 8. I am using Gienow- Hecht and Donfried’s deini- Ca mus, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, and Pinter. Palgrave tion of cultural diplomacy (13). Macmillan, 2011. 9. Ionesco published Voronca’s translations under the Bogdan, Ghita. Eugène Ionesco: Un chemin entre deux pseudonym Edouard Vallat (Ionescu, Report 1289). He langues, deux littératures. L’Harmattan, 2011. indicates in a letter to Vianu that Vallat was Voronca’s Burrin, Philippe. La France à l’heure allemande, 1940– pseudonym (Letter). 1944. 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