Linguistic Communication

THE CRISIS OF THE PROFANE AND THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE SACRED IN ROMANIAN INTERWAR LITERATURE

Mina-Maria RUSU1

1. Assoc. Prof., PhD, Dept. of Communication, Public Relations and Journalism, “Apollonia” University of Ia[i Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract technique which, in the opinion of the The fascination of the sacred is a feeling generated in philosopher, “enslaved the human soul” up to the interwar , a picture of the world assimilation and desensitization. transfigured ground war after an Eden peace nostalgic In 1927, Keyserling proposes a solution for era. A historical context perplexing for the human being saving the cultural decline of the West, by has caused a return to the sacred, seeking balance and harmony, the metaphor, as a reflection of artistic establishing “ecumenical culture”, possible only cognition and that instead of reconfiguring the ruined when “humanity will become religious”1. The world. new art was meant to be the expression of the Poetry wars build a literary space and limit the no essence of human life, by imposing a new limited converge at the point where the tragic sense of human existence in the sacred refuge. End facets biblical Renaissance type human ideal. The philosopher symbols, oscillating between the sacred and the poetic proposed a reevaluation of the oriental type of canon and build a coveted mundane world, modeled on life, tributary to the archetype, and a the original. Thus, people are nostalgic return to origins, to the archetypal culture, redefining their existence by reconciliation between the east and the west; reference to the divine pattern, the same type exercises Speaking of Romanians, which he considered integrated into European culture. rather of Byzantine origin spiritually, the philosopher believed that “their European mission will be to rise the Byzantine to new life”2. In the first decades of last century, social The Russian orthodox Nikolai Berdyaev has events have made way; in the European culture, the same obsession with the destructive effect of to new research directions aimed at finding technological life has which will reduce the size saving solutions for the spiritual and cultural of spiritual civilization, its religious component. components of the crisis. Consciousness is In his A New Middle Ages, the philosopher held obsessively haunted by the feeling of decline; that “the car destroyed the entire secular Nietzsche observed the twilight of Gods, while structure of human life, organically linked to the Spengler forecasts an apocalypse of culture, as a life of nature (...) the culture nourished with result of the adverse effects of industrial sacred symbols dies”3. There is but one solution civilization. The latter’s book, written in 1914, proposed to rescue culture: returning to God. draws attention to the cause of all Western The stigmatization of modern civilization decadence – atrophy of spiritual creation, receives a reply from the neothomists, to favored induced by the material one. With fury, Spengler a restoration of the medieval thomistic era, and notes the nefarious value of rationalism for the propose “a return to the originating source of collapse of culture, embracing Nietzsche’s wisdom, after several centuries of metaphysical conception on its faustic and apollinic aspects. error”4, without the model of eastern spirituality, In Spengler’s view, the faustic characterizes but by itself. This theory is supported by Henri the West, while initially represented the relation Massis in Defense de l’Occident, welcomed in between equilibrium and irrationality, which Romanian cultural circles of the time, but ousted itself when “the faustic man became a rejected by who could not accept slave of his work”, considered expressions of blaming the East. civilization. Therefore, the rebellion against By participating in the First World War,

International Journal of Communication Research 41 Mina-Maria RUSU

Romanians have gained a sense of European modernists or the traditionalists. It seems that integration, which will prove fertile ground for only in the case of Arghezi did Lovinescu find resizing the personality of the Romanian culture. satisfactory solution; the poetry of the quoted The European crisis had assimilated us poet is interpreted as a “synthesis of traditional favorably and the fruits did not fail to show. The and modernist poetry.” sense of fear and the image of a flimsy world, in In his Istoria literaturii…, C\linescu defines the dissolution and of a provisional nature, imply a interweaving of tradition and modernity by moral crisis, favorable to meditation and enhancing the essential features of some examination of the spiritual abyss, always significant moments in the evolution of marked by “nostalgia for origins”. Firmly Romanian literature after 1900. The beginning of anchored in this European atmosphere, the the century is placed under the sign of “new Romanian spiritual environment is conductive messianic” and “ethnic background”, the ideas to shaping two cultural orientations; one toward promoted in Sem\n\torul. In 1906, a new preserving tradition, another to promoting magazine, Via]a româneasc\, puts forward the modernity. idea of the national specific. Under the auspices of philosophy, begin the Ibr\ileanu suggests that Eminescu could be searches of cultural rediscovery by means of model support for the idea of assimilating reviving the archetype, in order to reassess the cultural universal values. Concomitantly, Via]a current size of that troubled history, not nou\ proposes a modern variant in orientating favorable for the evolution of human society. In the literary creation by the “French influence” 1926, publishes in Cuvântul the and practicing . In C\linescu’s article Mystical Soul, declaring himself a staunch opinion, “traditionalists are almost all former opponent of rationalism: “a poor and myopic symbolists and, therefore indirectly, Baudelaire- desacralization of the sky ... and the ans, preserving the habit of embracing the humanization of God...”5. The need for a moral universe”8. By Sbur\torul, and the theory of the refuge in a sheltering space, away from the synchronism, promoted by Lovinescu the critic, spasms of history, with a horizon devoid of the becomes a robust presence and an feeling of crash appears quite naturally. In the alternative to traditionalism in Romanian sphere of culture, this new universe takes on two Literature, but only after l919. In reaction to the dimensions, which, though antithetical, are excess of Europeanization that risked an atrophy complementary. They are tradition and of the autochtonous spirit, there appears, rather modernity. feebly, moment of 1920, when poetry of paternity was written. Revigorated traditionalism will The originality of the renewal. manifest itself first in 1923, by nationalizing the Traditionalism and Modernity symbol; in 1926, distinct lyrical voices cultivate a side of traditionalism, through mystical In one of his studies, Z. Ornea notes that iconography and the doctrine of miracle. “modernity does not exclude, but presupposes There follows the 1928 moment with tradition, and traditionalism – in poetry for unprecedented schools of poetry, which offer not example – is perfectly reconciliated with the only a thematic renewal, but also one of modernity of expression”6. The literary historian expression: Dadaism, Surealism, Hermetism, notes that traditionalistic poetry accents, by their which have not reached the high value of aspects in consonance with the suggestions Arghezi, Blaga, Barbu, Pillat and others who created by the works of Rilke, Francis Jammes, have confirmed what C\linescu consider crucial Trakl, are related to modernity. In discussing in our national specifics: “Romanians, being, first of all humans so generic, they are nationalist, Lovinescu’s terms of modernism and 9 synchronicity, Dumitru Micu7 complains of lack fatalistic, mystical, rationalist and all others” . of rigor in assimilating the poets with the More reticent Pompiliu Constantinescu thinks

42 volume 1 • issue 1 January / March 2011 • p. 41-49 THE CRISIS OF THE PROFANE AND THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE SACRED IN ROMANIAN INTERWAR LITERATURE that “alongside what was called modernism has the necessary corrections, speaking first about developed an indigenous lyricsm.”10 the “divine reason which goes down”, with Therefore an explanation of the terms is “peasant altar characters, desecrated and necessary, which Z. Ornea accomplishes, we anthropomorphic” found in the poetry of believe, quite convincingly and well-grounded. Arghezi, Blaga, Voiculescu, Pillat and Crainic. The author distinguishes between modernity With other poets appear such as naming Aron and modernism, considering the use of the Cotrus, Stfean Baciu, Ovid Caledoniu, Const. former more adequate for the literature of the Tonegaru and others the “ monumental period in question. He defines modernity as “a figurative in the spirit of folk arguments”14 . Ov. state of affairs signifying the necessary effort of Crohmaliceanu suggests a genuine integration an ideatic and expressive renewal”, “while of poets in the creative hands of the time, modernism is artificial and betrays the intention considering the dominant feature in each work of founding a trend or an orientation”.11 essential and accepting interferences. Traditionalists offer the thematic universe a According to Lovinescu, Crohmaliceanu privileged place, cultivating “unaltered assigns a privileged space to Arghezi, aboriginalization circumscribed to homeland integrating his poetic creation in the sphere of landscape, ancestral solidarity with the village the miracle, as original synthesis between of childhood, idealized in terms of time turned traditionalism and modernity. Next, there come into an ideal frame and norm of life, worshiping the chthonic poets Ion Pillat, Adrain Maniu, ancestors history religious feelings, folklore and Dimitrie Ciurezu than the Blaga phenomenon, ethnicity, repudiation of urban civilization.”12 as an expression of the “cosmic feeling and of The same literary historian discovers in our the metaphysical thrill” the “ lyric of religious poetry themes consonant with the great sensitivity brings together Voiculescu, Crainic, European poetry, testimony of traditionalistic Stefan Nenitescu, Sandu Tudor, and modernity. A clear line in the profile of this type A. Dominic. of poetry remains the religious sentiment In the full dimension of modernity there whether manifested in the symbolic, orthodox appear the avangardists poets Vinea, Fundoianu canon, or creating own value system with an and the “pure poetry” of Barbu15 included. In irrational tendency, shifting the emphasis of the order to clarify the position of the poets in symbol from dogma to open metaphor. G. question it is necessary to study the periodicals C\linescu includes Nechifor Crainic, Lucian of the time and the relationships with their Blaga, , Paul Sterian, Sandu ideology. Being in a continuous confrontation of Tudor, Stephen I. Neni]escu and Const. Goran opinions, they make different contradictory among the orthodox. Constantin Ciopraga suggestions lay out original directions, all with clarifies the status of these poets and suggests a the same goal: that redimensioning the reassessment of their works in relation to sacred personality of Romanian post-Eminescian poetry and sacred institutes. In Amfiteatrul cu literature. Following the chronology of the poe]i, the literary critic from Ia[i grasps the publications, we find out that the departure from “balancing between a sacred of Byzantine fresco, the Eminescian model is progressive and visibly anecdotal, mythological and staunchness that marked by the historical events at the beginning borders on inflexibility, a dynamic, passionate, of that century. intensely – claiming ”13 flow, that rearranges On 2nd December 1901, the publication of Calinescu’s hierarchy. Of course Crainic does Sem\n\torul, under Eminescian effigy, suggests not rise up, as a poet to Blaga or Voiculescu. His the revival of the „national spirit”, by theological theories do not serve the proposed revaluating tradition and rural world, în respons poetic text and do not give brilliant dimensions to the „sick city”16 of the beginning century. The to the level of the institutionalized sacred. illuminist inclination of the journal emphasizes Another hierarchy is required. In this respect, also “the national problem”; writers are urged to

International Journal of Communication Research 43 Mina-Maria RUSU create an active literature, in resonance with “the text: most profound devoutness to our glorious past”, O! D\-mi putere s\ scufund “enthusiast love for the homeland”, for the O lume vag\, lâncezând\, “beauties of this country”, for “the good and the {i s\ ]â[neasc\-apoi, din fund, elevation of the Romanian nation”. The “virtues O alta, limpede [i blând\. of the ancestors”, “the ancestral traditions”, are also mentioned.17 when Iorga became chief- Oh! Give me force to sink editor of the journal in 1905, he makes it a more A vague world lying lazily around, incisive concerning the symbolist renewals. And then, from beneath at there spring Iorga prefers a literature which “affirms the soul Another one, clear and gentle of a nation in forms corresponding to the culture of the time”.18 In 1911 the pro-symbolist magazine Versuri “Lyrical neoromantism, past-ridden and will be published. În its pages their works sentimental, the s\m\n\torism is less of a Arghezi, Pillat, Maniu, Fundoianu and Bacovia doctrine but rather a state of mind, materialized will publish. A mentor of the magazine declared in some tendencies, making the apology of the that symbolism is “the religions of the beautiful peasant, of nature and of the past, its main spread over the freedom seek emotion wherever directions of action”19 concludes Constantin the human soul can penetrate”.21 In the same Ciopraga. The effects of the retrograde direction the magazine directed by traditionalism, but also those of the progressive and comes to life; the minded traditionalism will be felt later in the reaction of rejection from the journal Via]a ideology of Gândire, which has promoted the româneasc\ is radical, while other journals confinement in conventions, the rejection of and eulogize it. has tried a thematic limitation of creation. The Via]a nou\ magazine founded by Ov. Respecting the tradition, but adopting a more Densusianu, promotes an intellective, urban conciliatory attitude towards renewal, Via]a poetry, with modern tendencies in answer to româneasc\ is according to Sadoveanu, “the first “the peasant like exclusivism of those from European magazine in our country”20. Even if Sem\n\torul”.22 The sterile character of the the campaigns of Ibr\ileanu against symbolism limited traditionalistic themes is evident; are memorable. The moderate spirit of the critic younger generations, stimulated by contact with in taking attitude is remarkable. This is why, in the European symbolism, propose the the magazine, translations from Schiller, Gogol, “transformation of poetry”, aspiring to “a more Zola, Anatole France can be found alongside fluid language, of a more pregnant mobility, able original works of great Romanian writers who to translate by metaphor and symbol, the subtle proved to be in possession of authentic talent – relations to the universe.”23 the only criterion of recruiting members for Via]a Ov. Densusuianu resorts to examples from româneasc\. The fascination of the voyage into the literature of other countries be more the abyss of consciousness is a constant trait of persuasive about the necessity of renewal. In the moderns who understand the broadening of Via]a nou\ translations from George Rainer, horizons by keeping in touch with philosophical Maria Rilke and critical reflections about Claudel trends of the time. On the literary stage there or Mallamé, Valéry or Appolinaire will be appear now poets like , ªtefan published. Actually, the magazine will continue Petic\, Ion Minulescu, . along the path opened by Macedonski’s Several magazines of the time loudly plead in Literatorul, but, with all the efforts of its mentor, favor of the renewal of expression and of themes; it did not impose itself as expected. Regardless the significance of literature seems to find its of this pale allure of the doctrine, symbolism place. Via]a social\ cites the well-known Rug\ de imposed itself through its important poets sear\, written by Arghezi, as a programmatic Bacovia and Minulescu.

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The symbolistic poets felt “damned” by the on the levels of reality creating some symbolic impossibility to adapt themselves to reality, an correspondence between macrocosmos (the their poetry was a confession of contradictory universe) and microcosmos (the human body). states. The symbol becomes a vehicle of Taking Indian cosmologic theories as guide transcending the pure space and nature itself, mark Mircea Eliade finds that the human has with woods of symbols, is converted into taken shape constituted as a mystical map with spiritual states. In the Romanian spiritual space certain centers, and ascertains that “objects do European symbolism is perfectly adapted. not have a pragmatic value anymore, but a Shifting environment induces an adaptation meaning of magical origin”.25 Thus the human crisis which fails in misery, phthisis and death. appears to be guided by sacred laws, which have Taking refuge in reverie is immediately been turned into rituals, due to the endeavor not forbidden by Bacovian lead wings. While to alter them. Among the defining elements of traditionalists get submerged in rural the Romanian ethos, community, in archetype, the symbolistic poets distinguishes the explanation of cosmic life are tempted by urban diseased spaces: through the human, center for universal devastated parks, rooms smelling of phthisis air harmony, image of the Creator, for which the and a played requiem on the piano. Our poets law26 represents the organic mechanism of the cultivated either a conventional symbolism, cosmos. We witness the conversion of the strictly decorative or a profound one, of profane into the sacred, by mediation of the initiation in the spiritual abyss. metaphor. In the profane, the scared manifests itself In the conception of Group µ, this is a figure through the meditation of symbols – as open of the content included among meta-semmes, realities – or by activating certain mundane because between the terms of the metaphor there realities. In the act of interpretation symbols are is an interaction in praesentia, based on semantic inexhaustible in connotation and admit of but a similarities. Starting from this modern vision, we relative schematizing deciphering of meanings find that the symbolism of the text has a must be the result of a particular state of the paradoxical behavior; it veils secrecy, while human comparable to that of revelation. This revealing it. For this reason, hermeneutical way the sphere of the transconsciousness, where approaches give different and infinite solutions, every religious experience is produced is supported by the angle that the incidence of the activated. subject to be analyzed falls under and no Eluding the dogmatic sense of religion, Eliade interpretation can be exhaustive, confirming the ascertains that the human can be but religious, open character of the symbol. Any analytical meaning of state piety towards unrevealed approach acts as initiation activity in the mystery. His religious experience is one that infrastructure of the text, where morphological allows for entering the dialectics of the and functional analogies are created between the hierophany converted into kratophany and it sacred and the profane. designates the symbolic dimension of human Religious texts are characterized by dogmatic rationality. Perceiving reality, the human resorts symbolism, imposed by the conservative rigors unwittingly or consciously to metaphor, some of tradition. A systematization of symbols that morpho-functional support of the symbol. express analogies appertaining institutionalized In classical rhetoric, metaphor was sacred had been proposed.27 Due to their cultic manifested by substitution of terms, leading to function, complementary to the artistic one, the the theory of correspondence. The world itself – symbolistic cannot be freed from the dogma. We in Eliade’s opinion - Is the product of some will encounter these symbols not only in biblical magical law of correspondence, based on the texts, but also in orthodox poetry, in an attempt “similitude between Sky and Earth”24. A magical to reveal the sacred side of the transcendent, the force from the sidereal sphere imposes its action artistic fulfillment of the Creator as an archetype

International Journal of Communication Research 45 Mina-Maria RUSU of goodness, of wisdom and of beauty. Deviation He observes that in traditional societies, “for from the rules that define the status of the man, water, fire and air were the primordial institutionalized sacred inevitably leads to things, true noumenal forces”29 Issued from old falsification of meaning; therefore the paradigm interference with biblical meanings, other of such symbols is finite. symbols are born, distributed by correspondence Things are not the same regarding sacred in all reigns, “the Lilly swings between the symbols cultivated by poets that do not serve angelic and the demonic” and the angel is “a dogma because, by creating unusual creature that belongs to the superior kingdom of correspondences and by defying the norm, celestial spirits”, its connotations within human originally, as a defying dimension for a creative sphere leads towards the seraphic serenity of personality, is obtained. The power of the Living Being. metaphor transforms reality into kratofanie, The sacralization of the natural in symbols is leading referents from similitude to semic attained only when the symbol stands for similarity. The strength of the metaphor derives something else, gets out of itself, exceeds the from “our inner experience of the world” natural and reveals itself as hierophany. Between subjected to intensification by “emotional symbol and hierophany, Eliade finds a close processes”; the open character of metaphor is relationship leading to the identification of the given by “textual strategy” in which the two concepts. He wrote in the Treatise on the metaphorical text is subject to a metaphorical History of Religious that the symbol’s role is to interpretation, function of who performs it. express the constant solidarity of the human The reader discerns the connotation of the with the sacred. metaphors regarding one’s own system of For example, the rich symbolism of the ladder reference, whose fundamental co-ordinates are is built on the idea of change in the ontology of culture and sensibility; decoding the message, human being. Starting from the fundamental, the literary value and the connotative value if biblical image, an outcome of religious the metaphor established is set up at first and traditions, the ladder stands for both ascent to only after elucidating the meanings is the same spiritual reality, whose meaning is reference context explored, till it reaches deification, and the passing from a profane intertextuality. Exploring the intertext results in existence to a superior state, as “celestial ascent” opening metaphors by interfaces that characteristic of initiation myths. “determine two systems of ideas to interact”; Studying its extremely rich symbolism, what Umberto Eco calls “The metaphor of other Mircea Eliade concludes that “it suggestively metaphors” 28 is secured. embodies the level breach which renders With a system of the symbolistics of switching from one mode of existence to institutionalized sacred as reference, by studying another”30 possible. As a means of intertextuality, interpreters suggest a relative communication between Heaven, Earth and and open schematism of metaphor in fiction; Hell, the symbol of the ladder activates its the poetical discourse, as Roman Jakobson functional side, while the morphological side, a ascertains, is marked by ambiguity and substitute for the cosmic tree, the axis of the selfreflexivness. At the level of symbol, the world, relating two virtual spaces – the one connotations proliferate moving step by step above (of the sacred) with the one below (of the away from the initial meaning, slipping willfully profane) – always evoking the center of the world to a labyrintic journey that maintains the force of in which it must find itself, in order to make all the language ad infinitum. its symbolic valences manifest. The impossibility To specify the values of the significant, or forbidness of access to the sacred would mean C\linescu suggests, in his work Universul poeziei, a collapse of the ladder and is restraining of the investing the significant with an I that suggests human being regarding living life in the horizon the universal spirit, the cosmical soul. of the tragic.

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In Rene Gueon’s hermeneutic research, the inserted into the profane, are sanctioned places Center of the world appears in the Earthly where evil is annulled. Paradise, which is the Holy Land of every By extending these connotations, this area traditional society. Any trip through out this area involves collaboration with a sacred time, has an initiatic meaning, aiming at the discovery interceding the eternal return to origins, and of the place where the insertion of the sacred experiencing an initiation that confirms human into the profane occurs. As a proof, the author desire “to find oneself exactly in the heart of the reveals many names, all having the idea of real”.32 Leaving the house could stand for sacred center: “immaculate earth”, “Land of uprooting and every return is testimony for the Saints”, “Land of the Blessed”, “Land of the inability of the human being to live outside a Living”, “Land of the Immortality”. sacred space. It is natural that the departure and These generic names are universally return find their origins in the symbols of encountered and are applied to “a spiritual theology that evoke Adamic nostalgia for the center whose location in a region” (…) which originary space “the one before the fall”.33 when constitutes the “Heart of the World”, relates the center of the world has the house, the native itself to the presence of divinity and therefore to village, the century as correspondence, the the idea of immortality. This “earthly paradise” return of the man takes on the significance of is build on the model of the Heavenly Paradise regaining the divine condition. Besides this and behaves like its true projection in the status, man is a dilemmatic consciousness, profane world by means of axismundi wandering about a labyrinth that leads to Several segments of the profane get sacred nothingness. valence: the city, the state, the house but also the The space-time symbolism gains consistency mountain and the cave. Access to this perimeter by attaching the metaphor –time to it. Life, as a requires the crossing of a labyrinth, of an segment of being, has as correspondence, at the initiating road. This way we discover, with the symbolic level, the road that Umberto Eco calls help of Rene Guenon, the primordial tradition “process consisting in spatial translation”34 and its particular manifestation in the tradition From a theological perspective, the road is “a of different nations. The interpreter draws the journey through the inner space of the heart (…). conclusion: “in other words, there is a Holy Land A journey outside time, into eternity”35 and is par excellence, the prototype and the spiritual the product of the relationship between center to which everything else is submitted , cataphatic knowledge and apophatic knowledge. house for primordial tradition, from which all From a poetic perspective, crossing a road means specific traditions derive by adaptation to certain gradual initiation into a space, found or not conditions, like those offered by a nation or an under temporal incidence. The symbolism of the era.”31 road means gradual initiation into a space, found World Center would be, in Eliade’s opinion or not under temporal incidence. The symbolism the privileged space in to which the insertion of of the road means gradual initiation into a space, the sacred and profane takes place. This way the found or not under temporal incidence. The origin is evoked, the cosmogonic myth which symbolism of the road leads to the Orphic myth, creates the model of microcosm and macrocosm where the initiation can culminate in descensus metaphorically reduced to a imago mundi. By its ad inferos. connotations, the Center – pre-exiting or build – The rich symbolism of water is based on the engages man in the process of creations, making religious value instituted by Christianity; the him capable to sacralize segments of the profane. stereological effect of water reactivates the Thus, the house itself becomes a sacred space by moment of Genesis, by acquiring the sacred regarding it the corner of the world; the power of the Holy Spirit. Baptism preserves the courtyard, the village, the surroundings, mystery of the birth of the new man out of the grouped around a point where the sacred is old man; immersion and emersion have the

International Journal of Communication Research 47 Mina-Maria RUSU symbolic meaning of death and rebirth, giving wandering in the maze or cloistered within the the subject of the ritual act the change to space of a room, allotting the human romantic resemble God. The earth itself becomes one after meanings. Through reverie, physical altitude the flood, while keeping the deadly effect of that allows perception of the sacred in the waters which only one man escaped, the profane can be reached. mythical ancestor of the new world created. The Recreating the archetypal horizons through cult of nature, the river, symbol of the water, is the metaphor resulting from dreaminess, something alive, having the quality of flowing, confirms the power of the dreamy person and, translated by the movement, life. It is a kind of according to Gaston Bachelard, it reveals the one-way road which dies not permit return. oniric personality of objects, perceived through Therefore a richly symbolic universe, keeper correspondence system between the of a dual structure was created around the subconscious world and reality. As a bivalent symbol of the river; travel companion and friend diurnal star, the Sun is the symbol of evil (by of man, it can activate its evil side, destructive association with the destructive power of fire), and longing for sacrifice. In various religions, but also of blessing and fertility. the river is the boundary between the world of The few examples that we have given show the living and that of the dead. Arising from the that symbolic languages has both a religious and paradigm of water symbol, the mirror (the an aesthetic function. In the sphere of the poetry, surface of water) with holds the image and the proliferation of meanings goes beyond the therefore has the power to retain the soul of the border of tradition and reveals an unconscious reflected. Extending the symbolic connotations inner reality, reactivated in symbols that require of the mirror we find, by analogy, the eye; while insights and render infinite analogical meanings, its symbolic value is usually linked to the manifested in the Romanian interwar poetry by institutionalized sacred, through “considerable figurative-stylistic diversity, by correspondence theory, it can become a mirror means of immersion in the mystery and abyss, in which one can see the captive soul. and implicitly by its ability to produce mythic Another symbol – the serpent in the Biblical logics”38. myth – by God’s curse, is seen as some incarnation of Satan. Durand Gilbert discovered References its correspondence with “lunar and female constellation”, which provides power to hold the 1. C\linescu G., Universul poeziei, Ed. Minerva, secrets of life – through fecundity – but also those Bucuresti, 1973 of death. By its appearance of cosmic monster36, 2. C\linescu G., Istoria literaturii române de la origini pân\ the mythical serpent has often time’s oracular în prezent, Ed. Minerva, Bucuresti, 1982 powers and manifests itself as protector of the 3. Ciopraga Constantin, Literatura român\ între 1900- house. 1918, Ed. Junimea, Iasi, 1970 4. Ciopraga Constantin, Amfiteatru cu poe]i, Ed. In the symbolism of stars in the sky, Mircea Junimea, Iasi, 1995 Eliade discovers “two kinds of the sacred, one 5. Constantinescu Pompiliu, Scrieri, vol. II., E.P.L., reserved for the man and one peculiar too the Bucuresti, 1967 woman”37, being complementary opposites. 6. Cordoban, Aurel ,Sacru [i ontofanie, Ed. Polirom, Ia[i, The moon is expression the cosmic of the 1998 feminine principle because through its phases it 7. Crohm\lniceanu Ov. S., Literatura român\ între cele expresses, on a symbolic level, the cycles of dou\ r\zboaie mondiale vol.II, Ed. Minerva, Bucuresti, 1974. human life and fertility, leading to the 8. Diaconescu Mihail, Prelegeri de estetica ortodoxiei II. symbolism of the light and darkness found in all Ipostazele artei, Ed. Porto-Franco, Gala]i dual religions, as well as in Manchaeism. 9. Durand Gilbert, Structurile antropologice ale Connotations of the lunar symbolism associate imaginarului, Ed. Univers, Bucure[ti, 1980. the moon with the lonely and dreamy being, 10.Eco Umberto, Limitele interpret\rii, Ed. Pontica,

48 volume 1 • issue 1 January / March 2011 • p. 41-49 THE CRISIS OF THE PROFANE AND THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE SACRED IN ROMANIAN INTERWAR LITERATURE

Colec]ia Biblioteca italian\, Constan]a, 1996 Junimea, Ia[i, 1995, p.6. 11.Eliade Mircea, Tratat de istorie a religiilor, Ed. 14 Ibidem. Humanitas, Bucuresti, 1992 15 Cf. Ov. S. Crohm\lniceanu, Literatura român\ între 12. Eliade Mircea, Alchimie babilonian\, Ed. Moldova Ia[i, cele dou\ r\zboaie mondiale vol.II, Ed. Minerva, 1994 Bucure[ti, 1974. 13.Eliade Mircea, Imagini [i simboluri, Ed. Humanitas, 16 Cf. Constantin Ciopraga, Literatura român\ între Bucuresti, 1994 1900-1918, Ed. Junimea, Ia[i, 1970, p.36. 14.Eliade Mircea, Nostalgia originilor, Ed. Humanitas, 17 Apud Constantin Ciopraga, op. cit., p.32. Bucuresti, 1994 18 , O nou\ epoc\ în Sem\n\torul, XX/18 15.Guénon René, Simboluri ale [tiin]ei sacre, Ed. mai 1903. Humanitas, Bucuresti, 1997 19 Constantin Ciopraga, op. cit., p.67. 16.Ionescu Nae, Roza vânturilor, 1937 20 Ibidem, p. 75. 17.Iorga Nicolae, O nou\ epoc\ în Sem\n\torul, XX/18 21 Apud Constantin Ciopraga, op. cit. mai 1903 22 Ibidem, p. 99. 18.Micu D., Lecturi [i p\reri, Ed. Dacia, Cluj 1978 23 Ibidem, p.133 19.Ornea, Zigu, Tradi]ionalism [i modernitate în deceniul 24 Mircea Eliade, Alchimie babilonian\, Ed. Moldova al treilea, Ed. Eminescu, Bucure[ti, 1980 Ia[i, 1994, p.36. 20.Papadima Ovidiu, O viziune româneasc\ a lumii, Ed. 25 Ibidem, p. 40. Saeculum I. O., Bucure[ti, 1995 26 Cf. Ovidiu Papadima, O viziune româneasc\ a lumii, Ed. Saeculum I. O., Bucure[ti, 1995. 27 Cf. Mihail Diaconescu, Prelegeri de estetica Endnotes ortodoxiei II. Ipostazele artei, Ed. Porto-Franco, Gala]i, 1996. 28 Cf. Umberto Eco, Limitele interpret\rii, Ed. Pontica, 1 H. Keyserling, apud Z. Ornea, Tradi]ionalism [i Colec]ia Biblioteca italian\, Constan]a, 1996, p.172. modernitate în deceniul al treilea, Ed. Eminescu, 29 G. C\linescu, Universul poeziei, Ed. Minerva, Bucure[ti, 1980., p.250. Bucure[ti, 1973, p.119. 2 Ibidem, p. 254. 30 Cf. Mircea Eliade, Imagini [i simboluri, Ed. 3 N. Berdiaev, Un nou Ev Mediu, p.25. Humanitas, Bucure[ti, 1994, p.59. 4 Z. Ornea, op. cit., p.263. 31 René Guénon, Simboluri ale [tiin]ei sacre, Ed. 5 Nae Ionescu, apud Roza vânturilor, 1937, p. 24 Humanitas, Bucure[ti, 1997, p.91. 6 Z. Ornea, op. cit., p.365. 32 Cf. Mircea Eliade, op. cit., p.59. 7 Cf. D. Micu, Lecturi [i p\reri, Ed. Dacia, Cluj 1978, 33 Cf. Mircea Eliade, Tratat de istorie a religiilor, Ed. pp.295-298. Humanitas, Bucure[ti, 1992, p.349. 8 G. C\linescu, Istoria literaturii române de la origini 34 Cf. Umberto Eco, op. cit. pân\ în prezent, Ed. Minerva, Bucure[ti, p.780. 35 Mihail Diaconescu, op. cit., p.307. 9 Ibidem, p. 973. 36 Cf. Gilbert Durand, Structurile antropologice ale 10 Pompiliu Constantinescu, Scrieri, vol. II., E.P.L., imaginarului, Ed. Univers, Bucure[ti, 1980. Bucure[ti, 1967, p.289. 37 Cf. Mircea Eliade, Nostalgia originilor, Ed. 11 Z. Ornea, op. cit., p.552. Humanitas, Bucure[ti, 1994, p.208. 12 Ibidem, p. 556. 38 Constantin Ciopraga, Amfiteatru cu poe]i, Ed. 13 Constantin Ciopraga, Amfiteatru cu poe]i, Ed. Junimea, Ia[i, 1995, p.5.

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