LITERATURE By Mircea Anghelescu, Professor of Romanian Literature in the University of Bucharest . Works of Reference and of General Interest Dicţionarul biografic al literaturii române, ed. Aurel Sasu, 2 vols, Piteşti, Paralela 45, lvii + 884, 894 pp., including 230 entries by 52 contributors, a large number of whom had also worked on the Dicţionarul scriitorilor români ed. Mircea Zaciu, Marian Papahagi, and Aurel Sasu (4 vols, 995–2002), intends only to provide biographical and bibliographical information on the writers, with a very brief general introduction and, wherever possible, a portrait accompanying each entry. The dictionary comprises very many names of more or less important writers of Romanian literature down to the present day. There are, however, some disfavoured categories from which well-known names are missing: avantgarde writers like Mihai (Marcel) Avramescu, whose better known pseudonym was Jonathan X. Uranus (92–974), Grigore Cugler (905–974), Dolfi Trost (96–965?), and various writers of the diaspora: Nelu Manzatti (905–986), Theodor Cazaban (b. 92), Constantin Amariuţei (b. 923), Lucian Bădescu, Gh. Băgulescu, Alexandrina Mititelu, Mircea Popescu, Ion Horia Rădulescu, Gheorghe Tomaziu, etc., about whom information could have been supplied by the already existing dictionaries. Also, we may note certain lapses in the bibliography of a few writers, most often of the diaspora: Paul Miron, Theodor Scorţescu, and others. Dicţionarul General al Literaturii Române, still in progress from the Romanian Academy, has reached vol. V, P-R, ed. Eugen Simion, xli + 723 pp., comprising over 800 entries on writers, translators, journals and magazines, literary trends, and concepts. It is an important accomplishment, with vast and generally well-documented articles. It is not, however, completely devoid of small inadvertencies and omissions: for example, the first mention of the word romantic in a Romanian text dates from 826, not 828, and appears in a well-known school text, Însemnare a călătoriei mele by Dinicu Golescu (Romantism entry, p. 65); the entry on preromantism completely ignores the (pre)romantic precedents at the end of the 8th century: the historical meditation of Chesarie Râmniceanu, the praise of golden-age heroes in 606 Romanian Studies Stephen the Great’s panegyric, the Miltonian scenes in Budai-Deleanu’s epic poem, etc. Emanuel Aczel, Publicaţiile periodice evreeşti din România. Dicţionar bibliografic, i (857–900), Hasefer, 243 pp., contains bibliographical entries, with historical notes, of 2 publications printed in Romania in Hebrew, Yiddish, Romanian, English, etc., between 857 and 900, and provides indexes of names, printing houses, and languages, a chronological list of Jewish journals, etc. On nationalism in literature, Presa românească şi ideea naţională, ed. Mircea Popa, Aeternitas — Alba Iulia, 434 pp., comprises a bibliography, an anthology, and studies on Romanian journalism with a nationalist character in Transylvania between 87 and 94. For the geography of literature, Cornel Ungureanu, Geografia literaturii române, azi, IV (Banatul), Piteşti, Paralela 45, 278 pp., peruses the 8th–20th-c. literary field in Banat, viewed sometimes as part of the ‘Middle-Europe’ phenomenon. On parody, D. Petroşel, ‘Ipostaze ale parodicului în literatura română’, Petroşel, Retorica, 84–279, deals with Ion Budai-Deleanu (87–09), Ion Luca Caragiale (0–44), Urmuz (45–69), Gheorghe Topârceanu (70– 97), Marin Sorescu (97–229), and Mircea Cărtărescu (229–60). 2. Old Romanian Literature Romanian Chapbooks. Alexandru Mareş, Cărţi populare din secolele al XVI-lea — al XVIII-lea, Fundaţia Naţională pentru Ştiinţă şi Artă, 340 pp., addresses (7–28) the oldest Romanian religious apocryphal texts; ‘Cărţi populare didactice şi de prevestire’ (29–24); and ‘Receptarea cărţilor populare’ (25–307). Id., ‘Trei note despre apocrifele religioase’, Ştrempel Vol., 395–43, looks for instance at the motif of identifying Hell by throwing a stone which falls down ‘until it’s as small as a mustard seed’ in 6th-c. and 7th-c. apocalypses, at the reading in church of certain fragments from apocryphal texts. C. Velculescu and I. Stănculescu, ‘Ţara preotului Ioan. Mărturii din cultura română’, ib., 804–09, deals with the old legend of ‘the country of Prester John’ and its relations with old cosmographies, folk books such as bestiaries, etc., probably common at the time of the fifth crusade in the 3th century; A. Mareş, ‘Moldova şi cărţile populare în secolele al XV-lea — al XVI-lea’, pp. 39–55 of Floarea darurilor. In memoriam Ion Gheţie, ed. V. Barbu and A. Mareş, Academiei Române, 380 pp.; F. Zgraon, ‘Tradiţia manuscrisă a Alexandriei. O redacţie prescurtată sau mai multe?’, ib., 207–24. Chroniclers. Dan Horia Mazilu, Lege şi fărădelege în lumea românească veche, Iaşi, Polirom, 557 pp., concerns the law and outlaws .