Ion Minulescu

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Ion Minulescu (January 6, 1881-April 11, 1944) was a Romanian avante-garde poet, novelist, short story writer, journalist, literary critic, and playwright. Often publishing his works under the pseudonym I. M. Nirvan, he journeyed to Paris, where he was heavily influenced by the growing Symbolist movement and Parisian Bohemianism. He had a major influence on modern literature in Romania, and was among the first local poets to use free verse.^[1]

Contents 1 Biography 2 Notes 3 Works 4 References

[edit] Biography

Born in Bucharest to the widow Alexandrina Ciucă, Minulescu was adopted by Ion Constantinescu, a Romanian Army officer, and lived much of his childhood in Slatina. He first completed his primary and medium studies in Piteşti, and published his first verses in 1897, while still in high school. Between 1900 and 1904, Minulescu studied Law at the University of Paris, during which period he was an avid reader of Romantic and Symbolist literature (works by Gérard de Nerval, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, Aloysius Bertand, Jehan Rictus, Tristan Corbière, Jules Laforgue, and the Comte de Lautréamont).^[2]

Upon his return, he began publishing verses and prose in Ovid Densusianu's Viaţa Nouă, and attended the Kubler Coffeehouse and Casa Capşa,^[3] the scenes of an eclectic gathering of young poets — Alexandru Cazaban, Dimitrie Anghel, Panait Cerna, Ştefan Octavian Iosif, and Ilarie Chendi among them. Tudor Vianu argued that Minulescu, together with Al. T. Stamatiad and N. Davidescu, represented a "Wallachian" Symbolism ("more rhetorical temperaments, displaying exoticism and a book-driven neuroticism"),^[4] as opposed to "Moldavians" such as George Bacovia and Demostene Botez ("[of] more intimate natures, cultivating the minor scales of the sentiment").^[5]

He and Anghel became close friends, and together translated pieces by various French Symbolists (among others — Albert Samain, Charles Guérin, and Henri de Régnier), which were published in Sămănătorul (they were collected in a single volume in 1935). In 1906, he began publishing the poems that would form his highly popular Romanţe pentru mai târziu ("Songs for Later On") collection, first published in 1909. He edited the short-lived magazines Revista celorlalţi (in 1908) and Insula (in 1912). During the period, he began drawing inspiration from his numerous trips to Dobruja, dedicating several of his most celebrated verses to the Black Sea (according to Vianu, he was "the first one to chant the sea in song in our literature").^[6] At the time, he began cultivating an original style, where the traditional lyrical format was hidden by arbitrary sectioning, which gave his poetry a rhetorical and feel.^[7] His language was vervacious and abrupt,^[8] owing much to the inspiration Minulescu sought in romanzas (giving some of his lyrics an overtly sentimental character).^[9]

Minulescu married the poet Claudia Millian, whom he had met in 1910, on April 11, 1914; she later gave birth to a daughter, Mioara Minulescu (who was to become a reputed artist). The Minulescu family fled to Iaşi during the last years of World War I, after the Central Powers occupied Bucharest.

After 1919, he was a regular contributor to Eugen Lovinescu's Sburătorul. His reputation as a dramatist was established in 1921, when two of his plays were included in the National Theatre Bucharest's season. He was head of the Art Direction inside the Ministry of Arts and Religious Cults in 1922, an office he held until 1940.

In 1924, he published his Roşu, galben şi albastru ("Red, Yellow and Blue" - a novel and political satire named after the colours of the Romanian flag), which was to prove very successful after first being published in serial by Viaţa Românească. After a long period of concentrating on his theatrical work, Minulescu returned to poetry in 1928, with Spovedanii ("Confessions" — later included in his Strofe pentru toată lumea, "Verses for Everyone"); he also published an autobiographical novel, Corigent la limba română ("Flunking in Romanian Language" - the title was an ironic reference to the fact that, during his years in highschool, his Romanian language skills had been considered to be below standard). The same year, he was awarded the National Poetry Prize.

Minulescu's late works were mostly definitive collections of his earlier poetry and prose. In his very last poems, he was moving away from the exhuberant forms of Symbolism, adopting instead an intimate tone.^[10] He died from a heart attack during World War II, as Bucharest was the target of a large-scale Allied bombing. He was buried in Bellu cemetery.

[edit] Notes

[edit] Works

• Romanţe pentru mai târziu ("Songs for Later On", poems, 1909)
• Casa cu geamuri portocalii ("The House with Orange Windows", prose, 1908)
• De vorbă cu mine însumi ("Conversing with Myself", poems, 1913)
• Măşti de bronz şi lampioane de porţelan ("Bronze Masks and Porcelain Fairy Lights", prose, 1920)
• Pleacă berzele ("The Storks Are Leaving") and Lulu Popescu - plays, 1921
• Roşu, galben şi albastru ("Red, Yellow and Blue", novel, 1924)
• Omul care trebuia să moară sau Ciracul lui Hegesias ("The Man Who Was Supposed to Die or Hesias' Hanger-on", play, 1924)
• Manechinul sentimental ("The Sentimental Mannequin", play, 1926)
• Spovedanii ("Confessions", poems, 1927)
• Allegro ma non troppo (play, 1927)
• Corigent la limba română ("Flunking in Romanian Language", novel, 1928)
• Amantul anonim ("The Anonymous Lover", play, 1928)
• Strofe pentru toată lumea ("Verses for Everyone", poems, 1930)
• Cetiţi-le noaptea ("Read Them at Nightime", prose, 1930)
• Bărbierul regelui Midas sau Voluptatea adevărului ("King Midas's Barber or The Voluptuousness of Truth", novel, 1931)
• Porumbiţa fără aripi ("The Wingless Dove", play, 1931)
• 3 şi cu Rezeda 4 ("3, and with Rezeda 4", novel, 1933)
• Nevasta lui Moş Zaharia ("Uncle Zaharia's Wife", play, 1937)

[edit] References

• (Romanian) Minulescu at RomanianVoice
• (Romanian) "La un şvarţ cu capşiştii" ("Having a Coffee Substitute with the Crowd at Casa Capşa"), in Jurnalul Naţional
• George Călinescu, Istoria literaturii române. Compendiu, Minerva, Bucharest, 1983
• Tudor Vianu, Scriitori români, Vol. III, Ed. Minerva, Bucharest, 1971