Tudor Vianu

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Tudor Vianu (January 8, 1898-May 21, 1964) was a Romanian literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. He had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Romanian literature and art. He was the father pf Ion Vianu, himself a well-known writer.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Selected works 3 Notes 4 References

[edit] Biography

Born in Giurgiu, he completed his primary and secondary education in the city. Around 1910, he began writing poetry — which he never published.

In 1915, he became a student at the Department of Philosophy and Law at the University of Bucharest. During the period, Vianu began attending Alexandru Macedonski's Symbolist literary circle, and, in 1916, he published a study on Macedonsky and his own verses in Flacăra magazine.

Upon Romania's entry in World War I, he was drafted, trained as an artillery cadet in Botoşani, and took part in the Moldavian campaign. In 1918, he returned to Bucharest, where he was editor of Macedonski's Literatorul, and resumed his studies, graduating in 1919. Vianu also worked on the editorial staff for Constantin Rădulescu-Motru's Ideea Europeană and for Luceafărul. In 1921, he began his long collaboration with Viaţa Românească, while he contributed to Eugen Lovinescu's Sburătorul.

In 1923, he obtained a doctorate in Philosophy at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, with the thesis Das Wertungsproblem in Schiller Poetik ("The Judgment of Values in Schiller's Poetics"), his first major study in aesthetics (delivered in November of 1923). The work was praised by Lucian Blaga, who was subsequently Vianu's colleague during their time as staff members for Gândirea;^[1] the two shared an appreciation of Expressionism.^[2]

With the publishing of his Dualismul artei in 1925 (followed by a long succession of collections of essays and studies), Vianu secured his place in the cultural landscape of modern Romania. Tudor Vianu was the titular professor of aesthetics at the University of Bucharest, and in charge of Romania's National Theatre in 1945, ambassador to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1946, and honorary member of the Romanian Academy starting in 1955. He translated several of William Shakespeare's works into Romanian.

In the beginning of summer 1964, Arghezi, poet al omului ("Arghezi, Poet of Mankind"), carrying the subititle Cântare Omului ("A Chant to Mankind"), a work in the field of comparative literature, began printing on the very day of the author's disappearance.

He committed suicide in Bucharest.

[edit] Selected works

• Dualismul artei ("The Dualism of Art") - 1925;
• Fragmente moderne ("Modernist Pieces") - 1925;
• Poezia lui Eminescu ("The Poetry of Eminescu") - 1930;
• Arta şi Frumosul ("Art and Beauty") -1932;
• Idealul clasic al omului ("The Classic Idea of Man") -1934;
• Estetica ("Aesthetics"), a work in two volumes - 1934-1936;
• Filosofie şi poezie ("Philosophy and Poetry") - 1937;
• Istorism şi naţionalism ("Historicism and Nationalism") - 1938;
• Introducere in teoria valorilor ("Introduction to the Theory of Values") - 1942;
• Istoria literaturii române moderne ("The History of Modern Romanian Literature"), in collaboration with Şerban Cioculescu and Vladimir Streinu - 1944;
• Dicţionar de maxime (comentat) ("Dictionary of Maxims (Annotated)") - 1962.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Dan Grigorescu, Istoria unei generaţii pierdute: expresioniştii, Ed. Eminescu, Bucharest, 1980
• Pompiliu Marcea, "Tabel cronologic" in Tudor Vianu, Scriitori români, Minerva, Bucharest, 1970