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In this paper I investigate how the interpretation of the Romantic poet Mihai Eminescu’ work verifies the European transition from a rationalist conception of “genius” (according to which “genius” is a phenomenon subjected to the laws of nature/ society) to an irrationalist conception, where “genius” becomes a supernatural, transcendental, miraculous or inexplicable phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I investigate how the interpretation of the Romantic poet Mihai Eminescu’ work verifies the European transition from a rationalist conception of “genius” (according to which “genius” is a phenomenon subjected to the laws of nature/ society) to an irrationalist conception, where “genius” becomes a supernatural, miraculous or inexplicable phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Once in Vienna to get an education, the young Romanians that left Bukovina, be they sons of boyars, priests, peasants, or public servants, often found themselves in awe. One way or another, they soon experienced a hard time getting board and lodgings. To make ends meet, they had to pawn their belongings or borrow money, which spelled trouble for all of them. Consequently, their food choice and cooking skills welcome a cultural studies approach that reveals their worldview, identity or history proper. Taking into account mostly unknown memoirs, diaries and letters, the present paper aims to give insight into the eating habits and the world of young Bukovinians living in Vienna. Fitted within a chronological sequence, the case studies under scrutiny range from the Hurmuzachi brothers (Constantin, Eudoxiu, Gheorghe), Eminescu, and the so-called ‘Bukovinian colony’ to Ciprian Porumbescu and, eventually, Leca Morariu. Strangely enough, Morariu, although wounded in WWI, is the only one who managed to eat well while in Vienna. However, both his war and Vienna diaries are meaningful from many other perspectives than his meals. Beyond the actual or the implied questions they trigger, my somewhat random reading comes across as an opportunity to rediscover a lost world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the gothic elements in Mihai Eminescu's poem The Ghosts, by opposing the rigor and balance of the early architectural gothic to the fantastic and psychological frame through which it is read by the romantics. For them, as well as for Eminescu, gothic architecture seems to be "involuntarily expressive". The paper analyses the sedimentation of figural elements under the form of detalis of atmosphere which draw the poem near the literary gothic, taking into consideration the polarity between medieval Christianism and archaic spirituality. The gothic elements in Eminescu's poetry draw back on the popular ballad of the dead fiancé, which is infused into the imaginary of The Ghosts and contaminates The Evening Star. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a known fact that romanticism is thought by many as having only a transcendental side, but the subject I insist on in this paper has to do with the conjunction of the romantic immanence and trancendence embodied by the stereotype of a blonde evanescent girl, having blue eyes and red cheeks. The philosophy of the romanticists is the philosophy of the Whole, the achievement of the supreme spiritual type of love through the sublimation of the mundane acts of love. At the end, my paper tries to infer that the scaffolding of the romanticism is based on a sophism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]