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Alina Simu
The European Sources of the 19th Century Romanian Prose
Abstract
The rise of the Romanian prose dates back to the 19 th century when the French and German literary
movements influenced the Romanian society to such an extent that in certain literary works there is a clear
overlapping; themes, motifs, characters are sometimes almost identical to the European ones. Other times,
they are opposites, as a means of offering a didactic perspective. Thus, European marks of modernization
were adopted by the Romanian people not only in real life, but also in literature, which became a means of
spreading the western culture to the eastern one.
Keywords: novel, Romantic influences, mystery, the social frame, vernacular literature
Since the publishing of the first novel in Romanian, Alecus history until the publishing in volume or
in magazines of Eminescu or Hadeus prose, there lies a period which has been long forgotten or left
obscure, representing an area of strong convulsion which served to the settling of narrative certainty visible
later on. The Romanian novel, taking into account its outstanding, ample, sometimes rambling construction,
its objective time, the tint of truthfulness, the impression that it descends from the street, that it is a
prolonging of life, does not have an authoritative position since the beginning. The writers lack of
experience, their sometimes exaggerate enthusiasm, unparalleled with the forms, the mechanisms designed
to undertake that enthusiasm led to a quite difficult assertion of this manner of writing.
One of the mains points of contact with Western literature is the press. The spreading of foreign
newspapers and encyclopedias starts in Romania in the 18th century, when people read, for example, Le
journal encyclopedique, Le journal litteraire, Mercure de France, and Il redattore italiano or German
newspapers like Die filegendePost or Offene Zeitung. Some of these spread the ideas of the French
Revolution, and, by all means, Europes progressive opinions. Of course, the distribution of foreign
periodicals will be far more frequent in the 19th century and later. Therefore, a very important role was
played by the newspapers and the magazines of the time. Newspapers like The Universe or The Truth
published tens of serial-story columns in order to stir the readers taste for literature and to attract
subscribers. This growing process, this commercial fever being in full spring, the selection functioned in one
way only, to produce sensations, relaxation. The taste for the sensational, for vampires, for the nocturnal are
elements which attract readers in the beginning, then their taste goes towards the social, love affairs, the
moralization of the human vices. The leaflets published have as themes crimes, killings, adulteries,
kidnappings, exoticism, piracy, drowning, fright, terror.
Literature takes its subjects from life, obeys it dutifully. The Romanian novel has two main
directions: the social and the morals. tefan Cazimir remarks: Because of the special socio/historical
circumstances, the Romanian literature stepped later on the way of modernization, of its connection to the
Western European rhythm, of the discovery of some new manners of feeling and expression. (tefan
Cazimir, 1973: V)
The short story, the shorter short story, the memorialistic prose are well represented in the epoch.
The short story will offer the starting point for the epic construction, for the character design. The
presentation of the social frame will rely on the example of the moral short story and the travel memorial.
(tefan Cazimir, 1973: VI) The Romanian novel does not arise from the epic, but from the physiology and
the short story of morals. (tefan Cazimir, 1973: XII) The novel manifests itself by taking as models what
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