1. Today I want to tell you about our national poet Mihai Eminescu.

He lived from 1850

until 1889.

2. He was a romantic poet, the first modern poet in Romania. He also wrote novels and he
was also a journalist.

3. Eminescu's poems have been translated in over 60 languages. The year 2000 was
declared by UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization ) as Eminescu’s year. Nasa (National Aeronautics and Space
Administration) has named a crater from Mars after him.

4. His work consist of 46 volumes and approximately 14,000 pages.

5. He was first published at the age of 16.

6. He is best known for the poem called Luceafarul translated in English as The Lucifer or
The Vesper which means The Evening Star.

7. The poem was awarded by the World Records Academy from Miami as the longest love
poem in the world. It has 98 verses.

8. The poem is about a love story between a Star, a magic being, called Hyperion and a
human princess Catalina. She sees him up in the sky and she falls in love with him and
tries to persuade him to come to the Earth for her.

Iar ea vorbind cu el în somn, She speaks with him in sleep and sighs
Oftând din greu suspină: While her heart's swelled veins drum:
– O, dulce-al nopţii mele Domn, -"O sweet Lord of my fairy nights,
De ce nu vii tu? Vină! Why comest thou not? Come!

Cobori în jos, luceafăr blând, Descend to me, mild Evening-star

Alunecând pe-o rază, Thou canst glide on a beam,
Pătrunde-n casă şi în gând Enter my dwelling and my mind
Şi viaţa-mi luminează! And over my life gleam!"

9. For that he has to give up immortality and have the Demiurge persmission so he travels
at the end of the world to seek for him but he is shown the mankind inconsistency. The
Demiurge reveals that the princess in his long absece was seduced by a man and forgot
about him. So he returns at his place in the sky, “immortal and cold” as the poet says.
 Dar nu mai cade ca-n trecut Yet he no more, as yesterday,
În mări din tot înaltul Falls down into the sea;
— „Ce-ți pasă ție, chip de lut, "What dost thou care, o shape of clay,
Dac-oi fi eu sau altul? If it is I or he?

Trăind în cercul vostru strâmt You live accompanied by weal

Norocul vă petrece, In your all-narrow fold,
Ci eu în lumea mea mă simt Whilst in my boundless world I feel
Nemuritor și rece.” Both deathless and dead cold."

10. His face was on the 1000-lei banknotes and is on the 500-lei banknote as the highest-
denominated Romanian banknote.

11. Eminescu's Linden Tree that is in Iasi , nord of Romania, where he lived for a while, it is
said he wrote under it and is still in the park in Iasi is one of the country's most famous
natural symbol.

12. Many schools and other institutions are named after him.

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