Mateiu Caragiale

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Mateiu Ion Caragiale

Born March 25, 1885(1885-03-25)
Bucharest
Died January 17, 1936 (aged 50)
Bucharest
Occupation poet, short story writer, novelist, visual artist, heraldist, civil servant
Nationality Romanian
Writing period 1912–1936
Genres lyric poetry, fantasy, satire
Literary movement Symbolism
Decadence
Parnassianism
Modernism
Influences
Influenced

Mateiu Ion Caragiale (also credited as Matei or Matheiu; Mateiŭ is an antiquated version;[1][2] March 25 [O.S. March 12] 1885-January 17, 1936) was a Romanian poet and prose writer, best known for his novel Craii de Curtea-Veche, which portrays the milieu of boyar descendants before and after World War I. Caragiale's style, associated with Symbolism, the Decadent movement of the fin de siècle, and early modernism, was an original element in the Romanian literature of the interwar period, and the scarcity of writings he left is contrasted by their critical acclaim and popularity. In addition to his literary contributions, he was a heraldist and graphic artist.

The illegitimate and rebellious child of influential playwright Ion Luca Caragiale, he was the stepbrother of Luca Caragiale, an avant-garde poet who died in 1921. Mateiu Caragiale was noted for his dandyism and eccentricity, despite his parallel career as a civil servant; most of his prose texts were first published by the modernist magazine Gândirea during the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

A native of Bucharest, he was born out of wedlock to Ion Luca Caragiale and Maria Constantinescu, an unmarried Town Hall employee[3] who was 21 at the time.[4] Living his first years at his mother's house on Frumoasă Street, nearby Calea Victoriei (until the building was sold),[5] Mateiu had a half-sister, his mother's daughter from another extra-conjugal affair.[6] In 1889, his father married Alexandrina Burelly, bringing his son into his new family.[7] In following years, he was progressively estranged from his father, and, according to Ecaterina, the youngest of Ion Luca Caragiale and Burelly's children, "Mateiu alone confronted [his father] and contradicted him systematically."[8]

The young Caragiale was sent to school at Anghel Demetrescu's Sfântul Gheorghe College in Bucharest, where he discovered a passion for history and heraldry.[9] At around that time, he was probably introduced to Demetrescu's circle, which included the doctor Constantin Istrati, the writer Barbu Ştefănescu-Delavrancea, the physicist Ştefan Hepites, the literary critic N. Petraşcu, and the architect Ion Mincu.[10] During a 1901 summer trip to Sinaia, where he sojourned with the Bibescu family, Mateiu was acquainted with George Valentin and Alexandru Bibescu (in a letter he wrote at the time, he described the latter as "only too crazy and a frantic maniac").[11] In 1903, with Ion Luca, Burelly and their children, he traveled through large portions of Western Europe, visiting Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, Italy and France; during the trip, he recorded the impressions left on him by the various European art trends.[12]

In 1904, his father moved to Berlin, bringing Mateiu with him — in hopes that he could be persuaded to study law at the Frederick William University —, but Mateiu spent his time reading and exploring the Imperial German capital.[13] He would later refer to this period using a French term, l'école buissonière ("the vagrant school"),[14] and stressed that "[it] was of great use to me".[15] Ecaterina Caragiale indicated that one of her brother's favorite pastimes was "admiring the secular trees in the Tiergarten",[16] and he is also known to have spent entire days at the National Gallery, especially fond of paintings by Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruysdael.[17] Dissatisfied with Mateiu's attitude, Ion Luca sent him back to Romania in 1905, where he enrolled at the Law School at the University of Bucharest, but quit one year later.[18]

[edit] Father-son conflict and literary debut

Ion Luca Caragiale and Mateiu ca. 1890
Ion Luca Caragiale and Mateiu ca. 1890

The conflict with his father was to prolong itself for as long as the latter was alive.[19][20] It was most likely sparked in 1904, after the death of his aunt Lenci, when Ion Luca took over his son's inheritance, and aggravated by his father's decision to cease subsidizing him, which left the latter without a stable source of income.[21] He was thus supposed to provide for his mother and sister, until Ion Luca transferred the inheritance resulting from the death of his aunt Catinca Momuloaia, to his former lover.[22] He also indicated that his father had made him attend the Frederick William University without advancing money for tuition.[23] Some time after returning to Romania, he began attending the Symbolist literary circle formed around the poet and leftist political agitator Alexandru Bogdan-Piteşti, who provided the young Caragiale with money and often invited him to supper.[24]

In spring 1907, despite the ongoing father-son tensions, Mateiu, who was recovering from a severe form of measles, returned to Berlin, where Ion Luca's family was still residing.[25] He soon became the lover of a local woman, an affair which reportedly caused his father to declare himself scandalized.[26] Over the same year, Mateiu Caragiale was fascinated with rumors of the Romanian Peasants' Revolt violence, recording various exaggerated news about its character and extent,[27] and describing it as "a fine thing".[28]

Mateiu Caragiale had his first thoughts on Craii de Curtea-Veche ("The Rakes of the Old Courtyard") in 1910.[2][29] Two years later, during a trip to Iaşi,[30] he published his first 13 poems in the literary magazine Viaţa Românească, winning the praise of poet Panait Cerna.[31] The literary critic Şerban Cioculescu stressed that these had been printed following his father's interventions with the magazine's staff.[32]

His father died in June 1912, which, according to Şerban Cioculescu (who cited Mateiu's correspondence), left him indifferent.[33] By then, Caragiale-son resented Ion Luca's alleged exploitation of his popularity for material gains, and, later in the same year, commented that, "for a small fee", Caragiale-father could be persuaded to read his works at the fair in Obor.[34][35] Despite his love for Berlin, he was also dissatisfied with his father's move to the city, and spread the rumor that, in the eyes of his family and friends, Ion Luca's departure was interpreted as "insane" (while alleging that Caragiale-father was planning to author plays in German, with assistance from Mite Kremnitz, the one-time lover of poet Mihai Eminescu).[36] At the funeral ceremony, he reputedly shocked pianist Cella Delavrancea by coldly stating in French: Je suis venu voir feu mon père ("I came to see my late father").[37]

[edit] Entry into the civil service

Mateiu Caragiale in his youth
Mateiu Caragiale in his youth

Caragiale returned to Bucharest, where, in October, he became the chief of staff in the Ministry of Public Works in the second Titu Maiorescu executive, under Minister Alexandru Bădărău.[38] He had manifested a relative interest in politics around 1908, after his father rallied with Take Ionescu and his Conservative-Democratic Party; at the time, he criticized Ion Luca's political choices, but nonetheless noted that it could serve as a means for his own advancement ("From now on I'll have political lode [...], something certain, if there ever was certainty on Earth.")[39] Four years after this comment, soon after making his literary debut, he clashed with his father over having considered a cabinet appointment in Ionescu's executive.[40]

As Caragiale senior died, Mateiu initially planned to join the mainstream Conservative Party and demand a post from Grigore Gheorghe Cantacuzino, the Mayor of Bucharest and a close associate of Bogdan-Piteşti.[41] Nevertheless, he came to define this position as a "a bad solution",[42] and, as Maiorescu and Ionescu formed an alliance, he successfully requested appointment from Bădărău, eventually obtaining it through the means of a decree signed by King Carol I.[43] Caragiale later commented: "[Bădărău] entrusted me with this golden key, which I had wanted for so long, and which, for all of this, I had not been desperate to obtain."[44] This contradicted another one of his accounts, in which he confessed that, initially received with indifference by Bădărău, he had claimed that him joining the Conservative-Democrats had been Ion Luca's dying request.[45] Cioculescu would comment: "There could not have been a more complete distortion of a parent's last wish!"[46]

He assumed office on November 7, 1912, but, as he later confessed, official records were modified to make it seem that he had been a civil servant since October 29.[47] As he later recounted, he led talks with a delegation from the Kingdom of Serbia involving the initiative to build a bridge over the Danube to link the two states.[48] In 1913, Caragiale wrote the story Remember, while continuing his contributions to Viaţa Românească.[49] His office ended on January 17, 1914, as the National Liberal cabinet of Ion I. C. Brătianu came to power.[50]

[edit] World War I

During the early stages of World War I, as Romania remained a neutral country, he reportedly recorded that his friend Bogdan-Piteşti was acting as a political agent of the Central Powers, and that money he made available had been provided by German propaganda funds.[51] At the time, Caragiale visited the Germanophile literary circle set up by Margarita Miller Verghy.[34] A frequenter of the renowned restaurant Casa Capşa, he was constantly surrounded by a tight group of party-goers, which included the Indépendence Roumaine chronicler Rudolf Uhrinowsky[52] and the aristocrat Gheorghe Jurgea-Negrileşti.[53] They were later joined by the Russian admiral Vessiolkin, who was allegedly the illegitimate son of Emperor Alexander III.[53]

As Romania joined the Allied Powers and the Romanian Campaign began, overlooked by conscription in the Romanian Army,[54] Caragiale drafted the first of Craii de Curtea-Veche's three sections, titled "Întâmpinarea crailor" ("Meeting the Rakes").[55] He did not follow the authorities and Take Ionescu's supporters as they redeployed in Moldavia when southern Romania fell to the Central Powers, and remained in Bucharest.[56] After the government of Alexandru Marghiloman signed the May 1918 capitulation in front of the Central Powers, he switched his support to the pro-German Conservative Party: on June 29, 1918, he and his half-brother Luca were among the signers of a letter addressed to the aging Petre P. Carp, the former Conservative leader, asking him to take over rule of the country.[57] The political choice was highly controversial, and later contributed to the end of Caragiale's political career.[58] In a 1970 biographical essay critical of Mateiu Caragiale, Cioculescu attributed Mateiu authorship of the document, and claimed that Luca had agreed to join in only as a result of his brother's pressures.[59]

In 1919, as Ionescu gained political influence through his alliance with the People's League, he became head of the press bureau of the Minister of Internal Affairs, serving until 1921.[60] Later writings of his show that he was deeply dissatisfied with the office, which he equated with "a demotion",[61] and that he resented Ionescu not having assigned the diplomatic office of consul.[62] He thus resigned and left the Conservative-Democrats, an action which he later defined as "a grave error".[63]

Also in 1921, a first draft of his Remember saw print in Viaţa Românească.[64] The second part of Craii..., "Cele trei hagialâcuri" ("The Three Pilgrimages"), was sporadically written between 1918 and 1921 (according to Caragiale himself: "it was written on restaurant tables, in the gambling den, in the meeting hall at the Justice of the Peace").[65] He married Marica Sion, the daughter of poet and nobleman Gheorghe Sion, in 1923, thus becoming the owner of a plot of land named Sionu, in Fundulea (although he resided in Bucharest).[66] His wife, whom he had most likely met before 1916, while attending Miller Verghy's soirées,[34] was his senior by 25 years.[19][67]

[edit] Craii de Curtea-Veche and Italian sojourn

Mateiu Caragiale published Remember as a volume the following year;[68] from 1922, he began work on "Spovedanii" ("Confessions"), the third and final section of Craii..., which, as he recounted, coincided with "the most terrible crisis" of his life.[69] Several of his poems were published in a 1925 collection edited by Perpessicius and Ion Pillat (Antologia poeţilor de azi), and were accompanied by a portrait drawn by Marcel Janco; at the time, Caragiale announced that he was going to publish a series of poems under the title Pajere (it was to be printed only after his death).[70]

In March 1926-October 1928, Tudor Vianu's Gândirea magazine published his novel Craii de Curtea-Veche as a series.[71] He completed the last additions to the text in November 1927, as its first sections were already in print.[72] As the last episode was featured by Gândirea, to widespread acclaim, he noted: "From the time when the first of its parts saw print, this work was received with unprecedented fervor in Romanian literature. For the work it required, as well as for the tiresome obsession to which it had me submitted I bear it no grudge: it is truly magnificent [...]."[73]

By 1926, he rallied with the People's League, and unsuccessfully asked Octavian Goga to assign him a candidature for a Parliamentary seat during the elections of that year.[74] In January 1928, he again became pursuing a career in the diplomatic service, and sought an appointment for himself at the Romanian Consulate in Helsinki, Finland;[75] he thus visited Foreign Minister Nicolae Titulescu in Italy, at Sanremo.[76][77] His passage through Lombardy coincided with major floods.[78] Titulescu received him at the Miramare Hotel, but talks between them were inconclusive.[76][79] According to Perpessicius, the failure was generated by the adversity other politicians had towards Caragiale.[80] The writer was nonetheless pleased with his visit, having been deeply impressed by the Italian landscape, and, as a result, attempted to create an atmosphere of, in his words, "profound Italian rustic quietude" on his property in Fundulea.[81]

[edit] Later years and death

Caragiale also began work on the novels Soborul ţaţelor (1929) and Sub pecetea tainei (1930), but they would remain unfinished.[82] In its first draft, Sub pecetea tainei was published by Gândirea in April 1930-April 1933, while Soborul ţaţelor was kept in three different variants.[83] In May 1930, he was present at a banquet in honor of Italian author Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the ideologue of Futurism. Organized by the Romanian Writers' Society and the Italo-Romanian Cultural Association, it was also attended by many other cultural figures, most of which, including artist Marcel Janco and the writers Ion Vinea, Jacques G. Costin, Ion Minulescu and Camil Petrescu, were associates of the magazine Contimporanul.[84]

He ceased all literary activity by 1934, and confessed in his diary: "My spiritual state is probably the same as that of people who feel their final hour nearing and lose all hope".[85] Nevertheless, he was planning to write a biography of Albrecht Joseph Reichsgraf von Hoditz, an extravagant Silesian nobleman of the 18th century, who is briefly mentioned in "Cele trei hagialâcuri".[86] Reputedly, he renounced his hectic lifestyle, while giving up alcohol and coffee.[87]

Mateiu Caragiale died two years later in Bucharest, at the age 51, after suffering a stroke.[88] Despite his explicit wish and opposition from his widow, speeches were held at his funeral ceremony, including ones by Alexandru Rosetti and Adrian Maniu.[19] Rosetti and Eugen Lovinescu later recounted an unusual incident sparked by the event: Iancu Vulturescu, a friend of Caragiale's and frequenter of Casa Capşa, looked intensely upon the dead body as he was paying his respects; later in the evening, he committed suicide in a hotel room.[19]

[edit] Caragiale's style and works

[edit] Views and mannerisms

Caragiale's bookplate, drawn in his own hand and showing the coat of arms he had designed for himself
Caragiale's bookplate, drawn in his own hand and showing the coat of arms he had designed for himself

Mateiu Caragiale's interest in heraldry and genealogy mirrored his tastes and outlook on the world, which have been described as "snobbery", "aesthetism", and "dandyism",[2][19][89][90][91] as well as his enduring love of history.[92] It was sparked during his college years, when he would fill his notebooks with sketches of blazons, and as attested by various drawings he produced throughout his life.[93] He also developed an enduring curiosity for astronomy, magic, as well as botany and agronomy.[94] These skills, as well as his tastes and talents as a causeur, consolidated his reputation as an erudite in spite of his lack of formal studies.[95] The cultivation of aesthetic goals had seemingly guided the writer throughout his life — the poet and mathematician Ion Barbu, who was one of Caragiale's greatest admirers,[96][91][97] recounted with amazement that the writer would periodically visit the Romanian Academy's just to look over a certain page in a manual of arithmetics outlining the rule of three (he reportedly said to Barbu: "Remembering its splendor provides me with a ceaseless drive to reread it").[98]

A characteristic of Mateiu Caragiale's life was his search for noble origins, contrasting his illegitimate status. According to historian Lucian Nastasă, it clashed with his father's discreetness in relation to his Greek ancestors — Ion Luca is known to have described his origins as uncertain, even though these had been well recorded, and to have later commented that noble lineage in Romania relied on spurious genealogies.[99] Caragiale-father is also thought to have discouraged his son's claims, and to have mockingly noted that their own family's origin could not have been aristocratic.[2]

Letters Mateiu Caragiale wrote in his youth show that he was envisaging a marriage of convenience as a means to increase his wealth and status.[19][100][91] For a while in 1908, he had a brief affair with a reportedly unattractive French woman, Mariette Lamboley, who had been a Roman Catholic nun.[76][19] In letters he sent to his close friend, Nicolae Boicescu, Caragiale bragged about his sexual exploits with Lamboley, and of having exposed her to "the most terrifying sadisms" (which included allowing her to be raped by a stranger in the Cişmigiu Gardens).[76]

In his permanent search for nobility rights, occasionally ascribed to an inferiority complex,[89][101] he indicated that his mother's origins were in Austria-Hungary: before his marriage to Marica Sion, he claimed that he had lost his birth certificate, and, upon completing a new one, that his mother resided in Vienna, and that he himself had been born in the Transylvanian town of Tuşnad.[102] Early in his youth, he jokingly referred to himself as "Prince Bassaraba-Apaffy", mixing the title used by the early Basarab Wallachian princes and the Apaffy family of Hungarian nobility.[103]

In Tudor Vianu's view, Caragiale's quest for "an elective heredity" saw him joining a diverse group of writers with similar interests, among whom were Honoré de Balzac, Arthur de Gobineau, and Stefan George.[104] Commenting that "heredity has, after all, only the value of a psychological fact",[105] he stressed: "[Caragiale] thus had the right to seek his ancestry on the ascents of history and even to be ready to believe, from time to time, that he had found it."[106]

Between 1907 and 1911, Caragiale studied Romanian heraldry and, to this goal, read Octav-George Lecca's Familii boiereşti române ("Romanian Boyar Families"). Many of the comments added by him to his copy of the book are polemic, sarcastic, or mysterious, while the sketches he made on the margin include portrayals of boyars being put to death in various ways, as well as caricatures (such as a blazon displaying a donkey's head, which he mockingly assigned to Octav-George Lecca himself).[89]

Several of the heraldic objects he created were destined for his own use. In June 1928, he raised a green over yellow ensign he created for the Caragiale family at his property in Fundulea.[107] He also hoisted other symbols, including the flag of Hungary, which, he claimed, underlined his foreign origin.[108] Other eccentricities Caragiale adopted included wearing a "princely gown" of his own design, developing unusual speech patterns,[109] as well as a noted love for decorations — official honors which he tried to obtain for himself on several occasions.[19][110][91] With pride, he listed that, after 14 months of governmental service, he had become Knight of Coroana României, and had received the Bene Merenti and Bărbăţie şi credinţă medals first Class (while claiming that he had refused the Serbian Kingdom's Order of St. Sava after it was offered to him with a rank lower than he had asked).[111] Literary historian George Călinescu recalled having seen a middle-aged Caragiale taking walks through downtown Bucharest: amused by the writer's everyday clothes, which he depicted as of an archaic fashion and slightly deteriorated, compared him to "a butler on Sunday leave".[2][112] Călinescu also told that, during winter, Caragiale would only touch metal with his hand while wearing suede gloves.[113]

Despite his hectic lifestyle, Mateiu Caragiale lashed out at Bohemianism, stressing that "it kills, and many times not just figuratively".[114] Notes in his diaries show that he discreetly resented Alexandru Bogdan-Piteşti: aside from claiming to expose his patron's alleged financing by the Central Powers before and during World War I, Caragiale discussed Bogdan-Piteşti's homosexuality in disparaging terms (calling him "a blusterer of the anti-natural vice"), and even laying out a plan to rob his residence.[115] Caragiale's diary also dealt with Bogdan-Piteşti's wife, the socialite Domnica, depicting her as an immoral woman.[116]

[edit] Literary style

Writing shortly after Caragiale died, Vianu defined him as "a figure, possibly a delayed one, from that aesthetic generation of around 1880, who professed a concept of the supremacy of artistic values in life."[117] This allowed him to draw a parallel between Mateiu Caragiale and the older Symbolist poet Alexandru Macedonski, with the one essential difference provided by their level of involvement in cultural affairs.[118] Unlike his half-brother Luca, he tended to stay away from the literary movements of his age, and placed his cultural references in the relative past, being inspired by Romantic and Symbolist authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, and Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly.[119] Noting the manifest difference in style between the realist Ion Luca and his two sons, Vianu pointed out that the three shared, as characteristic traits, "The cultivation of fully-developed forms, the view of art as a closed system resistant to the anarchic forces of reality".[120] According to Cioculescu, Mateiu's work would be "minor, unless placed alongside that of Ion Luca Caragiale".[91] Elsewhere, Cioculescu indicated that a letter written by Mateiu Caragiale in his early youth, which featured his first pieces of social commentary, imitated his father's calligraphy to the point where George Călinescu initially believed they were the work of Ion Luca.[121]

Among the traits which set Caragiale apart from other Romanian writers was his highly creative vocabulary, partly reliant on archaisms and words occurring rarely in the modern Romanian lexis (including ones borrowed from Turkish and Greek,[122] or even from Romani).[123] In certain cases, he used an inventive spelling — for example, he consistently rendered the word for "charm", farmec, as fermec.[124] Vianu noted that this habit was similar to experiments presents in Ion Barbu's cryptic poetry, ascribing both cases to "the intent of underlining the differentiation between the written and the spoken words".[125] Craii de Curtea-Veche introduces a large array of words present in early 20th century slang, as well as rendering the then-common habit of borrowing whole sentences from French to express oneself[126] (a trait notably present in Mateiu Cargiale's own day-to-day vocabulary).[127] The novel's tone, often irreverent, and the book's foray into the mundane have been seem by some as tributary to the informal style cultivated by Bogdan-Piteşti.[34]

[edit] Prose

Main article: Craii de Curtea-Veche
Mateiu Caragiale's illustration to his Craii de Curtea-Veche
Mateiu Caragiale's illustration to his Craii de Curtea-Veche

A first-person narrative, Craii de Curtea-Veche traces and satirizes Romanian society at the turn of the century, centering on a group of people from various ages and social backgrounds, who have to deal with transition; a core group of three persons, all withdrawn, Epicurean and decadent figures, allow the intrusion of Gore Pirgu, a low-class and uncultured self-seeker, whose character comes to embody the new political class of Greater Romania.[128][129] Researcher Constantin Amăriuţei proposed that there is an intrinsic connection between Pirgu and Mitică, a voluble clerk depicted in several sketch stories by Ion Luca Caragiale, and best remembered as a stereotype of Bucharesters; according to Amăriuţei, Pirgu is "the eternal and real Mitică of the Romanian world".[123] According to literary historian Matei Călinescu, the story is intertextually shaped by two of Ion Luca's prose works: one of them, titled Inspecţiune... ("Inspection..."), is part of the Mitică cycle, while the other, Grand Hotel "Victoria română", is one of the earliest depictions of anxiety in the literature of Romania.[128] For Matei Călinescu, Pirgu and the other protagonists stand as allegories for a set of essentially Romanian traits that, he argues, were still observable in the early 21st century.[128]

George Călinescu stressed that Craii... saw Caragiale as "a promoter (maybe the first) of literary Balkanism, that greasy mix of obscene phrases, lascivious impulses, awareness of an adventurous and fuzzy genealogy, everything purified and seen from above by a superior intelligence".[2][130] In relation to Romanian literature, he believed to have discovered a common trait of "Balkan" writers of mostly Wallachian origin, citing Mateiu Caragiale in a group that also included Caragiale-father, the early 19th century aphorist and printer Anton Pann, the modern poets Tudor Arghezi, Ion Minulescu and Ion Barbu, and the avant-garde figure Urmuz.[131] He went on to define this gathering as "the great grimacing sensitive ones, buffoons with just too much plastic intelligence."[132] In direct reference to Craii..., he wrote: "Reality is transfigured, it becomes fantastical and a sort of Edgar Poe-like unease agitates [the main characters], these good-for-nothings of the old Romanian capital."[133] This, he argued, validated placing Caragiale's novel among Surrealist writings, and alongside the works of eclectic authors such as Barbu and Ion Vinea.[134] Literary historian Eugen Simion notes that Barbu believed himself thought Caragiale's prose was equal in value to the poetry of Romania's national poet Mihai Eminescu, and argues that this perspective was exaggerated.[91]

Writing in 2007, literary critic Paul Cernat also noted a similarity between Vinea's 1930 collection of novellas, Paradisul suspinelor ("The Paradise of Sighs"), and Caragiale's Craii..., defining the two books as "poetic, mannerist and fantastic", and stressing that they both portray decadent characters.[135] Building on the observations of his older colleague Simion Mioc, Cernat commented that that Vinea, Mateiu Caragiale, N. Davidescu and Adrian Maniu, all members of the same "post-Symbolist" generation, ultimately traced their inspiration to Alexandru Macedonski and his Symbolist work Thalassa, Le calvaire de feu. He also proposed that, less directly, Macedonski's themes and style also influenced similar prose works by Arghezi and Urmuz.[136]

Several critics and researchers have pointed out that Caragiale used characters and dialogs to illustrate his own perspective on the world.[89][137] Among the rich cultural references present in the novel, Şerban Coiculescu identified several direct or hidden portrayals of Caragiale's contemporaries, several of which point to his own family. Thus, Cioculescu argued, the character Zinca Mamonoaia is the writer's step aunt Catinca Momuloaia,[138] while an entire passage sheds a negative light on Ion Luca (the unnamed "leading writer of the nation" who prostitutes his trade).[139] Commenting on the brief mention of one of Pirgu's associates, "the theosophist Papura Jilava", the critic concluded that it most likely referred to novelist and traveler Bucura Dumbravă.[140] Cioculescu stressed that several other characters, including Pirgu and two secondary characters, the homosexual diplomat Poponel and the journalist Uhry, were Caragiale's companions: the latter two were based, respectively, on Uhrinowsky and a member of "an old Oltenian family".[141] In addition, Barbu Cioculescu believed to have identified other traits shared by the narrator and author, as well as a covert reference to Marica Sion.[34]

Perpessicus noted that, in one of his outbursts, the character Paşadia criticizes the Brâncovenesc style developed in 17th century Romanian art, which he contrasts with "the tumultous flowering of the baroque", only to have the narrator speak out against him (in the process, the latter allows the reader to deduce that he has training and tastes in art that are similar to Caragiale's).[142]

Remember is a fantasy novella set in Berlin, depicting dramatic events in the life of dandy Aubrey de Vere. Perpessicius argued that the main protagonist was "taken, apparently, from a short story by Oscar Wilde",[143] while Călinescu noted a direct reference to the 19th century writer Aubrey de Vere and an indirect one to Poe's Lenore (the lyric: "And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?- weep now or nevermore!").[144] The mysterious events standing at the center of the writing have been interpreted by several critics as an allusion to de Vere's homosexuality.[2][34] It contrasts Caragiale's other, more tenebrous, writings of its kind — one of its main traits is the writer's nostalgia towards the German capital, which serves to give the story an atmospheric rather than narrative quality.[145] Its depiction of hallucinatory visions probably owes inspiration to Gérard de Nerval,[146] while, according to historian Sorin Antohi, the main character is reminiscent of Joris-Karl Huysmans' Des Esseintes (see À rebours).[2] George Călinescu, who referred to the narrative as "a pastiche", and to Berlin as portrayed in Caragiale's story as "a Berlin-Sodom", concluded that the text allowed readers to form "the direct sensation" of Bucharest as a "Balkan Sodom" to be discerned from the German landscape.[147]

[edit] Poetry

Caragiale's symbolist poems, including a series of sonnets, also display his profound interest in history.[148] They have been defined by Călinescu as "savant".[149] The same critic also noted that Pajere, which drew inspiration from Byzantine settings, were more accomplished versions of a genre first cultivated by Dumitru Constantinescu-Teleormăneanu.[150] According to Perpessicius, the author had "a certain outlook [...], for which the past [...] should not be sought in books, but in the surrounding landscape".[151] He illustrated this notion with a stanza from Caragiale's Clio:

Dar ceaţa serii îneacă troianele de jar.
Atunci mergi de te-aşează sub un bătrân stejar,
Ascultă mândrul freamăt ce-n el deşteaptă vântul,

Ca-n obositu-ţi suflet de vrajă răzvrătiţi,
Când negrul văl al nopţii înfăşură pământul,
În geamăt să tresalte străbunii adormiţi.[152]

But the evening's mist is flooding the heaps of embers.
Go then and sit yourself under an old oak tree,
Listen to the mighty rustling with which the wind awakens,

So that, stirred by the spell, inside your tired soul,
When the black veil of night has enveloped the earth,
The ancestors laid to rest may shudder in the moaning.

Călinescu noted that, in several of his poems, Mateiu Caragiale had infused his search for aristocratic heredities.[153] He saw this present in the poem Lauda cuceritorului ("In Praise of the Conqueror"):

Sunt seri, spre toamnă,-adânci şi strălucite
Ce, luminându-mi negura-amintirii,
Trezesc în mine suflete-adormite

De mult, încât cad pradă amăgirii,
Când cerul pârguit la zări cuprinde
Purpura toată, şi toţi trandafirii [...][154]

Come autumn, there are deep and splendid nights
That, shedding light upon the darkness of my memory,
Awake within me souls

For long sleeping, and thus I'm cheated,
When the ripening sky envelops in its sheen
All the Tyrian purple, as well as all the roses [...]

[edit] Legacy

[edit] Mateiu Caragiale's influence

Pajere was published in spring 1936, edited by Marica Caragiale-Sion and Alexandru Rosetti.[155] Later in the year, a volume of collected works, Opere, was published by Rosetti and featured prints made by Mateiu Caragiale at various moments during his lifetime.[156]

Caragiale's work exercised some influence from early on. Ion Barbu coined the terms mateist and matein, referring, respectively, to supporters of and things connected to Caragiale's literature.[91] Barbu is also credited with having set up and presided the first mateist circle.[97] The traditionalist poet Sandu Tudor took up the genre of Byzantine portraits as cultivated by him and by Constantinescu-Teleormăneanu, creating a piece titled Comornic (roughly, "Cellar" or "Cellar-Keeper").[157] Around the same period, the writer known as Sărmanul Klopştock took inspiration from the style of his novels.[158]

Mateism, growing during the late stages of the interwar period, took the aspect of an underground cultural phenomenon during the communist regime. Taşcu Gheorghiu, a Surrealist author whose Bohemian lifestyle was itself described as a reflection of Craii..., had memorized large sections of the novel and could recite them by heart.[159][91] According to Eugen Simion, dramatist Aurel Baranga is reputed to have done the same.[91] During communism, Gheorghiu published a translation from Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard, which, literary critic Carmen Muşat believes, was marked by the tone of mateism.[128] Simion writes that, in the late 1950s, students at the University of Bucharest were investing their time trying to determine the exact location of houses described in Craii....[91] Also according to Eugen Simion, an attempt by poet Anatol E. Baconsky to republish the volume was met with a stiff reaction from the censorship apparatus, and, as a consequence of this episode, the main Communist Party organ, Scînteia, renewed its campaign against Caragiale.[91] Matei Călinescu recalled that, "during the dark 1950-60 decade", he clandestinely read Craii... and shared his thoughts on it with a group of friends, noting that this was part of a "secret life" which contrasted with the rigors one had to obey in public.[128]

Caragiale was completely recovered in mainstream cultural circles after the Romanian Revolution of 1989. Craii de Curtea-Veche was chosen "best Romanian novel of the twentieth century" in an early 2001 poll conducted among 102 Romanian literary critics by the literary magazine Observator Cultural.[160][161] Also in 2001, his collected writings, edited by Barbu Cioculescu, were republished in a single edition.[91] His copy of Octav-George Lecca's Familii boiereşti române, featuring his many comments and sketches, was the basis for a 2002 reprint.[89] In 2007, Remember was issued as an audiobook, read by actor Marcel Iureş.

In contrast to his father Şerban, who was often a vocal critic of Mateiu Caragiale's literature and lifestyle choices, Barbu Cioculescu is one of the writer's most noted promoters, and has occasionally been described as a mateist.[34][91] Among contemporary writers to have claimed inspiration from Caragiale is Ştefan Agopian, who acknowledged he pursued his stylistic concerns in his 1981 novel Tache de catifea ("Tache de Velvet").[162] According to Barbu Cioculescu, the poetry of Virgiliu Stoenescu was influenced by "the charm of word appositions" he saw present in Caragiale's poems.[163]

Large portions of the diaries kept by Mateiu Caragiale are lost. The transcript made by Perpessicus was criticized for having selectively discarded much content, while originals kept by Rosetti were mysteriously lost during the Legionnaires' Rebellion of 1941.[19] Additional notes, which notably featured Caragiale's criticism of his father, were preserved for a while by Şerban Cioculescu, before being borrowed to Ecaterina Logadi, Ion Luca's daughter, and never recovered.[19] A significant number of his drawings and paintings, which Vianu assumed had survived by 1936,[164] have also been misplaced.[19]

[edit] In cultural reference

Mateiu Caragiale is mentioned in Gheorghe Jurgea-Negrileşti's book of memoirs, Troica amintirilor. Sub patru regi ("The Troika of Recollections. Under Four Kings"). The work depicts notable episodes in his Bohemian life, including a scene where the overweight and inebriated Admiral Vessiolkin leaps over tables at Casa Capşa and recites English-language quotes from William Shakespeare to an audience comprising Caragiale and various by-standers.[53] In 1947, Ion Barbu wrote the poem Protocol al unui Club ("The Protocol of a Club"), intended as an homage to his friend's memory.[91] Caragiale's name was cited by the writer Geo Bogza, who, in his youth, was a major figure of the Romanian avant-garde movement. In one of his late prose pieces, titled Ogarii, "The Borzois", Bogza, who praised the dog breed for its innate grace, wrote: "I do not know if Mateiu Caragiale, who thought himself so uncommon, ever owned borzois. But, if he did, I'm sure he gazed on them with melancholy and with secret envy."[165]

The writer, his prose works, and the manner in which the reader relates to them were the themes for a 2003 book by Matei Călinescu, titled Mateiu I. Caragiale: recitiri ("Mateiu I. Caragiale: Re-readings").[128] Several monographs were dedicated to Caragiale, including a favorable review of his work authored by literary critic Ion Iovan in 2002. The latter is noted for defending Caragiale against the traditional topics of criticism.[19]

In the early 1970s, Mateiu Caragiale's life inspired a Romanian Television production produced and directed by Stere Gulea.[166] In 1995, Craii de Curtea-Veche was turned into an eponymous cinema production, directed by Mircea Veroiu.[167][166] It starred Mircea Albulescu, Marius Bodochi, and Gheorghe Dinică.[167] The book and its author were also the subject of one episode in a documentary series produced by journalist and political scientist Stelian Tănase, dealing with the history of Bucharest; titled Bucureşti, strict secret ("Bucharest, Top Secret"), it was aired by Realitatea TV in 2007.[97]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ According to Cioculescu (p.360): "Deceived by the old orthography, with its final short u, Mateiu, several young people pronounce the final vowel, as if part of a diphthong: Ma-te-iu."
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Sorin Antohi, "Romania and the Balkans. From Geocultural Bovarism to Ethnic Ontology", in Tr@nsit online, Nr. 21/2002, Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen
  3. ^ Călinescu, p.489, 490, 897; Cioculescu, p.359, 366, 375
  4. ^ Nastasă, p.19; Perpessicius, p.XVII
  5. ^ Cioculescu, p.375
  6. ^ Cioculescu, p.362
  7. ^ Cioculescu, p.366-367; Nastasă, p.18-19; Perpessicius, p.V
  8. ^ Cioculescu, p.367
  9. ^ Cioculescu, p.367; Perpessicius, p.V, IX, XVII
  10. ^ Perpessicius, p.XVII
  11. ^ Cioculescu, p.344, 368
  12. ^ Călinescu, p.494, 898
  13. ^ Călinescu, p.898; Cioculescu, p.344, 358; Perpessicius, p.V-VI, XVII
  14. ^ Cioculescu, p.344; Perpessicius, p.VI
  15. ^ Perpessicius, p.VI
  16. ^ Cioculescu, p.368
  17. ^ Călinescu, p.898
  18. ^ Călinescu, p.898; Perpessicius, p.XVII-XVIII
  19. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l (Romanian) Paul Cernat, "Spre Ion Iovan, prin Mateiu Caragiale", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 153, February 2003; retrieved November 22, 2007
  20. ^ Cioculescu, p.356-382
  21. ^ Cioculescu, p.352, 357-358, 360-362, 363-364
  22. ^ Cioculescu, p.362
  23. ^ Cioculescu, p.364-365
  24. ^ Cioculescu, p.369
  25. ^ Călinescu, p.898; Cioculescu, p.358, 362-363, 368; Perpessicius, p.XVIII
  26. ^ Cioculescu, p.363
  27. ^ Cioculescu, p.372-373
  28. ^ Cioculescu, p.372
  29. ^ Perpessicius, p.XVIII
  30. ^ Cioculescu, p.365
  31. ^ Călinescu, p.898; Perpessicius, p.XIX
  32. ^ Cioculescu, p.365, 368
  33. ^ Cioculescu, p.356-357, 368
  34. ^ a b c d e f g (Romanian) Paul Cernat, "De la Barbu Cioculescu citire", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 319, May 2006; retrieved November 22, 2007
  35. ^ Cioculescu, p.357
  36. ^ Cioculescu, p.363-364
  37. ^ Cioculescu, p.369
  38. ^ Perpessicius, p.XIX
  39. ^ Cioculescu, p.363
  40. ^ Cioculescu, p.365, 368
  41. ^ Cioculescu, p.365, 378
  42. ^ Cioculescu, p.378
  43. ^ Cioculescu, p.366, 379
  44. ^ Cioculescu, p.366
  45. ^ Cioculescu, p.379
  46. ^ Cioculescu, p.379
  47. ^ Cioculescu, p.380
  48. ^ Cioculescu, p.381
  49. ^ Perpessicius, p.XIX
  50. ^ Cioculescu, p.380
  51. ^ Cioculescu, p.376
  52. ^ Cioculescu, p.351, 370
  53. ^ a b c (Romanian) Paul Cernat, "Senzaţionalul unor amintiri de mare clasă", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 130, August 2002; retrieved January 23, 2008
  54. ^ Cioculescu, p.369
  55. ^ Perpessicius, p.XXI
  56. ^ Cioculescu, p.369
  57. ^ Cioculescu, p.369
  58. ^ Cioculescu, p.369
  59. ^ Cioculescu, p.369
  60. ^ Cioculescu, p.381; Perpessicius, p.XIX
  61. ^ Cioculescu, p.381
  62. ^ Cioculescu, p.381
  63. ^ Cioculescu, p.381
  64. ^ Perpessicius, p.XX
  65. ^ Perpessicius, p.XXI
  66. ^ Călinescu, p.898; Nastasă, p.19; Perpessicius, p.XIX
  67. ^ Călinescu, p.898; Cioculescu, p.352
  68. ^ Perpessicius, p.XIX-XX
  69. ^ Perpessicius, p.XXI
  70. ^ Perpessicius, p.XX
  71. ^ Perpessicius, p.XXII
  72. ^ Perpessicius, p.XXI
  73. ^ Perpessicius, p.VIII
  74. ^ Cioculescu, p.381
  75. ^ Cioculescu, p.381-382
  76. ^ a b c d (Romanian) Alina Andrei, "Manual de fotografie: Cum se fotografiază scrisorile", at the LiterNet Publishing House; retrieved November 22, 2007
  77. ^ Perpessicius, p.VII, XX-XXI
  78. ^ Perpessicius, p.VII, XX-XXI
  79. ^ Perpessicius, p.VII-VIII, XX
  80. ^ Perpessicius, p.VII
  81. ^ Perpessicius, p.VIII
  82. ^ Perpessicius, p.XXII
  83. ^ Perpessicius, p.XXII
  84. ^ Cernat, Avangarda..., p.174-175
  85. ^ Perpessicius, p.XXII
  86. ^ Perpessicius, p.XXIII
  87. ^ Cioculescu, p.357
  88. ^ Cioculescu, p.357
  89. ^ a b c d e (Romanian) Paul Cernat, "Boierimea română, adnotată de Mateiu Caragiale", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 72, July 2001; retrieved November 22, 2007
  90. ^ Călinescu, p.898; Cioculescu, p.343, 368; Nastasă, p.19
  91. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n (Romanian) Eugen Simion, "Arta marelui Mateiu...", in Curentul, December 29, 2001; retrieved February 22, 2008
  92. ^ Perpessicius, p.IX
  93. ^ Perpessicius, p.IX
  94. ^ Vianu, p.172
  95. ^ Vianu, p.172
  96. ^ Cioculescu, p.349
  97. ^ a b c (Romanian) Stelian Tănase, "Zaraza all inclusive", in Observator Cultural, Nr. 393, October 2007; retrieved February 22, 2008
  98. ^ Vianu, p.174
  99. ^ Nastasă, p.18-19
  100. ^ Cioculescu, p.352, 361, 376
  101. ^ Cioculescu, p.359
  102. ^ Călinescu, p.898; Nastasă, p.19
  103. ^ Cioculescu, p.362
  104. ^ Vianu, p.171
  105. ^ Vianu, p.171
  106. ^ Vianu, p.172
  107. ^ Călinescu, p.898; Perpessicius, p.XXI
  108. ^ Nastasă, p.19
  109. ^ Nastasă, p.19
  110. ^ Călinescu, p.898-899; Cioculescu, p.380; Nastasă, p.19
  111. ^ Cioculescu, p.380-381
  112. ^ Călinescu, p.897
  113. ^ Călinescu, p.898
  114. ^ Cioculescu, p.352
  115. ^ (Romanian) Ion Vianu, "O plimbare pe Strada Matei Caragiale", in Revista 22, Nr. 840, April 2006; retrieved January 15, 2008
  116. ^ Cernat, Avangarda..., p.44
  117. ^ Vianu, p.171
  118. ^ Vianu, p.171
  119. ^ Vianu, p.172-173
  120. ^ Vianu, p.173
  121. ^ Cioculescu, p.342, 344, 368
  122. ^ Cioculescu, p.363; Vianu, p.180-181
  123. ^ a b (Romanian) Dan C. Mihăilescu, "Mitică prin Heidegger", in Ziarul Financiar, March 4, 2003; retrieved September 11, 2007
  124. ^ Vianu, p.181
  125. ^ Vianu, p.452
  126. ^ Călinescu, p.899-900
  127. ^ Cioculescu, p.344, 361, 362-363
  128. ^ a b c d e f (Romanian) Carmen Muşat, "Reluate plimbări prin păduri (inter)textuale", in Revista 22, Nr. 737, April 2004; retrieved February 22, 2008
  129. ^ Perpessicius, p.XIII-XVI
  130. ^ Călinescu, p.900
  131. ^ Călinescu, p.814, 895; Cernat, Avangarda..., p.148
  132. ^ Călinescu, p.814
  133. ^ Călinescu, p.900
  134. ^ Călinescu, p.900
  135. ^ Cernat, Avangarda..., p.184
  136. ^ Cernat, Avangarda..., p.184
  137. ^ Cioculescu, p.347-352; Nastasă, p.19; Perpessicius, p.X-XI
  138. ^ Cioculescu, p.350
  139. ^ Cioculescu, p.351, 358-359
  140. ^ Cioculescu, p.351
  141. ^ Cioculescu, p.351
  142. ^ Perpessicius, p.X-XI
  143. ^ Perpessicius, p.XI
  144. ^ Călinescu, p.899
  145. ^ Perpessicius, p.XI
  146. ^ Perpessicius, p.XI
  147. ^ Călinescu, p.899
  148. ^ Călinescu, p.899; Cioculescu, p.365; Perpessicius, p.IX-X
  149. ^ Călinescu, p.898
  150. ^ Călinescu, p.595, 899
  151. ^ Perpessicius, p.IX-X
  152. ^ Perpessicius, p.X
  153. ^ Călinescu, p.898
  154. ^ Călinescu, p.898
  155. ^ Perpessicius, p.XXIII
  156. ^ Perpessicius, p.XXIII
  157. ^ Călinescu, p.885
  158. ^ Călinescu, p.918
  159. ^ (Romanian) Constantin Olariu, Boema anilor '55 - '70, at the Memoria Digital Library; retrieved February 22, 2008
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[edit] References

[edit] External links

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Persondata
NAME Caragiale, Mateiu Ion
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Caragiale, Matei
SHORT DESCRIPTION poet, short story writer, novelist, visual artist, heraldist, civil servant
DATE OF BIRTH March 25, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Bucharest
DATE OF DEATH January 17, 1936
PLACE OF DEATH Bucharest