LUCIAN BLAGA, POET OF THE MYSTERIOS

LUCIAN BLAGA, Poet of the Mysterios

ABSTRACT

Our doctoral thesis is dedicated to the analysis of the notion of mystery in the work of Lucian Blaga, a polyvalent figure in the Romanian culture. He is the author of an original philosophical system, he is on of the greatest 20th century poets, as well as a playwright and as essayist. This research primarily deals with his lyrical creative opus. Since mystery is the fundamental category of his philosophical system, and it occurs in his lyrical works, too, we also studies Lucian Blaga's philosophical thoughts about the mysterious as theorized in the ontology, epistemology, philosophy of culture, philosophy of art and esthetics. The analysis is primarily thematic; it occasionally refers to the nature of poetical expression and contains seven chapters, as well as an extensive Conclusion.

After the Introduction in which we synthetically presented the characteristics of Lucian Blaga's personality and opus, in the first chapter we discussed the reception of his work in the Romanian and European, as well as world culture. Here we focussed on the interpretations offered by the Romanian critics, on the impact of Lucian Blagazs work on the consciousness of wider public, on the translations into foreign languages and his presence in foreign criticism.

The Introduction and the first chapters have (to a certain degree) somewhat preparatory character.

In the chapter, The Relation Between Poetry and Philosophy, we specified that the notion of mystery presents the ground which links philosophy and poetry.

Were we propounded the opinion of the Romanian critics about the dual personality of Lucian Blaga, philosopher and poet. Some of these opinions implied a specific mutual relation between these two fields, while other placed the philosopher above the poet, seeing in his poetry - at least in his first collections - only the philosophy which acquired a plastic, poetic expression or the philosophy which is simply conceptual. In the context, we pointed to Vladimir Strainuzs opinion, according to which L. Blaga is a lyrosoph.

As for the relation between these two fields, we are of the opinion that philosophy and poetry are distinctive forms of reality, that his poetry is not a simple commentary of his philosophical ideas.

The poetry is autonomous because his philosophical ideas are images supported by lyrical expressions, and when they exist, they confirm and offer a wider perspective to the poetic feelings. This chapter also presented the status of poetry in L.Blaga's philosophy of cognition.

In the chapter, ,,Mystery in Memorist Writings", we analyzed biographical testimonies about the mystery existing in the prose work ,,Chronicle and Poem of Man's Age", in his inaugural address in the Romanian Academy of Science ,,Praise for the Romanian Village", and in the ,,Genesis of Metaphor and Meaning of Culture" from ,,The Trilogy of Culture". In all these presentations, he views the rural reality as permeated with the elements of myth and magic which constitute the source of mystery.

In the chapter, ,,The Nature of Mystery in Esthetics and Poetic Art", we extensively analyzed the concept of mystery and the philosophy of culture in the philosophy of art and esthetics, emphasizing the originality of standpoints, particularly those related to the style and metaphor. We specially discussed poetic art in the verses where L. Blaga declared to be an advocate of mystery. One distinctive instance of the declaration implied cherishing of silence and nonwords as a variant of mystery, by which L. Blaga belongs to the trend of modern 20^th century lyric poetry. Even though he is not the first poet to advocate mystery, L. Blaga made it the central topic of his poetry and a permanent criterion of poetic quality.

Due to methodological reasons, the chapter ,,Variants of Mystery" is divided into two sections. The first of them is dedicated to stillness and silence, which are, in our opinion, the expressions particularly appropriate for mystery, because they contribute to the atmosphere of secrecy.

We explained the reasons for the commitment to stillness and silence. They, above all, imply a search for the appropriate conditions to communicate with the primordial universe; they also imply creation of the appropriate atmosphere to merge the ego, the cosmos and the magic world, which is for the poet ,,the crown of the world's miracles". The second section is dedicated to the analysis of dreams which constitute one variant of mystery; they are an important topic hypostases of dreams as one variant of mystery, as well as the way Blaga differs from the romanticists and surrealists.

In the chapter, ,,Village, the Horizon of Mystery", we presented L. Blaga's extensive views about villages and archaic mentality from his theoretical philosophy.

We specified the differences between L. Blaga and the traditionalist orientations and pointed out, following P. Constantinescu, that the bases of his traditionalism could be found in the philosophy of culture - he was the first to introduce the notion of ,,culture style" in the Romanian culture. For him, the village is the hearth of myth and magic, the domain in the soul united with the cosmos, the abode of the deity, the landscape similar to the world of fairy tales, thrill towards that world and presents a series of Biblical motives seen through rural vision, deviating from canonical Orthodoxy. Such a deviation also occurs when he talks about unnamed phenomena which are either a part of the rural mentality or represent Christian humility.

We pointed out several domains: the village as the place of communication and of the links with the parents, ancestors and the primordial, the village as a paradisical area to which the poet returns, the memories of childhood in the miraculous rural environment, the antagonism between the rural and the urban, death in the village as merging with the cosmos.

The last chapter, ,,Universal Mystery and Human Condition" primarily took into account the reflexive poems which leave the impression of the impersonal, general ego and relate to the mystery of the entire cosmos, to the conditions of manzs position in it. These are primarily poems about the world in which secrets rule and where all creatures carry the seal of secrets. The experience of the accepted secret stimulates the feelings of enchantment and miraculousness. There are poems about the meaning of suffering, about death, about the world of evil, about the revolt against heaven and deity, as well as about the primordial evil. Links with the transcedental do not exist because the deity is invisible and does not answer the prayers.