birth_date: 1881-10-31 00:00:00
avg_rating: 3.93
name: Eugen Lovinescu
about: Eugen Lovinescu was a Romanian modernist literary historian, literary critic, academic, and novelist, who in 1919 established the Sburătorul literary club. He was elected to the Romanian Academy posthumously, in 1991.Building on the legacy of Titu Maiorescu, Lovinescu aimed to show that both the author and critic are never cut out from their social and cultural environments. He opposed Garabet Ibrăileanu's theory of selection (the compromise between individual genius and social requirement), proposing instead the idea that creation and demand occupy the very same moment in time. Lovinescu's analysis was backed by the views of Faguet Emile, Jules Lemaître, as well as Gabriel Tarde's notion of a group mind; it also adhered to the esthetical t Eugen Lovinescu was a Romanian modernist literary historian, literary critic, academic, and novelist, who in 1919 established the Sburătorul literary club. He was elected to the Romanian Academy posthumously, in 1991.Building on the legacy of Titu Maiorescu, Lovinescu aimed to show that both the author and critic are never cut out from their social and cultural environments. He opposed Garabet Ibrăileanu's theory of selection (the compromise between individual genius and social requirement), proposing instead the idea that creation and demand occupy the very same moment in time. Lovinescu's analysis was backed by the views of Faguet Emile, Jules Lemaître, as well as Gabriel Tarde's notion of a group mind; it also adhered to the esthetical tenets of Impressionism.The main advocate of Modernism, Lovinescu rejected the preoccupation of Poporanism and the Sămănătorul group had with rural themes, arguing in favour of novels with an urban setting. His Sburătorul published works by a new generation of writers, realists to symbolists to early avant-garde: Camil Petrescu, Ion Barbu, Tudor Vianu, Liviu Rebreanu, Benjamin Fondane, Ilarie Voronca, Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu, and many others.The polemic with Sămănătorul extended over decades: Lovinescu is also remembered for his rejection of Nicolae Iorga's thesis on the origin of Hospodars as an institution in Wallachia and Moldavia. While Iorga claimed that they had been a creation of peasant communities delegating power to their most able members, in a regional sphere that would have been virtually cut off from the rest of Europe, Lovinescu pointed out that some of the very first voivodes mentioned seemed to have been perfectly familiar with feudal relations, and well-integrated in European culture (for example, he pointed out that works at Curtea de Argeş Monastery had unearthed the remains of a hospodar dressed in accordance with European fashion of the time). ...more
death_date: 1943-01-01 00:00:00