Urmuz Urmuz ( , pen name of Demetru Dem . Demetrescu - Buzău , also known as Hurmuz or Ciriviş , born Dimitrie Dim . Ionescu - Buzeu ; March 17 , 1883 – November 23 , 1923 ) was a Romania n writer , lawyer and civil servant , who became a cult hero in Romania ' s avant - garde scene . His scattered work , consisting of absurdist short prose and poetry , opened a new genre in Romanian letters and humor , and captured the imagination of modernists for several generations . Urmuz ' s " Bizarre " ( or " Weird " ) " Pages " were largely independent of European modernism , even though some may have been triggered by Futurism ; their valorization of nonsense verse , black comedy , nihilistic tendencies and exploration into the unconscious mind have repeatedly been cited as influential for the development of Dada ism and the Theatre of the Absurd . Individual pieces such as " The Funnel and Stamate " , " Ismaïl and Turnavitu " , " Algazy & Grummer " or " The Fuchsiad " are parody fragments , dealing with monstrous and shapeshifting creatures in mundane settings , and announcing techniques later taken up by Surrealism . Urmuz ' s biography between his high school eccentricity and his public suicide remains largely mysterious , and some of the sympathetic accounts have been described as purposefully deceptive . The abstruse imagery of his work has produced a large corpus of diverging interpretations . He has notably been read as a satirist of public life in the 1910s , an unlikely conservative and nostalgic , or an emotionally distant esotericist . In Urmuz ' s lifetime , his stories were only acted out by his thespian friend George Ciprian and published as samples by " Cuget Românesc " newspaper , with support from modernist writer Tudor Arghezi . Ciprian and Arghezi were together responsible for creating the link between Urmuz and the emerging avant - garde , their activity as Urmuz promoters being later enhanced by such figures as Ion Vinea , Geo Bogza , Lucian Boz , Saşa Pană and Eugène Ionesco . Beginning in the late 1930s , Urmuz also became the focus interest for the elite critics , who either welcomed him into 20th - century literature or dismissed him as a buffoonish impostor . By then , his activity also inspired an eponymous avant - garde magazine edited by Bogza , as well as Ciprian ' s drama " The Drake ' s Head " . Name . Urmuz ' s birth name was , in full , " Dimitrie Dim . Ionescu - Buzeu " ( or " Buzău " ) , changed to " Dimitrie Dim . Dumitrescu - Buzeu " when he was still a child , and later settled as " Demetru Dem . Demetrescu - Buzău " . The " Demetrescu " surname was in effect a Romanian patronymic , using the " - escu " suffix : his father was known as Dimitrie ( Demetru , Dumitru ) Ionescu - Buzău . The attached particle " Buzău " , originally " Buzeu " , confirms that the family traced its roots to the eponymous town . According to George Ciprian , the names " Ciriviş " ( variation of " cerviş " , Romanian for " melted grease " ) and " Mitică " ( pet form of " Dumitru " ) were coined while the writer was still in school , whereas " Urmuz " came " later " . The name under which the writer is universally known did not actually originate from his own wishes , but was selected and imposed on the public by Arghezi , only one year before Urmuz committed suicide . The spelling " Hurmuz " , when used in reference to the writer , was popular in the 1920s , but has since been described as erroneous . The variant " Ormuz " , sometimes rendered as " Urmuz " , was also used as a pen name by Arghezi ' s brother in law , the activist and novelist Al . L . Zissu . The word " [ h ] urmuz " , explained by linguists as a curious addition to the Romanian lexis , generally means " glass bead " , " precious stone " or " snowberry " . It has entered the language through oriental channels , and these meanings ultimately refer to the international trade in beads centered on Hormuz Island , Iran . Anthropologist and essayist Vasile Andru highlights a secondary , scatological , meaning : in the Romani language , a source of Romanian slang , " urmuz " , " bead " , has mutated to mean " feces " . An alternative etymology , exclusive to the author ' s pseudonym , was advanced by writer and scholar Ioana Pârvulescu . It suggests the combination of two contradictory terms : " ursuz " ( " surly " ) and " amuz " ( " I amuse " ) . Biography . Childhood . Mitică was the eldest son of a middle class nuclear family : his father , described by Ciprian as " short and mean " ( " om scund şi ciufut " ) , worked as a physician . In his spare time , Ionescu - Buzeu Sr . was a classical scholar , folklorist and active Freemason . His wife , the writer ' s mother , was Eliza née Paşcani , sister of the doctor , chemist and University of Paris professor Cristien Pascani . Urmuz had numerous other siblings ( " a multitude " , according to Ciprian ) , of whom most were daughters . One of Urmuz ' s sisters , Eliza ( married Vorvoreanu ) was later a main source of information on the author ' s childhood and adolescence . The future Urmuz was born in the northern Muntenia n town of Curtea de Argeş , and , at age five , spent one year in Paris with his parents . The family eventually settled in Romania ' s capital , Bucharest , where his father was hygiene teacher at Matei Basarab National College , later city health inspector , and rented houses in Antim Monastery quarter . Young Mitică was described by his sister as mainly unpretentious and introverted , fascinated by scientific discovery and , in his childhood years , a passionate reader of Jules Verne ' s science fiction books . At a later stage , he was also possibly familiarized with and influenced by German idealism and by the philosophical views of 19th - century poet Mihai Eminescu . A more evident influence on the future writer was Ion Luca Caragiale , the main figure in early 20th - century Romanian comediography . Ionescu - Buzău ' s family had artistic interests , and Urmuz grew up with a fascination for classical music and fine art , learning to play the piano and taking up amateur oil painting . He got along best with his mother , who was also a pianist . The devout daughter of an Orthodox priest , she was unable to instill in her young son the same respect for the Church . Urmuz ' s arrival to literary history took place in the atmosphere of Bucharest gymnasia . It was at this junction that he became a mate of Ciprian , who later described their encounter as momentous : " I don ' t much believe in destiny . [ . . . ] Yet I find it such an odd incident that my bench mate , from my failing grade year through to my high school graduation , was [ . . . ] this tiny man of a rare originality , who had a massive say on how my life would turn up . " Ciprian describes what follows as his own " initiation in artistic matters " : he recalls conversations with " Ciriviş " where they debated the " perfection " of Ancient Greek sculpture , and mentions that young Urmuz , unlike himself , regarded theater as a " minor art " . Instead , Urmuz preferred to attend concerts at the Romanian Atheneum , and , Ciprian writes , had an advanced understanding of absolute music even at age thirteen . Reportedly , the young man was also in the attendance at lectures given by Titu Maiorescu , a philosopher and aesthete who had influenced both Eminescu and Caragiale . " Pahuci " brotherhood . Some years later , while enrolled at the Gheorghe Lazăr National College , Urmuz turned his interest toward mocking the severity of his teachers and challenging the dominance of artistic traditionalism . One such early episode is attested by Ciprian : amused by the creation of a " Vivat Dacia " ( " Long Live Dacia " ) association of nationalist students , Urmuz subverted its meetings , and , with deadpan snark , suggested that membership fees should be paid in duck heads . Also according to Ciprian , these events soon lost their shock value , leading him and Urmuz to " take to the streets " , where they began their activity as pranksters . Their initial experiment was to pressure law - abiding and credulous passers - by into presenting their identity papers for inspection , and the apparent success earned Urmuz an unexpected following in school ( his fans even heckled " Vivat Dacia " into accepting poultry heads as means of payment , before the society dissolved itself with ceremony ) . Another colleague , future traditionalist poet Vasile Voiculescu , recalled young Urmuz as " genially knavish " , his humor being " cerebral , harder to detect and appreciate " . The core group of Urmuzian disciples , organized as a secret society , comprised Ciprian ( nicknamed " Macferlan " by Urmuz ) , Alexandru " Bălălău " Bujoreanu and Costică " Pentagon " Grigorescu , together known as the " pahuci " . Allegedly , the obscure word originated from the Hebrew for " yawns " . Their activity centered on daring pranks : Urmuz and the other three young men once made an impromptu visit to the isolated Căldăruşani Monastery , in Ilfov County , where the deposed and disgraced Metropolitan Ghenadie was living in banishment . Passing themselves off as newspaper editors , they demanded ( and received ) honored guest treatment , tested the monks ' patience , and were later introduced to a well - disposed Ghenadie . Ciprian also recalls that Urmuz ' s philosophical musings or deadpan surreal humor were a direct inspiration for other pranks and experiments . He describes how Ciriviş acted out sadness for the plight of a screechy sledge ( declaring " my heart is at one with all things in existence " ) , but then duped onlookers into believing that the squeaks came from a woman somehow trapped under the vehicle . Reportedly , Urmuz also approached his seniors training at seminaries or other traditionalist institutions , earned their attention by claiming to share the nationalist agenda , and then began reciting them nonsense lyrics such as an evolving draft of his mock - fable " The Chroniclers " . Outside school , the young man was still introverted , and , Sandqvist notes , " extremely shy , especially with girls . " Ciprian recalls Ciriviş ' s engrossing pick - up line s : he acted familiar to any young woman who caught his eye , assuring her that they had met once before , and , having stirred her curiosity , falsely recounting how they both used to kill flesh - flies for sport . The " pahuci " welcomed their graduation with one final act of defiance against the school principal , whom they visited in his office , where they began hopping about in circles . Even though their group did not survive once its members took different career paths , they had regular reunions at the Spiru Godelea tavern , where they earned notoriety for their rude and unconventional behavior . Urmuz enrolled at the Bucharest Medical School , allegedly after pressures from his stern father . According to Ciprian , this training did not agree with his friend , who would complain of being " unable to make himself understood by the cadavers . " This was probably a sign that the young man could not bear to witness dissection . He eventually entered the University of Bucharest Faculty of Law , which was to be his " alma mater " , while also taking lectures in composition and counterpoint at the Music and Declamation Conservatory . Additionally , he completed his first service term in the Romanian Infantry . Urmuz became head of his family in 1907 . That year , his father and two younger brothers died , and his sister Eliza was married . He also continued to take the initiative in daring acts of " épater le bourgeois " . Ciprian recalls the two of them renting a carriage which Urmuz would order around , making a right at every junction , and effectively going around in circles around the Palace of Justice . Urmuz then proceeded to pester the street vendors , stopping over to buy a random assortment of useless items : pretzel s , a pile of charcoal , and an old hen which he impaled on his walking cane . Dobrujan career and military life . Having passed his law examination in 1904 , Urmuz was first appointed judge in the rural locality of Cocu ( Răchiţele ) , in Argeş County . It is probable that at around this stage ( ca . 1908 ) , he was committing to paper the first fragments in his collection " Bizarre Pages " , some of which were reportedly written during a family reunion in Cocu . According to Eliza Vorvoreanu , he was doing this mainly to entertain his mother and sisters , but Urmuz also amused local potentates , one of whom even offered his daughter ' s hand in marriage ( Urmuz refused ) . At the time , Mitică also discovered his passion for modern art : he was an admirer of primitivist sculptor Constantin Brâncuși , fascinated by his 1907 work " The Wisdom of the Earth " . Eventually , Urmuz was made a justice of the peace in the remote Dobruja region : for a while , he was in Casimcea village . Later , he was dispatched closer to Bucharest , at Ghergani , Dâmboviţa County . These assignments were interrupted in 1913 , when Urmuz was called under arms , in the Second Balkan War against Bulgaria . Ciprian mentions having lost touch with his friend " for a long time " , before receiving a letter in which the latter complained about the provincial apathy and the lack of musical entertainment ; attached was a draft of the " Algazy & Grummer " story , which Ciprian was supposed to read to the " seminary brethren " , informing them " about the progresses registered in young literature " . Ciprian tells of having discovered the writer in Urmuz , and popularizing this and other stories in his own circle of intellectuals . He also mentions that , in his budding acting career , he was basing some of his performances at Blanduzia Garden on Urmuz ' s letters . These developments coincided with the outbreak of World War I . Between 1914 and summer 1916 , when Romania was still neutral territory , Ciprian ' s efforts of circulating the " Bizarre Pages " may have reached a peak . Urmuz ' s texts were probably spread around in handwritten copies , becoming somewhat familiar to Bucharest ' s bohemian society , but Urmuz himself was still an anonymous figure . Both Ciprian and fellow actor Grigore Mărculescu are said to have given public readings from the " Bizarre Pages " at Casa Capşa restaurant . According to literary historian Paul Cernat , if rumors about Ciprian ' s early performances of Urmuz ' s texts are true , it would constitute one of the first samples of avant - garde shows in Romanian theatrical tradition . Around 1916 , Urmuz had obtained a relocation , as judge in the Muntenian town of Alexandria . It was there that he met with poet and schoolteacher Mihail Cruceanu , also on assignment . As Cruceanu later recalled , Urmuz was captivated by the artistic revolt carried out in Italy by the Futurist group , and in particular by the poetry of Futurist leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti . According to literary historian Tom Sandqvist , Urmuz may have first read about the Italian intitiatives in the local newspaper " Democraţia " , which had covered them in early 1909 . As a result of this or another encounter , he decided to include , as a subtitle to one of his manuscripts , the words : " Schiţe şi nuvele . . . aproape futuriste " ( " Sketches and Novellas . . . almost Futuristic " ) . Having reached the rank of Lieutenant , Demetrescu - Buzău was again called under arms when Romania joined the Entente Powers . In one account , he saw action against the Central Powers in Moldavia , following the Army ' s northward retreat . However , this is partly contradicted by his correspondence from Moldavia , which shows that his new office was as a quartermaster , and which records his frustration at not having been allowed to fight in the trenches . According to another account , he was mostly bedridden with malaria , and therefore unable to perform any military duty . Debut . Urmuz was again in Bucharest , working as " grefier " ( registrar or court reporter ) at the High Court of Cassation and Justice ; sources disagree on whether this appointment dated from 1918 or earlier . Reportedly , this was a well paid employment with special perks , which may have made Urmuz uncomfortable about his other life as a bohemian hero . A photograph portrait taken in that period , one of the few to survive , was read as an additional clue that Urmuz had become melancholy and anxious . Sandqvist also sees him as a " catastrophically lonely " and insomnia c customer of the brothels , adding : " To all appearances as a result of disgusting experiences during the wars , returning home to Bucharest Demetru Demetrescu - Buzău chose to live an extremely ascetic and isolated life with long night walks . " Urmuz ' s feats and pranks were nonetheless attracting more public attention , and he himself allegedly read his work to a bohemian public , in places such as Gabroveni Inn ; at least some of these were free exercises in oral literature , and as such entirely lost . The year 1922 brought Urmuz ' s debut in print . Fascinated by the ( then unnamed ) " Bizarre Pages " , poet and journalist Tudor Arghezi included two of them in " Cuget Românesc " newspaper . Arghezi reportedly made efforts to persuade his more serious fellow editors of " Cuget " , and possibly intended to undermine their attempt of putting out a newspaper of record . The gazette had also published a manifesto by Arghezi , in which he had outlined the goal of combating " sterile literature " , and his intention of cultivating the " will to power " in post - war literary culture . Urmuz was thus the first avant - garde writer popularized by Arghezi , in a list which , by 1940 , also came to include a large section of the younger Romanian modernists . Arghezi later wrote that his relationship with Urmuz was difficult , especially since the " grefier " panicked that the establishment would discover his other career : " he feared that the Cassation Court would better detect him as " Urmuz " than under his own name " . The memoirist refers to Demetrescu - Buzău ' s perfectionism and unease , enhanced in the week before publication : " He would wake up in the middle of the night and would send a very urgent letter , asking me if the comma after a ' that ' should be moved before . I found him wandering around my house at night , shy , restless , fainthearted or in a hopeful trance , that something of substance may or may not be found in his prose , that perhaps there ' s an error , asking me to publish it , and then again to destroy it ; to publish it together with an eulogistic note , and then again to curse him . He bribed [ the printers ] to change phrases and words that I had to put back into place , as previous editorial interventions were for sure better than his . " The letters they exchanged show that the " grefier " was not enthusiastic about even seeing his texts and his pseudonym in print , to which Arghezi was replying : " from among the few we ' ll be cooperating with , you were my first choice " . By May 1922 , Urmuz had grown more confident in his strength as a writer . He sent Arghezi a copy of the " Algazy & Grummer " story , which , he joked , needed to be published for " the nation ' s benefit " . He also proposed headlining it with the additional title " Bizarre Pages " . The work was never published by " Cuget " , probably because of a change in priorities : around that date , the paper hosted traditionalist editorials by culture critic Nicolae Iorga , which were incompatible with Arghezi ' s fronde . Suicide . On November 23 , 1923 , Urmuz shot himself , an event which remains shrouded in mystery . His death occurred in a public location , described as being close to Kiseleff Road in northern Bucharest . Some early sources suggest that he may have been suffering from an incurable disease , but he is also argued to have been fascinated with guns and their destructive potential . In 1914 for instance , he wrote down in his papers a homage to revolvers , crediting them with a magical power over the suicidal brain . Reports also show that he was theorizing the purposelessness and hollowness of life , addressing his fears on the subject to family members during the funeral of his brother Constantin ( also in 1914 ) . Researcher Geo Şerban wrote about Demetrescu - Buzău ' s well - hidden disappointment , assessing that , during his final year , the writer continued to act cheerful and relaxed , but that a " devastating " tension was building up inside him . At around that time , Urmuz took his one real trip as an adult civilian , visiting the Budaki Lagoon in Bessarabia . Writing in 1927 , Arghezi publicized his regret at not having cultivated the friendship : " I never saw him again and I am weighed down by the irreparable grief of never seeking him out . I believe my optimism could have rekindled in his cerebral chaos those candid and pure things that were beginning to die . " Several Urmuz exegetes have traditionally seen the suicide intrinsically linked to Urmuz ' s artistic attitude . For scholar Carmen Blaga , it was the " dissolution of [ his ] faith " in Romania ' s intellectual class , along with economic decline and " an existential void " , that prompted the writer to opt himself out . This resonates with claims by the first - generation followers of Urmuz : Geo Bogza suggests that his mentor killed himself once the deconstructive process , performed by his " sharp intellect " , reached a natural conclusion ; Saşa Pană claims that Urmuz was tired of merely amusing the " cretins " and " profiteers " who held sway over Bucharest ' s literary scene , and , determined to turn his literary persona into " stardust " , took the risk of destroying his physical self . Additionally , academic George Călinescu argued that there was a philosophical rationale " very in tune with his century " : " he wanted to die in some original way , ' without any cause ' . " Kept at the city morgue , the body was assigned to Urmuz ' s brother - in - law and fellow clerk C . Stoicescu , who stated that the writer had been suffering from neurosis . Urmuz was buried on November 26 , in his family plot at Bellu cemetery . On the day , the event was publicized by a small obituary in " Dimineaţa " daily , signed with the initial " C " ( presumably , for Ciprian ) . Both this and other press notices failed to mention that the " grefier " and the published author were one and the same , and the general public was for long unaware of any such connection . Story goes that an anonymous woman visited the family shortly after the burial , inquiring as to whether the deceased had left any letters . In its manuscript form , Urmuz ' s definitive corpus of works covers only 40 pages , 50 at most . Various other manuscripts survive , including diaries and hundreds of aphorism s , but have for long been unknown to researchers . Urmuz ' s ideas and stylistic affinities . The avant - garde herald vs . the conservative . Shortly after his death , Urmuz ' s work was linked to the emergence of avant - garde rebellion throughout Europe , and in particular to the rise of Romania ' s own modernist scene : writing in 2007 , Paul Cernat describes this version of events as a " founding myth " of Romanian avant - garde literature . A literary critic and modernist enthusiast , Lucian Boz , assessed that Urmuz , like Arthur Rimbaud before him , embodied the " lyrical nihilism " of avant - garde currents . In the 1960s , literary historian Ovid Crohmălniceanu wrote of his being " the world ' s first pre - Dada exercises " . In 2002 however , scholar Adrian Lăcătuş revised this thesis , arguing that it had created a " blockage " in critical reception , and that the actual Urmuz had more complex views on the avant - garde . Others have emphasized that Urmuz ' s unusual revolt ran contemporary with the revival of intense traditionalism of Romanian literature ( the " Sămănătorul " moment ) , which would make his pre - Dada inspiration a moment of special significance . The contact with Futurism , although acknowledged by Urmuz , is judged by many of his commentators as superficial and delayed . Literary historian Nicolae Balotă first proposed that the Romanian had merely wanted to show his sympathy for ( and not a like - mindedness with ) Futurism ; that the works in question date back before the " Futurist Manifesto " , to the Cocu period ; and that the " Bizarre Pages " have more in common with Expressionism than with Marinetti . According to Cernat : " By the looks of it , [ the " Bizarre Pages " ] were completed largely independent of influence from the European avant - garde movements [ . . . ] . We do not know , however , how many of these were already completed in 1909 , the year when European Futurism was ' invented ' . " Emilia Drogoreanu , a researcher of Romanian Futurism , stresses : " The values and representations of [ the ] world celebrated through Futurism exist within the Urmuzian text , but are entirely uprooted from the significance offered them by [ the Futurists ] " . Although she finds various similarities between Urmuz and Marinetti , Carmen Blaga notes that the former ' s jadedness was no match for the latter ' s militancy . Various authors have also suggested that Urmuz was actually a radical conservative , whose vehemence against platitude in art only camouflaged a basic conventionalism . This perspective found its voice with Lăcătuş , who sees Urmuz as a conservative heretic , equally annoyed by bourgeois and anti - bourgeois discourses . Writing in 1958 , Ciprian also reflected on the possibility that Ciriviş was actually " teasing " the avant - garde tendencies emerging in his day , but concluded : " I would rather assume that under these various experiments was smoldering the lust for shaking the individual out of his skin , of tearing him away from himself , of disassembling him , of making him doubt the authenticity of accumulated knowledge . " He writes that Urmuz ' s work lashed out at " human nature in its most intimate creases . " Accordingly , some authors have even considered Urmuz the inheritor of late - 19th - century Decadence or of a matured alexandrine purity . In other such readings , Urmuz appears to lend his backing to the sexist or antisemitic viewpoints of his contemporaries . Crohmălniceanu also writes : " the musings comprised in his manuscript notebooks [ . . . ] are restrained , flat , commonplace , as if the work of a different man . " Much debate surrounds the issue of Urmuz ' s connection to an absurdist streak in earlier Romanian literature and folklore . In the 1940s , George Călinescu discussed in detail an Urmuzian tradition , of as being characteristic for the literary culture of Romania ' s southern , Wallachia n , cities . He noted that Urmuz was one of " the great grimacing sensitive " Wallachians , a " Balkan " succession which also includes Hristache the Baker , Anton Pann , Ion Minulescu , Mateiu Caragiale , Ion Barbu and Arghezi . In his definition , the source of Arghezi and Urmuz is in the folkloric tradition of self - parody , where the " doina " songs degenerate into spells or " grotesque whines " . The image of a folkloric Urmuz was soon after taken up by other critics , including Eugenio Coşeriu and Crohmălniceanu . The buffoon vs . the professional writer . A section among Urmuz ' s commentators tends to classify him as a genial but superficial prankster , a buffoon rather than a serious author . Although sympathetic to Urmuz ' s work , George Călinescu called the " Bizarre Pages " " an intelligent literary game " of " witty teenagers " . The goal , Călinescu suggested , was " purely epic " , " seeming to tell a story without in fact recounting anything " . Another verdict of this kind belongs to aesthetician Tudor Vianu , who also believed that Urmuz was a satirist of automatic behavior , and fundamentally a sarcastic realist . More severe in tone , Pompiliu Constantinescu assessed that Urmuz was superficial , chaotic and amateurish , interesting to researchers only because of defying " the bourgeois platitude " . Contrarily , another interwar exegete , Perpessicius , made ample efforts to rehabilitate Urmuz as a thoughtful literary figure with " great creative verve " , on the same level as Arghezi and poet Adrian Maniu . Ciprian noted that Urmuz was unlike the " cheeky , daring , disorganized " pranksters whom he superficially resembled , that nothing in Urmuz ' s exterior gave the impression that he was in any way " spoiled " . Time , he suggests , did not alter Urumuz ' s " attitude on life " : " Only now the about - turns were more daring and the tightrope acts was much more savvy . " In 1925 , commenting on Urmuz ' s flair for depicting the " overall pointlessness of [ human ] existence " , Ciprian also argued : " For the mediocre mindset , [ Urmuz ] may seem incoherent and unbalanced — which is why his work is not addressed to the masses . " Critic Adrian G . Romilă writes that the new " paradigm " in Urmuz ' s literary universe appears significant and laborious , but adds : " That which we do not know is if the writer [ . . . ] wasn ' t purely and simply playing around . " However , Ioana Pârvulescu assessed that Urmuz , an author of " extreme originality " , " put his own life into play and games [ . . . ] and that is why his work is more tragic than comedic or is nested in that no man ' s land where tragedy and comedy overlap . " Crohmălniceanu sees in the " Bizarre Pages " indication of a " singular " and tragic experience , while Geo Şerban argues that Urmuz ' s " verve " comes from destructive pressures on his own psychology . Reviewer Simona Vasilache also suggests that the " Bizarre Pages " hide a " long digested " rage , with serious and even dramatic undertones . Other essayists have spoken about Urmuz ' s " cruelty " in depicting anguishing situations , in criticizing social life and in using language stripped of its metaphors ; they call him " one of the cruelest authors I ever did read " ( Eugène Ionesco ) and " cruel in a primitive sense " ( Irina Ungureanu ) . As Ciprian reports , Urmuz was also self - deprecatory , amused by the others ' attention , and claiming that his own " elucubraţii " ( " phantasmagorias " ) could only still be used to " trip the seminary brethren " . One of his aphorisms hints to his internal drama and its role in creation : " There are cases when God can only help you by giving you more and more suffering . " Kafka , Jarry and " antiliterature " . Among those who describe Urmuz as more of an individual rebel than an avant - garde hero , several have come to regard him as the Romanian parallel of solitary intellectuals who likewise made an impact on 20th - century literature . In the decades after his death , Romanian reviewers started comparing him to Czechoslovakia ' s Franz Kafka , a parallel which was still being supported in the 21st century . According to Romilă , Urmuzian and Kafkaesque literature are both about dehumanization , in Urmuz ' s case with a predilection for mechanical oddities which colonize and modify human existence . Other frequent analogies rank Urmuz together with Alfred Jarry , the French proto - Dadaist and inventor of ' Pataphysics . He was also described as an equivalent of Anglophone nonsense writers ( Edward Lear , Lewis Carroll ) . Elsewhere , he is paralleled with Russia ' s Daniil Kharms , or modernist Poles from Bruno Schulz to Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz . Those who speak about his fundamental conservatism or his humorist ' s talent have also likened Urmuz and the " Bizarre Pages " to Gustave Flaubert and his sarcastic " Dictionary of Received Ideas " . At the other end , those who focus on Urmuz ' s bizarre and sad metamorphoses have paralleled his work to Tim Burton ' s " Oyster Boy " stories . A major disagreement among critics relates to Urmuz ' s ambiguous positioning , between literature , antiliterature and metafiction . In reference to the " Bizarre Pages " , Crohmălniceanu introduced the term " antiprose " . In Crohmălniceanu ' s view , the antiliterary " device " Urmuz invented is impersonal and regulated , in the manner of Dada " readymades " , but as such ingenious and therefore inimitable . Authors such as Adrian Marino , Eugen Negrici , Lucian Raicu and Mircea Scarlat have spoken about Urmuz as a revolutionist of language , who liberated texts from coherence and even semantics ; whereas others — Livius Ciocârlie , Radu Petrescu , Ion Pop , Nicolae Manolescu , Marin Mincu , Mihai Zamfir — have regarded him as mainly a textualist , interested in reusing and redefining the limits of poetry or narration , but creating a coherent , if personal , universe . According to Vasile Andru , Urmuzian literature is by definition open to all these associations , its antiliterary aspects illustrating the modern gap between " nature and nurture " . Critic C . Trandafir , who sees Urmuz ' s apparent textualism as canceled out by deeper meanings in his prose , writes : " The man who wrote the ' bizarre pages ' had a clear critical awareness of the transformations needed within literary discourse . " Esoteric layers . As Vasile Voiculescu recalls , Urmuz had was genuinely " tormented by metaphysical matters " . Some of Urmuz ' s commentators therefore discussed him as a reader of the unconscious mind or propagator of esoteric knowledge , suggesting that a hidden layer of mystical symbolism can be discerned in all his activities . According to Perpessicius , the " Bizarre Pages " as a whole carry a subtext of mythopoeia , or " fragments of a new mythology " . Boz also drew a comparison between Urmuz and the morose poems of George Bacovia , arguing that they both send the reader on " tragic explorations " and " journeys to the underworld " . In Boz ' s interpretation , Urmuz was not at all a humorist , but rather one who issued a solitary " call to order " and , creating a " magical phenomenon " , elevated his reader above the realities of the flesh . He first discussed the connection between the " Bizarre Pages " and 1930s Surrealism , which likewise turned its attention to the abnormal psychology , to " psychosis " and " dementia " . The theoretical proto - Surrealism of such works , which places less importance on their topical humor , has generated a long debate between scholars later in the 20th century : some have denied Urmuzian Surrealism , whereas others have continued to identify him as the earliest Romanian Surrealist . Simona Popescu , the poet - essayist , presumes that Urmuz ' s inner motivation was his " psycho - mania " , which holds no respect for either convention or posterity , but only for committing one ' s own " abyssal obsessions " to paper : " death , the Eros , creation , and destruction . " Adrian Lăcătuş also makes note of Urmuz ' s ambiguous allusions to autoeroticism , incest , bisexuality or paraphilia . Additionally , various commentators suggest that Urmuz ' s creative spark hides an unresolved conflict with his father . According to Cernat , Urmuz was in conflict with " paternal authority " and more attached to his mother , an " Oedipus complex " also found in some other literary figures of the pre - modernist generation . Others too see in Ciriviş ' s pranks a planned revenge against parental and social pressures . His sister Eliza credited such accounts , by noting : " You can tell he failed in life because he obeyed his parents blindly , and perhaps also in part due to his lack of will , his shyness , his fear of the public . " Urmuz the aphorist genuinely trusted that the " Soul " of the world was a unity of opposites , and , inspired by the philosophy of Henri Bergson , also spoke of a " universal vital flux " . Lăcătuş and others suggest that Urmuz ' s worldview is the modern correspondent of Gnosticism and Manichaeism : in one of the manuscripts he left behind , Urmuz speculates about there being two Gods , one good and one evil . A distinct , and disputed , interpretation was put forth by researcher Radu Cernătescu , who believes that Urmuz ' s life and work reflected the doctrine of Freemasonry . Cernătescu reads indications of Masonic " awakening " throughout Urmuz ' s stories , and notes that the " pahuci " brotherhood was probably the junior or parody version of a Romanian Masonic Lodge . Works . Early prose . Definitions vary in respect to the exact nature and species of Urmuz ' s experimental works , which are prose - like in content . Ciprian simply assessed that Urmuz ' s pieces " do not belong to any literary genre . " In line with his comments about the mythological layer of Urmuz ' s work , Perpessicius suggested that Urmuz created " new fairy tale s " and " fantasy sketches " . This intuition was given endorsement by other scholars , who included the " Bizarre Pages " in anthologies of Romanian fantasy literature . Contrarily , Boz found that Urmuz was " the poet of transcendental absurdity " , " the reformer of Romanian poetry " , and the counterpart of Romania ' s national poet , Mihai Eminescu . The Eminescu - Urmuz comparison , which put aside all their differences in style and vision , was a favorite of avant - garde authors , and , late in the century , served to inspire sympathetic academics such as Marin Mincu . According to Ciprian , one of Urmuz ' s earliest prose fragments was composed , with " The Chroniclers " , during " pahuci " escapades . Its opening words , Ciprian recalls , were : " The deputy arrived in a brick and tile cart . He was bringing no news , but offered his friends , upon arrival , a few Leclanché batteries " . The same author suggests that these drafts were much inferior to Urmuz ' s published works , beginning with " Algazy & Grummer " . In its definitive version , the Algazy piece offers a glimpse into the strange life and cannibalistic death of its storekeeper characters : Algazy , " a nice old man " with his beard " neatly laid out on a grill [ . . . ] surrounded by barbed wire " , " does not speak any European languages " and feeds on municipal waste ; Grummer , who has " a bilious temper " and " a beak of aromatic wood " , spends most time lying under the counter , but sometimes assaults customers in the middle of conversations about sports or literature . When Algazy discovers that his associate has digested , without giving a thought to sharing , " all that was good in literature " , he takes his revenge by consuming Grummer ' s rubbery bladder . A race begins as to who can eat the other first . Their few remains are later discovered by the authorities , and one of Algazy ' s many wives sweeps them up into oblivion . A different , early variant is quoted " from memory " and commented in Ciprian . In this account , Algazy the storekeeper is persuaded by his domineering wife to make their only son a magistrate . Grummer prepares the boy for his unexpected novitiate , strapping him down to the floor of a cave that must have the scent of colts . From its very title , " Algazy & Grummer " references a defunct firm of suitcase manufacturers . Urmuz ' s own note to the text apologizes for this , explaining that the names ' " musicality " is more suited to the two fictional characters than to their real - life models , and suggesting that the company should change name ( or that its patrons must adapt their physical shape accordingly ) . The narrative may hint to the everyday tensions between these entrepreneurs , and perhaps to the boredom of a career in sales ; according to philologist Simona Constantinovici , it is also the confrontation of an entrepreneurial Turk ( Algazy ) and an intellectual Jew ( Grummer ) , represented as a fight between the ostrich and the platypus . Beyond the mundane pretext , the story was often described as Urmuz ' s manifesto against any literary technique , and even a witty meditation on the signified and signifier . Carmen Blaga further proposes that Urmuz philosophic intent is to show the gap between universe , in which all things are possible and random , and man , who demands familiarity and structure . " Ismaïl and Turnavitu " . In " Ismaïl and Turnavitu " , Urmuz further explores the bizarre in its everyday settings . This was noted by Ciprian : " [ Urmuz ] waged war on nature , he created besides nature and against its laws . He was a solitary summit defying heaven and asking : That ' s all ? [ . . . ] Always the same slopes ? the same compasses ? the same people ? the same beards ? " The result , Sandqvist writes , is " breakneck , absurd , and inordinately grotesque . " Călinescu singled out the work : " The best of his absurd pieces is ' Ismaïl and Turnavitu ' , the solemnly academic portraiture and parody of bourgeois mannerisms , where there ' s always a confusion being made between the three kingdoms , the animal , the vegetal and the mineral " . Ismaïl " is made up of eyes , sideburns , and a dress " , tied with rope to a badger and stumbling down Arionoaia Street . Protected from " legal responsibility " in the country ( " a seed - bed at the bottom of a hole in Dobruja " ) , the creature raises an entire badger colony : some he eats raw , with lemon ; the others , once they have turned sixteen , he rapes " without the smallest qualm of conscience . " The seed - bed is where Ismaïl also interviews job applicants , received on the condition that they hatch him " four eggs each " . The process is supported by his " " Turnavitu , who exchanges love letters with the applicants . Ismaïl ' s actual residence is kept a secret , but it is presumed that he lives , sequestered from " the corruption of electoral mores " , in an attic above the home of his grotesquely disfigured father , only to emerge in a ball gown for the yearly celebration of plaster . He then offers his body to the workers , in hopes of thus resolving " the labor issue " . Whereas Ismaïl has once worked as an air fan for " dirty Greek coffee houses " in the Lipscani quarter , Turnavitu has a past in " politics " : he was for long the government - appointed air fan at the fire precinct kitchen . Ismaïl has spared Turnavitu a life of near constant rotation , remunerating his services : the seed - bed interviews , the ritualized apologizes to the leashed badgers , the praise of Ismaïl ' s fashion sense , and the swabbing of canola over Ismaïl ' s gowns . Their relationship breaks down as Turnavitu , returning from the Balearic Islands in the form of a jerrycan , passes the common cold to Ismaïl ' s badgers . Sacked from his job , he contemplates suicide ( " not before seeing to the extraction of four canines in his mouth " ) , and hurls himself into a pyre made up of Ismaïl ' s dresses ; the patron falls into depression and " decrepitude " , retreating to his seed - bed for the rest of his own life . Like " Algazy & Grummer " , " Ismaïl and Turnavitu " probably has a skeletal structure borrowed from real life : Turnavitu was a distinguished clan within Bucharest ' s Greek nobility , tracing its origin back to the Phanariote era . The semi - fictional world is populated by other symbols of Romania ' s connection to the Orient , that are meant to evoke " the banality of a distinctively Balkan scenery " ( Carmen Blaga ) . Other interpretations have seen in the two protagonists caricatures of political corruption and " parvenu " morals . " The Funnel and Stamate " . " The Funnel and Stamate " insists on the geographical setting of Urmuzian misadventures . Stamate ' s townhouse is a haven for objects or beings , their presence inventoried over several rooms . Only accessible through a tube , the windowless first room holds together a sample of the thing - in - itself , the statue of a Transylvanian priest and grammarian , and two humans always " in the process of descending from the ape " . The second room , decorated in " Turkish style " and " eastern luxury " , is painted once a day and carefully measured , by compass , to prevent shrinkage . A third section , under the " Turkish " room , houses a limitless canal , a tiny room and a stake " to which the entire Stamate family is tethered . " The " dignified " and " elliptical " head of the clan spits chewed - up celluloid on his fat boy Bufty , who " pretends not to notice " . For relaxation , the Stamates contemplate Nirvana , located over the canal and " in the same precinct " as them . Old Stamate ' s musings are interrupted by the provocative intrusion of a siren , who lures him into the deep by presenting him with " an innocent and too decent looking funnel . " Stamate returns " a better and more tolerant man " , deciding to use the funnel for both the pleasures of sex and those of science . Neglecting his family duties , he goes on nightly expeditions into the funnel , until he discovers in horror that Bufty uses the funnel for a similar purpose . Stamate then decides to part with his wife ( sewing her in a bag , to " preserve the cultural traditions of his family " ) and with Bufty : trapped in the funnel , the boy is sent over to Nirvana , where Stamate makes sure he becomes a " bureau sub - chief " . Stamate is left alone to contemplate his plight , wandering to and fro at great speed , and submerging " into micro - infinity . " As an early supporter of Urmuz , Ciprian spoke of " The Funnel and Stamate " as " without parallel " in its satire of family life , suggesting that the scene were all the Stamates are tied to a single stake is " more evocative than hundreds of pages from a novel " ( part of the story has also been read as a sexist joke on fashionable androgyny , since Stamate has a " tonsured and legitimate wife " ) . Urmuz ' s original version in fact carries the subtitle " A Four - Part Novel " , in which Paul Cernat reads the intention of parodying the staple genres of traditional literature ; according to Ioana Pârvulescu , the definition needs to be taken seriously , and makes the text ( " perhaps the shortest [ novel ] in European literature " ) a " microscopic " Romanian equivalent of modernist works by James Joyce . Linguist Anca Davidoiu - Roman notes : " Urmuz ' s antinovel [ . . . ] apparently preserves the structures of the novelistic genre , but undermines them from the inside , cultivating the absurd , the black humor , [ . . . ] the nonsensical and the zeugma . " The core theme is believed to be sexual : a paraphrase of " Romeo and Juliet " , with Stamate as the ridiculously abstract thinker falling for the debased stand - in of femininity ; or even the detailed creation of " an aberrant mechanism for erotic gratification . " Stamate himself is also described as standing in for " the unimaginative bourgeois " . " The Fuchsiad " . Another one of Urmuz ' s prose creations is " The Fuchsiad " , subtitled " An Heroic - Erotic Musical Poem in Prose " . Among the scholars , Perpessicius was first to argue that the subtext here is a direct reference to Greek mythology and Norse paganism , re - contextualized " with the sadistic pleasure of children who take apart their dolls " . The protagonist Fuchs is an eminently musical creature , who came into the world not out of his mother ' s womb , but through his grandmother ' s ear . At the conservatory , he turns into " the perfect chord " , but out of modesty spends most of his education hiding at the bottom of a piano . Puberty comes and he grows " some kind of genitalia " — in fact a " fig leaf " which keeps rejuvenating . The actual story begins on the one night Fuchs spends in the open air : under the spell of its mysteries , the composer finds his way into Traian Street ( Bucharest ' s red - light district ) . There , a group of " vestals " whisks him away , praying to be shown the beauty of " immaterial love " and begging him to play a sonata . His music is heard by the goddess Venus , and she is instantly " defeated by passion " , asking Fuchs to join her on Mount Olympus . The act of lovemaking between clueless , overanxious Fuchs and the giant goddess is a disaster , particularly after the former decides to enter his whole body into Venus ' ear . The embarrassed and angered audience humiliates the guest and banishes him to the planet Venus ; merciful Athena allows him to return home , but on condition he does not reproduce . However , Fuchs still decides to spend some of his time practicing his lovemaking on Traian Street , hoping that Venus will grant him a second chance , and believing that he and the goddess could breed a race of Supermen . In the end , the prostitutes also reject his advances , deeming him a " dirty satyr " , no longer capable of immaterial love . The story ends with Fuchs ' flight to into " boundless nature " , whence his music " has been beaming away with equal force in all directions " , fulfilling his destiny as an enemy of inferior art . Urmuz ' s story has been variously described as his praise of artistic freedom , and more precisely as an ironic take on his own biography as a failed musician . On a more transparent level , it references classical composer Theodor Fuchs , depicted by posterity as a " puberal " and " clumsy " man , and known as a disgraced favorite of Romanian Queen - Consort Elisabeth of Wied . " The Fuchsiad " may also contain intertextual nods to " A Midsummer Night ' s Dream " . " Emil Gayk " and " Going Abroad " . The " Emil Gayk " sketch was the only one which is precisely dated to the early stages of World War I , focusing its satire on the debates of neutralists and interventionists . Gayk , the ever - vigilant , gun - tauting , bird - like civilian , who sleeps in his tailcoat but otherwise wears only a festoon ed drape , swims about in just one direction ( " for fear of coming out of his neutrality " ) and gets inspired by the military muses . His career is in foreign relations , which he revolutionizes with such novel ideas as the negotiated annexation of a unidimensional , arrow - like , territory at Năsăud — pointed toward Luxembourg , in memory of the 1914 invasion . Gayk has an adoptive daughter , educated on his behalf by waiters , who makes her home in the fields and eventually demands access to the sea . Angered by this claim , Gayk begins a large - scale war against her ; the conflict ends in a stalemate , as Gayk can no longer accessorize his marshal ' s uniform , and the girl has lost her supplies of gasoline and beans . The father is placated with regular gifts of feed grain , whereas the daughter is allowed a two - centimeter - wide littoral . In its subtext , " Emil Gayk " teases the irredentist ambitions of the interventionist camp , in respect to Transylvania province . Urmuz quotes a humorous slogan , circulated as a lampoon of nationalist attitudes : " Transylvania without the Transylvanians " . This probably references the fact that , although Romanian by culture or ethnicity , many Transylvanian intellectuals were primarily the loyal subjects of the Habsburg Monarchy . According to Crohmălniceanu , the actual purpose is to overturn " ossified " constructs , as in the case of territorial demands which cover no real surface . Similarly , Şerban speaks about " Emil Gayk " as a piece in which magnified " paltry aspects " and " anomalies " are supposed to send the reader into a " state of vigil " . The plot of " Going Abroad " depicts someone ' s convoluted attempt to leave the country for good . The unnamed seven - year - old " he " in the story settles his scores with the assistance of " two old ducks " and embarks for the voyage , only to be pulled back in by " paternal feelings " ; he consequently isolates himself in a tiny room , where he converts to Judaism , punishes his servants , celebrates his Silver Jubilee , and rethinks his escape . His wife , jealous of his contacts with a seal , decides against it , but offers him various parting gifts : flatbread , a kite , and a sketchbook by art teacher Borgovanu . This results in a quarrel , and the protagonist finds himself tied by the cheekbones , " delivered unceremoniously on dry land . " For a third attempt at leaving , the husband relinquishes wealth and titles , strips down and , bound with a bark rope , gallops to another town , joining the bar association . The story ends with a rhyming " moral " : " Going Abroad " is possibly about Urmuz ' s own difficulties in deciding his own fate , transposed into a faux sample of travel literature , an example of what Balotă calls the failed " homo viator " ( " human pilgrim " ) in Urmuz . Unclassified prose . Two samples of Urmuz ' s prose have been traditionally seen as his secondary , less relevant , contributions . These are " After the Storm " and the posthumous " A Little Metaphysics and Astronomy " . In the former , an unnamed cavalier makes his way into a grim monastery , his heart moved at the sight of a pious hen ; the repentant man then finds " ecstasy " in nature , leaping through the trees or releasing captive flies . Agents of the revenue service make efforts to confiscate his tree , but the protagonist is still able to squat on one of the branches after he gives proof of naturalization , and then — swimming his way through an " infected pond " — shames his adversaries into giving up their claim . Born - again as a cynic , strengthened by his affair with the hen , he heads back to his " native village " to train folks in the " art of midwifery . " According to critics , " After the Storm " should be seen as a caricature of minor Romanticism , of conventional fantasy , or of travel literature . Simona Vasilache likens it to " an " Odyssey " covering some twenty lines " , " a misalliance of heroism and pilferage " with echoes from Urmuz ' s hero Ion Luca Caragiale . " A Little Metaphysics and Astronomy " , which is structured like a treatise , opens with a pun on the creation narrative , postulating that God created fingerspelling before " the Word " , and venturing to suggest that " the heavenly bodies " , like abandoned children , are in fact nobody ' s creation , that their spin is really a form of attention seeking . Here , Urmuz questions the possibility of a single cause in the universe , since God ' s interest is in unnecessary duplications or multitudes in stars , men and fish species . Beyond the jokes on scientific pretense , Vasilache reads " A Little Metaphysics . . . " as a clue to Urmuz ' s own disillusioned worldview , which she traces back to the suicidal warnings in Urmuz ' s notebooks . She argues that such a melancholy and lonely diarist is in contrast with Urmuz ' s literary persona , as known from the " Bizarre Pages " . Likewise , Carmen Blaga describes the text as a sober meditation on " the tragic sense of history " and " the fall into temporality " . Among the last Urmuzian works to be discovered is " Cotadi and Dragomir " . The first in the duo is a muscular but short and insect - like merchant , who wears dandruff , tortoiseshell combs , a lath armor which greatly hiders his movements , and a piano lid screwed to his buttocks . The descendant of Macedonian nobility , Cotadi feeds on ant eggs and excretes soda water , except when he corks himself to solve the " agrarian question " . For fun , he lures his clients into angry conversations — these end with him banging the piano lid , which is also a urinating wall , on the shop ' s floor . Dragomir is long , crooked , brownish and kind - hearted ; he intervenes in the disputes between Cotadi and the more stubborn customers , imposing respect with his main prop : a cardboard contraption that extends upwards from his neck . Cotadi rewards such attentions with servings of octopus , sorb - pears and paint , granting Dragomir the right to nest inside his gate wall . They plan to be buried together , " in the same hole " , with French oil as a daily supply . From such an oily grave , Cotadi hopes , an olive tree plantation may spring up , to benefit of his descendants . Like " Algazy & Grummer " , " Cotadi and Dragomir " can be read as alluding to the triteness of business life . " The Chroniclers " . Written in the manner of fables , but lacking any directly interpretable message , Urmuz ' s " The Chroniclers " referenced Aristotle , Galileo Galilei and the turn - of - the - century Balkan insurgent Boris Sarafov ( " Sarafoff " ) . Its opening lines suggest that the eponymous chroniclers , for lack of baggy pants , approach someone with the surname " Rapaport " and demand to be issued passports . The lyrical convention breaks down toward the end , which states : Ciprian simply discussed the piece as " Urmuz ' s idiotic lyrics " , while Călinescu found it a " pure fable , on the classical canon , but nonsensical " . Cernat also described its " moral " as " empty " and " tautological " , but other critics see a hidden layer of meaning in the seemingly random cultural imagery . Ion Pop , commenting on Urmuz ' s hypertextuality , assumes that the " pelican and pouchbill " motif comes from a book once used as teaching aid . He also suggests that the passion and hunger which ties together the various characters is in fact the thirst for freedom , for movement and for exotic settings : " Rapaport " is the Wandering Jew , Aristotle is the mentor of a great conqueror , and Galilei is invoked for his remark " And yet it moves " . The mention of " Sarafoff " has been read as an indirect homage to Caragiale — whose humorous sketches helped give Sarafov a Romanian fame . Legacy . " Contimporanul " circle . Paul Cernat notes that the Ciriviş ' s " posthumous destiny " , leading to an unexpected glorification , was itself an " Urmuzian " affair . Cernat also cautions that the image of Urmuz as an absolute predecessor of Romanian modernism is " erroneous " , since the experiments of Jarry , Charles Cros , Jules Laforgue , Edward Lear and others were just as important in its formative process . He concludes that the avant - garde " apologetes " were projecting their own expectations into the " Bizarre Pages " , in which they read the antithesis of " High Romanticism " , and into the writer , who became Romanian version of a " poète maudit " . Ion Pop also suggests : " In [ Urmuz ' s ] human destiny , and in his writing too , [ the avant - garde writers ] find issues which trouble them as well in prefiguring their own destinies . He satisfies the pride of those who carry on with an uncertain and anxious existence , endlessly in conflict with the world . . . " According to Andru : " Enthusiastic , ingenious , skeptical , rhetorical , or indecent words have been uttered about [ the " Bizarre Pages " ] . People used terms having to do with the literary revolutions of the 20th century [ . . . ] . In his pages people found themes present in all the innovating actions that gained momentum especially since 1922 – 1924 " . Cernat describes the growth of Urmuz ' s myth as similar to Early Christianity : Ciprian as a " prophet " , Arghezi as a " baptist " , the modernist aficionados as " apostles " and " converts " . Over time , various exegetes have noted that the modernist aspects of Arghezi ' s prose , written after 1923 , show his debt to Urmuz ' s absurdism and nonsense humor . Arghezi ' s " Bilete de Papagal " review was also a promotional instrument for the " Bizarre Pages " : in 1928 , continuing the " Cuget Românesc " project , it circulated " Algazy & Grummer " . While his role as a pre - Dadaist is up for debate , Urmuz is thought by many to have been a considerable influence on a Romanian founder of Dada , Tristan Tzara . During its first years , the Romanian avant - garde would generally not mention Urmuz outside Arghezi ' s circle , but a surge in popularity came in stages after the European - wide impact of Dadaism , and especially after Tzara alienated some of his Romanian partners . This was the case of poet Ion Vinea and painter Marcel Janco , who together founded a modernist art magazine called " Contimporanul " . Late in 1924 , " Contimporanul " teamed up with Ciprian , who gave a public reading from Urmuz during the " Contimporanul " International Art Exhibit . The following year , Ciprian ' s eponymous text " Hurmuz " , published in " Contimporanul " , listed the main claims about Urmuz ' s pioneering role . Also then , the Futurist journal " Punct " , a close ally of Vinea and Janco , gave exposure to various unknown Urmuzian pages . In December 1926 , a " Contimporanul " editorial signed by Vinea announced to the world that Urmuz was " the discreet revolutionist " responsible for the reshaping of Europe ' s literary landscape : " Urmuz - Dada - Surrealism , these three words create a bridge , decipher a parentage , clarify the origins of the world ' s literary revolution in the year 1918 . " In its coverage of the international scene , the journal continued to suggest that the suicidal author had anticipated the literary fronde , for instance calling Michel Seuphor a writer " à la Urmuz " . In addition to republishing some of the " Bizarre Pages " in its own issues , it took the initiative in making Urmuz known to an international audience : the Berlin - based magazine " Der Sturm " included samples from Urmuz in its special issue Romania ( August – September 1930 ) , reflecting a " Contimporanul " who ' s who list . At around the same time , poet Jenő Dsida completed the integral translation of the " Bizarre Pages " into Hungarian . In his " Contimporanul " stage , Janco drew a notorious ink portrait of Urmuz . In old age , the same artist completed several cycle of engravings and paintings that alluded to the " Bizarre Pages " . Vinea ' s own prose of the 1920s was borrowing from Urmuz ' s style , which it merged with newer techniques from the avant - garde groups of Europe . He followed Urmuz ' s deceptive " novel " genre of " The Funnel and Stamate " , which also became a characteristic of works by other " Contimporanul " writers : Felix Aderca , F . Brunea - Fox , Filip Corsa , Sergiu Dan and Romulus Dianu . In addition , Jacques G . Costin , who moved between " Contimporanul " and the international Dada scene , was for long thought an imitator of Urmuz ' s style . Several critics have nevertheless revised this verdict , noting that Costin ' s work builds on distinct sources , Urmuz being just one . " unu " and the 1930s literati . Another stream of Urmuzianism bled into the Surrealist magazine " unu " . Its main contributors , including Pană , Geo Bogza , Ilarie Voronca , Ion Călugăru , Moldov and Stephan Roll , were all Urmuz enthusiasts from the far left . In 1930 , Pană collected and published as a volume the complete works of Urmuz : titled " Algazy & Grummer " , it notably included " The Fuchsiad " . Pană and Bogza visited the unpublished archive , which gave them a chance to acknowledge , but also to silence , the more conventional and antisemitic Urmuz revealed through the aphorisms . These manuscripts were kept in possession by the Pană family , and exhibited in 2009 . Bogza was previously editor of a short - lived magazine named " Urmuz " , published in Câmpina with support from poet Alexandru Tudor - Miu , and keeping contact with other Urmuzian circles : it was saluted by Arghezi and published a drawing portrait of Urmuz ( probably Marcel Janco ' s ) . Bogza ' s first editorial piece proclaimed : " Urmuz lives . His presence among us whips to lash our consciousness . " Later , in " unu " s inaugural art manifesto , Bogza described his suicidal mentor as " The Forerunner " . Others in this group incorporated " Urmuzian " metamorphoses into their technique and , at that stage , the " Bizarre Pages " were also imitated in style by Pană ' s sister , Magdalena " Madda Holda " Binder , influencing stories by Pană ' s young follower Sesto Pals and novels by the isolated Surrealist H . Bonciu . In the mid - 1930s , " unu " illustrator Jules Perahim drew his own version of Urmuz ' s portrait . After the " Contimporanul " group split and a young generation reassimilated modernism into a spiritualistic framework ( " Trăirism " ) , critic Lucian Boz was the first professional to find no fault with the " Bizarre Pages " , and made Urmuz interesting for mainstream and elitist criticism . Between the " unu " Surrealists and Boz ' s version of modernism were figures such as Ion Biberi ( who popularized Urmuz in France ) and Marcel Avramescu . Avramescu ( better known then as " Ionathan X . Uranus " ) was notably inspired by Urmuz ' s pre - Dadaist prose , which he sometimes imitated . Other authors in this succession were Grigore " Apunake " Cugler , widely credited as a 1930s Urmuz , and Constantin Fântâneru . The early 1930s also brought the publication of several new works of memoirs mentioning Demetrescu - Buzău , including texts by Cruceanu and Vasile Voiculescu — the latter was also the first to mention Urmuz on Romanian Radio ( January 1932 ) ; another such Radio homage was later authored by Pană . The channels of communication once opened , Urmuz came to be discussed with unexpected sympathy by Perpessicius , Călinescu and other noted cultural critics , consolidating his reputation as a writer . Călinescu ' s attitude was particularly relevant : the condescending but popularizing portrayal of Urmuz , which became part of Călinescu ' s 1941 companion to Romanian literature ( Urmuz ' s earliest mention in such a synthesis ) , was first sketched in his literary magazine " Capricorn " ( December 1930 ) and his 1938 university lectures . Although he confessed an inability to view Demetrescu - Buzău as a real writer , Călinescu preferred him over traditionalism , and , critics note , even allowed the " Bizarre Pages " to influence his own work as novelist . Meanwhile , a blunt negation of Urmuz ' s contribution was restated by the academic figure Pompiliu Constantinescu , who nevertheless commented favorably on the writer ' s " ingeniousness " . Eugen Lovinescu , another mainstream literary theorist , angered the avant - garde by generally ignoring Urmuz , but made note of Ciprian ' s readings " from Hurmuz ' s repertoire " at the " Sburătorul " literary sessions . Urmuz may have acted as a direct or indirect influence of mainstream authors of fiction , one case being that of satirist Tudor Muşatescu . Similar observations were made regarding the work of modern novelists Anişoara Odeanu or Anton Holban . " The Drake ' s Head " . By the late 1930s , Ciprian had also established himself as a leading modernist dramatist and director , with plays such as " The Man and His Mule " . Although his work in the field is described as the product of 1920s Expressionist theater , he was sometimes branded a plagiarist of his dead friend ' s writings . This claim was traced back to Arghezi , and was probably a publicity stunt meant to increase Urmuz ' s exposure , but taken with seriousness by another opinion maker , journalist Constantin Beldie . The ensuing scandal was amplified by the young Dadaists and Surrealists , who took the rumor to be true : Avramescu - Uranus , himself accused of plagiarizing Urmuz , made an ironic reference to this fact in a 1929 contribution to " Bilete de Papagal " . Unwittingly , Arghezi ' s allegations cast a shadow of doubt on Ciprian ' s overall work for the stage . " The Drake ' s Head " was Ciprian ' s personal homage to the " pahuci " : it shows a grown - up Ciriviş , the main protagonist , returning from a trip abroad and reuniting with his cronies during an overnight party . The " Drake ' s Head " brotherhood spends the small hours of the morning bullying passers - by , chasing them " like birds of prey " and pestering them with absurd proposals . Quite jaded and interested in wrecking the very " pillars of logic " , Ciriviş convinces his friends to follow him on a more daring stunt : trespassing private property , they take over an apple tree and treat it as a new home . Claiming that land ownership only covers the actual horizontal plane , they even strike out an agreement with the stupefied owner . Nevertheless , a pompous and indignant " Bearded Gentleman " takes up the cause of propriety and incites the Romanian Police to intervene . The play premiered in early 1940 . The original cast included Nicolae Băltăţeanu as Ciriviş and Ion Finteşteanu as Macferlan , with additional appearances by Ion Manu , Eugenia Popovici , Chiril Economu . Cernat sees " The Drake ' s Head " as a sample of Urmuzian mythology : " Ciriviş [ . . . ] is shown as a quasi - mythological figure , the boss of a parodic - subversive fellowship which seeks to rehabilitate a poetic , innocent , apparently absurd freedom " . According to Cernat , it remains Ciprian ' s only truly " nonconformist " play , particularly since it is indebted to " the absurd Urmuzian comedy " . Some have identified the " Bearded Gentleman " as Nicolae Iorga , the traditionalist culture critic — the claim was later dismissed as mere " innuendo " by Ciprian , who explained that his creation stood for all " demagogue " politicians of the day . Communist ban and diaspora recovery . Upon the end of World War II , Romania came under , and a purge of interwar modernist values followed : Urmuz ' s works were among the many denied imprimatur by the 1950s . Before communist censorship became complete , Urmuz still found disciples in the last wave of the avant - garde . Cited examples include Geo Dumitrescu , Dimitrie Stelaru and Constant Tonegaru . Also at the time , writer Dinu Pillat donated a batch of Urmuz ' s manuscripts to the Romanian Academy Library . The anti - Urmuzian current , part of a larger anti - modernist campaign , found an unexpected backer in George Călinescu , who became a fellow traveler of communism . In his new interpretation , the " Bizarre Pages " were depicted as farcical and entirely worthless . For a while , the " Bizarre Pages " were only cultivated by the Romanian diaspora . Having discovered the book in interwar Romania , the dramatist and culture critic Eugène Ionesco made it his mission to highlight the connections between Urmuz and European modernism . Ionesco ' s work for the stage , a major contribution to the international Theater of the Absurd movement , consciously drew upon various sources , including the Romanians Ion Luca Caragiale and Urmuz . The contextual importance of such influences , which remain relatively unknown to Ionesco ' s international audience , has been assessed differently by the various exegetes , as Ionesco himself once stated : " Nothing in Romanian literature has ever truly influenced me . " Thanks to Ionesco ' s intervention , Urmuz ' s works saw print in " Les Lettres Nouvelles " journal . Allegedly , his attempt to publish Urmuz ' s work with Éditions Gallimard was sabotaged by Tristan Tzara , who may have feared that previous claims about his absolute originality would come under revision . Upon translating Urmuz ' s writings , Ionesco also drafted the essay " Urmuz ou l ' Anarchiste " ( " Urmuz or the Anarchist " , ca . 1950 ) , with a new drawing of Urmuz by Dimitrie Vârbănescu ( Guy Lévis Mano collection ) . The entirety of Urmuz ' s work was republished in English by writer Miron Grindea and his wife Carola , in " ADAM Review " ( 1967 , the same year when new German translations were published in Munich ' s " Akzente " journal ) . From his new home in Hawaii , Romanian writer Ştefan Baciu , whose own poetry borrows from Urmuz , further popularized the " Bizarre Pages " with Boz ' s assistance . Another figure of the anti - communist diaspora , Monica Lovinescu , adopted Urmuzian aesthetics in some of her satirical essays . The diaspora community was later joined by Andrei Codrescu , who became a neo - Dadaist and wrote stories he calls " à la Urmuz " . From Onirism to the " Optzecişti " . In the 1950s and ' 60s , a literary underground , reacting against the communist worldview , began to emerge at various locations in Romania . It tried to reconnect with modernism , and in the process rediscovered Urmuz . Inside the meta - and autofiction al group known as the " Târgovişte School " , Urmuz ' s style was mainly perpetuated by Mircea Horia Simionescu . The " Bizarre Pages " also inspired some other writers in the same group : Radu Petrescu , Costache Olăreanu and the Bessarabia n - born Tudor Ţopa . Elsewhere , Urmuz ' s work rekindled Romania ' s new poetry and prose , influencing some of the Onirist and post - Surrealist writers — from Leonid Dimov , Vintilă Ivănceanu and Dumitru Ţepeneag to Iordan Chimet and Emil Brumaru . An icon of neo - modernist poetry was Nichita Stănescu , whose contributions include tributes to Urmuz and pastiche s of his writings , hosted by " Manuscriptum " in 1983 . Between 1960 and 1980 , the " Bizarre Pages " also stimulated the work of isolated modernist authors , such as Marin Sorescu , Marius Tupan , Mihai Ursachi and , especially , Şerban Foarţă . Although the ban on Urmuz was still in place , George Ciprian made a daring ( and possibly subversive ) gesture by publishing his affectionate memoirs in 1958 . A few years later , the episodic relaxation of communist censorship allowed for the republication of the " Bizarre Pages " , mistakenly included in a complete edition of Ciprian ' s literary works ( 1965 ) . Such events heralded a revival of scholarly interest in proto - Dadaism , beginning with a 1970 monograph on Urmuz , by the Sibiu Literary Circle member Nicolae Balotă . Also then , Pană was free to circulate a new revised edition of his interwar anthology , reissued in collaboration with Editura Minerva . It was later completed by an Urmuz corpus , which notably hosted the scattered diaries , as recovered by critic Gheorghe Glodeanu . In 1972 , Iordan Chimet also included " The Chroniclers " in a nonconformist anthology of youth literature . In those years , the " Bizarre Pages " also inspired critically acclaimed illustrations by Nestor Ignat and Ion Mincu , and the multimedia event " Cumpănă " ( " Watershed " ) by composer Anatol Vieru . With the 1960s , a national - communist ideology was officially established in Romania , and this encouraged the rise of " Protochronism " as a cultural phenomenon . The Protochronists exaggerated past Romanian achievements , and magnified previous claims about the folkloric roots of Urmuz ' s literature . Some Protochronists also described a positive , jocular , " village idiot " Urmuz , more presentable than Europe ' s misanthropic avant - garde . A leading representative of this trend was literary theorist Edgar Papu , who exaggerated Vinea and Ionesco ' s homage to Urmuz and Caragiale to argue that Romania was the actual origin of Europe ' s avant - garde movements . The idea proved popular beyond Protochronism , and was arguably found in essays by Nichita Stănescu and Marin Mincu . Many Europeanist intellectuals rejected Protochronism , but , in their bid of making Urmuz palatable to cultural officials , often interpreted him strictly through the grid of Marxist humanism ( as used by Balotă , Matei Călinescu or Nicolae Manolescu ) . A third camp , comprising more or less vehement opponents of Urmuz , joined the literary debates after 1970 ; it includes Alexandru George , Gelu Ionescu , Alexandru Piru and Marin Niţescu . Some years later , Romania witnessed the birth of the " Optzecişti " generation , whose interest was in recovering Caragiale , Urmuz and the 1930s avant - garde as its models to follow , and who reactivated corrosive humor as a way of fighting oppression . Among the individual " Optzecişti " who took special inspiration from the " Bizarre Pages " are Mircea Cărtărescu , Nichita Danilov , Florin Iaru , Ion Stratan and " the sentimental Urmuz " Florin Toma . Dissident poet Mircea Dinescu also paid homage to Urmuz , imitating his style in one of his addresses to the communist censors . With that , the influence of Urmuz again radiated outside the Romanian - speaking circles : while poet Oskar Pastior translated the " Bizarre Pages " into German , Herta Müller , a German Romanian novelist and dissident , is thought to have been influenced by some of Urmuz ' s writing techniques . Marin Mincu and Marco Cugno also introduced Urmuz ' s literature to the Italophone public , with a 1980 collection . In Romania , as part of centennial celebrations , scattered translations old and new were issued by Minerva as a hexalingual album , with noted contributions from Ionesco , Voronca , Mincu , Cugno , Leopold Kosch , Andrei Bantaş etc . Other translations from Urmuz were pioneered in English by Stavros Deligiorgis ( standard bilingual edition , 1985 ) and later by Julian Semilian . The same effort was undertaken in Dutch by Jan Willem Bos and in Swedish by Dan Shafran . Postmodern Urmuzianism . A noted rise in interest for Urmuzian literature followed in the wake of the 1989 Revolution . In 2011 , a poll among Romanian literati , organized by " Observator Cultural " review , listed " The Funnel and Stamate " as the 22nd - best Romanian novel ; this rekindled polemics about whether the work should even be considered a novel . With the appearance of new " alternative " schoolbooks during the 1990s , Urmuz earned more exposure as an optional addition to the standard curriculum . New editions of his various works were published at a fast rate , in both Romania and neighboring Moldova : in just two years ( 2008 – 2009 ) , there were three separate print versions of his collected texts , academic as well as paperback , and two audiobook s . These texts provided visual inspiration for Dan Perjovschi , whose tribute " pictogram s " were included in the 2009 Editura Cartier reprint of the " Bizarre Pages " . In March 2006 , Curtea de Argeş city honored the writer with a series of special events and displays . The literary currents of postmodernism often appropriated Urmuz as their guide . This tendency was illustrated by the writings of new figures in Romanian literature : the minimalists and neo - naturalists ( Sorin Gherguţ , Andrei Mocuţa , Călin Torsan ) , the neo - Surrealists ( Cristian Popescu , Iulia Militaru , Cosmin Perţa , Iulian Tănase , Stelian Tănase ) , the feminists ( Catrinel Popa , Iaromira Popovici ) , the political satirists ( Dumitru Augustin Doman , Pavel Şuşară ) and the electronic literature writers ( Cătălin Lazurcă ) . There were also loose stage or multimedia adaptations of the " Bizarre Pages " , including ones by Mona Chirilă ( 2000 ) , Gábor Tompa ( 2002 ) , Radu Macrinici ( 2005 ) , Pro Contemporania ensemble ( 2006 ) , Christian Fex and Ramona Dumitrean ( both 2007 ) ; Urmuz ' s work has also been cited as an influence by the Romanian - born dramaturge David Esrig , who has used it in workshops . A theatrical company with Urmuz ' s name existed for a while in Casimcea , home of the " Zilele Urmuz " Festival . In 2011 , two separate operatic renditions of Urmuz ' s work were showcased by Bucharest ' s SIMN Festival .