The Scientific Journal of Humanistic Studies Year 2, no.

Comparative Literature Studies

Alina Simu
The European Sources of the 19th Century Romanian Prose
Abstract
The rise of the Romanian prose dates back to the 19 th century when the French and German literary
movements influenced the Romanian society to such an extent that in certain literary works there is a clear
overlapping; themes, motifs, characters are sometimes almost identical to the European ones. Other times,
they are opposites, as a means of offering a didactic perspective. Thus, European marks of modernization
were adopted by the Romanian people not only in real life, but also in literature, which became a means of
spreading the western culture to the eastern one.
Keywords: novel, Romantic influences, mystery, the social frame, vernacular literature
Since the publishing of the first novel in Romanian, Alecus history until the publishing in volume or
in magazines of Eminescu or Hadeus prose, there lies a period which has been long forgotten or left
obscure, representing an area of strong convulsion which served to the settling of narrative certainty visible
later on. The Romanian novel, taking into account its outstanding, ample, sometimes rambling construction,
its objective time, the tint of truthfulness, the impression that it descends from the street, that it is a
prolonging of life, does not have an authoritative position since the beginning. The writers lack of
experience, their sometimes exaggerate enthusiasm, unparalleled with the forms, the mechanisms designed
to undertake that enthusiasm led to a quite difficult assertion of this manner of writing.
One of the mains points of contact with Western literature is the press. The spreading of foreign
newspapers and encyclopedias starts in Romania in the 18th century, when people read, for example, Le
journal encyclopedique, Le journal litteraire, Mercure de France, and Il redattore italiano or German
newspapers like Die filegendePost or Offene Zeitung. Some of these spread the ideas of the French
Revolution, and, by all means, Europes progressive opinions. Of course, the distribution of foreign
periodicals will be far more frequent in the 19th century and later. Therefore, a very important role was
played by the newspapers and the magazines of the time. Newspapers like The Universe or The Truth
published tens of serial-story columns in order to stir the readers taste for literature and to attract
subscribers. This growing process, this commercial fever being in full spring, the selection functioned in one
way only, to produce sensations, relaxation. The taste for the sensational, for vampires, for the nocturnal are
elements which attract readers in the beginning, then their taste goes towards the social, love affairs, the
moralization of the human vices. The leaflets published have as themes crimes, killings, adulteries,
kidnappings, exoticism, piracy, drowning, fright, terror.
Literature takes its subjects from life, obeys it dutifully. The Romanian novel has two main
directions: the social and the morals. tefan Cazimir remarks: Because of the special socio/historical
circumstances, the Romanian literature stepped later on the way of modernization, of its connection to the
Western European rhythm, of the discovery of some new manners of feeling and expression. (tefan
Cazimir, 1973: V)
The short story, the shorter short story, the memorialistic prose are well represented in the epoch.
The short story will offer the starting point for the epic construction, for the character design. The
presentation of the social frame will rely on the example of the moral short story and the travel memorial.
(tefan Cazimir, 1973: VI) The Romanian novel does not arise from the epic, but from the physiology and
the short story of morals. (tefan Cazimir, 1973: XII) The novel manifests itself by taking as models what

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was in vogue at the European level and thus, by taking up the novels, they take up the human types to be
found there. This new species is regarded suspiciously. Romanian writers see the Parisian reality, or the one
in London through the novels translated and thus a reverse process occurs: they start to regard the Romanian
reality as the raw material for the novel. As concerns this phenomenon of taking up the novel, we can thus
refer to it as an assimilation of the new genre. (tefan Cazimir, 1973: IX)
The period between 1830-1860 registers a total of 120 novels translated and printed which
represents almost a fifth of the fictional, philosophical and scientific translations. Numerous critics tried to
make up a chronological list of the writings recognized until nowadays by the literary history: Thus, this
process of recognition is still under way. There is an immense literary material to be analyzed, to be
interpreted and put in its deserved place in the literary history.
Teodor Vrgolici remarks the fact that the notion of the novel itself knows several variants, our
writers using the notions of novel, novella, and story. The Romanian translators start by exposing their
opinions on the novel in the forewords of their translations. There they express ideas about the moralizing,
didactic function of the novels, the educational role these should have. This preoccupation was determined
by the necessity to vanish all the prejudice and erroneous opinions, pretty well rooted in the epoch,
according to which reading the novels would be pernicious, would exert a bad influence, resulting in the
corruption of the readers, especially youth. (Teodor Vrgolici, 1985:54-55)
The same critic redoes the path of modelling the first Romanian novels as follows: the first attempt
of the Romanian novel, Elvira or endless love, from 1845, which bears on the title page the mentioning
novel composed by D.F.B., is more than localization, a clumsy adaptation of a foreign novel left
unidentified to the present day. A second attempt, the historical novel Radu VII from Afumai, from 1845 as
well, is translated by S. Andronic, who mentions in its subtitle, after a supposed original manuscript of the
French teacher Buvolet, established in Bucharest. Around 1847-1848, Ion Ghica confronts with the difficult
construction of this genre of writing, but fails, leaving only a fragment, Alecus history, left unknown, in
manuscript, better than a century. Ion Ghica had as a model the novel Jrme Paturot a la recherche dune
position sociale by Louis Reybaud. At the stage of a fragment is also considered the novel The Mysteries of
the Heart by M. Koglniceanu, which was partly published in 1850 in the Moldavian Gazette. Alexandru
Pelimon made another attempt by publishing in 1853 the so-called The Thieves and the Pilgrim, a sub
mediocre writing.
Because of the lack of insufficient objectification, the creation of types will suffer first of all.
Writers had to cope with the lack of a unitary aesthetic attitude, their realistic approach being often handled
with the help of elementary Romantic schemes. Such a talented observer of reality as M. Koglniceanu feels
indebted to group his characters in contrastive couples, not to mention here Bolintineanu, V. A. Urechil or
the authors of the novels of mystery wherein the antithesis angel-demon was a must-do. We must also add
the rhetorical pathos of the writers, frequently passed to the characters, more precisely to those they mostly
esteem. (tefan Cazimir, 1973: XXXI)
Besides the cosmopolitan tendency of rich people and its attempt to fit the western civilizations
rhythms, the literature of mid-nineteenth century undertook a sustained critical action, on two levels: it
refuted both the hasty and superficial imitation of the West, and the provincial insularism in conservatism
without any perspective. This vacillation between old and new, between the sere and fallen habit and the
daring innovation, full of power and life, a strong fight between old and new, wherein victory, won with
difficulty, will belong to the last. (Alecu Russo, 1946:289)
The tens of serial-story columns published in the newspapers and magazines of the time and
sustained by Asachi, Eliade, Bariiu, the immense commercial march meant to produce sensations,
relaxation, and the existence of the reading rooms were contributing factors to the development of the new
literature.
The Romanian novel goes as an extension of the short story, be it historical, sentimental,
melodramatic, of morals etc. It is still considered to be a form of adapting, of imitating Romanian reality, if
we may say a means of conditioning the European Romantic elements, especially French, to the reality of
the time. Many novels are skeptically looked upon in the century, as a less serious means of attracting the
bourgeoisie, especially women, of popularization of some occidental realities, of some behavioural norms.
They attempt the taking over of the exterior occidental forms and comparing them to Romanian values, to
folklore and history. The novel is seen as playing an educational role, teaching and preparing for life or at
least offering a broader perspective, detailed, of the different possible experiences.
Having French literature as a model, there appears in Romanian literature the novel of mystery: The
Mysteries of Marriage by C. D. Aricescu (1861), The Mysteries of Bucharest by I. M. Bujoreanu (1862),

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The mysteries of Bucharest by George Baronzi (1862 1864), The mysteries of the Romanian People by Gr.
H. Grandea (1879), The mysteries of a Nabob by Al. Alexandrescu (1889) and many other titles. In order to
track down the presence of the prose of mysteries (foreign and vernacular) we must take into account a
series of factors which contributed to the justification of these in our country. The influences are efficient,
they can be perceived in the social environment.
The novel of mystery develops as a result of the fame of Eugene Sues novel, The Mysteries of
Paris. Translations are claimed by several translators, that is why we do not know for sure who the real
translator was. Sues novel has serious marks of realism, scenes from peoples lives from various social
backgrounds. The writers claims to be a reformer of morals, the authority with the role of revealing and
condemning contrasts and moral injustice, but not directly, we do not see the writer in the foreground,
declaiming, but indirectly, by creating types and situations with the help of artistic images, of some
memorable characters. (Marian Barbu, 1971:53) Sues enthusiasm is adopted by Romanian writers, who are
as perceptive as possible to Sues themes and the typological figures presented by the author.
The novel of mystery in the Romanian literature is not a pure species. It combines realism and
romanticism, if we were to identify the polarities of the literary trends to be found in these texts. The heroes
are antithetical: good and bad, criminals and victims, the secondary ones either go towards one of the
extremes, serving the protagonists, or are indifferent. The novel of mystery discovers the grand city, with
its unknown social themes. But the city in those times had a different look, sometimes being identical with
its centre or downtown. Anyway, by discovering the city, the vicissitudes of its existence seen at the level
of institutions, individuals, relations, the novel of mystery imposes a different behaviour to the character, the
revolted and a different vision on the new society which is looking for its profile Marian Barbu remarks.
(Marian Barbu, 1971:58-63)
The French novel was a point of enormous perceptiveness on the agenda of the Romanian writers.
They even created a philo-French movement, of French prose support, which was for them a model of ideas
and artistry. Mihail Koglniceanu himself, although pleaded for an original prose, takes the French prose as
a model in his attempt of a novel The Mysteries of the Heart form 1850. erban Cioculescu, by referring to
Koglniceanus novel says that through the moral profile of the female characters, the authors proves to be
tributary to the popular novel, with its demonical or angelic heroines, in an artificial symmetry of contrasts;
men themselves are built up with antithetical features, to fully represent moral purity or corruption. (Mihail
Koglniceanu, 1967:443) Thus some critics find as the source of the beginnings of Romanian literature the
popular novel, so much evoked in literary environments. The Mysteries of the Heart is rather a fresco of the
mid-century society, wherein we can note some portraits: No! The woman, in my lexicon, means a dainty
being, frail, beautiful, born out of flowers, of harmony and the rays of the rainbow, capricious, sometimes
bad, good most of the times, a being made for love, meant to put chains to the fiercest heroes, who, for a
smile makes you sell your life from this world, and the part of Heaven from the other world, who has a soul
which understands all that is beautiful, who, for the tiniest thing sometimes cries and other times is capable
to sacrifice her life, who is wise to perform the grand deeds, who is either gentle as a turtle or enraged as a
lion, who is either cruel or pitiful; the woman is a mixture of grace, kindness, meanness, spirit, coquetry,
weakness and strength, whose most part of life limits to loving and being loved. (Mihail Koglniceanu,
1967:23)
The so called novel A Romanian Bohemian by Pantazi Ghica, published in 1860, starts by a
theoretical exposition of the novels problems. In its third part, there are digressions like The authors
reflections, where he asks himself: What is a novel? Is it a fiction of the spirit, a phantasm of the
imagination, a love dream, a sequence of untrue and unattainable happenings? Pantazi Ghica maintains the
importance of reality as a literary source, of autobiographical elements, of the state of Romanian society
which becomes material for the novel. He does not deny the fact that in his novel he re-presents some real
aspects, which determine the historical value of a work. Its aim is this, to reflect the reality in the novel, but
with artistic means. He does not oppose the role of imagination, he does not reject fiction. The novel for
every author is an episode of something he knows, is happiness wanted and tasted, a positive and practical
reality; a novel is always the painting of society, a critique of evil, vice, prejudices everybody has or had as a
part of his consecrated existence as a novel. (Pantazi Ghica, 1860:123)
Pantazi Ghica rejects Romanticism and approves of the realistic school, viewing reality as not only
what exists, but what could exist. In prose, as in verse, healthy thinking is necessary first and foremost,
then reason and logic; there are also necessary correct sentences, appropriate terms, principles of morality
and a truthful and energetic expression, there is undoubtedly harmony: the harmony of language, style and
thinking. Beauty must be united with goodness. To the author, the novel is a mirror of life, the novel is

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the study of life, in order for it to be like this and to reach such results, it must necessarily be presented in
colours, shapes and aspects which are liked, which touch, fix attention, move the soul, talk to the heart more
than to intelligence and inspire feelings of compassion, love, admiration for all that is high, sublime and
noble. (Pantazi Ghica, 1860:132)
About him, Clinescu used to say that he wrote many short stories which display the lack of talent,
replaced by personal distinction and the novel A Romanian Bohemian is a transvestite autobiography.
(The History of Romanian Literature, 1968:750) Nevertheless, beyond all the episodes that are more or less
taken fro the authors life, there is in Pantazi Ghica a fascination that the heroes exert, which are typically
Romantic. The episode of Pauls student life in Paris is memorable. With his classmates, he invents a
pawnage system for the clothes, which implied that the three young men were supposed to wear the clothes
in turns. They are in the care of the God of students, going, in their short intermezzos of richness, to the
theatre, the bal, the gardens, until the suburbs of Paris, when they were poor, at the singing cafs or on the
avenues to walk and eat. Starting from what reality offered he creates out of compositional needs, certain
artistic elements which after all, are Romantic.
In a different writing of Ghicas, The Great Treasurer Cndescu, the historical theme is treated, with
demonical melodramatic heroes like Dinc Srbul, a cunning snake, a crawling being. (The History of
Romanian Literature, 1968:751) The Romantic heroes are dominated by polarities, angels and demons, the
themes are Romantic too, but as for the artistic construction, Clinescu says that the author dispatches
narration in a chronological style. (The History of Romanian Literature, 1968:751)
Another prose writer, Ioan M. Bujoreanu is very preoccupied with the publics interest for the novel
and starts to write for that. He translates from Paul de Kock, and has a first vision on this species of the
epical genre. He starts a dispute with G. Baronzi, with whom he had started to publish The Mysteries of
Bucharest, and publishes himself The Mysteries from Bucharest.
In the foreword, the author mentions: the foreground is a romance surrounded by all sorts of
fictional scenes to whip vice, which scenes would have passed in a different epoch of our social past.
(Bujoreanu, 1984:251) There is a remarkable idea mentioned here: the style is that of the people speaking.
Through this, the author grants a particular force to the characters, somehow leaving them in the foreground,
beyond the authors role. The compositional imaginativeness frequently uses the surprise element, the
readers attention being captured through the newness of the situations. There are also used coincidences
with complicated follow-ups, travesties, the resolutions through coup de theatre. (Teodor Vrgolici,
1985:53)
George Baronzi has another writing, The Workers of the State, which describes in satirical touches
aspects from the life of the Romanian society in the second half of the 19 th c. The main character is a clerk,
Onori, statistical rapporteur at the prefecture, who, being subject to mercantile plots loses his job when his
family was going through difficult moments. Being forced to take care of his family, Onori desperately
seeks for a position. Social injustice was the state of facts of the administrative system. The novel focuses its
attention on the critique of the social system.
We find opinions about the novel in the work published in the serial-story columns in the newspaper
called The Independence in 1861 that is The Don Juans from Bucharest, granted to Radu Ionescu. The
author sees the novel as a way of depicting human feelings, social vices and the historical past. The novel
can take all forms, it can tell up everything, it can describe everything. The grand facts of history, the strong
feelings of the soul, lifes habits, the novel has it all, it expresses all. ( Radu Ionescu, 1974: 279) Some
search for the development of life in the study of historical facts, others in the analyses of the human heart,
and yet others in observing habits. These three forms complete one another and form the history of the entire
society. So, the novel is an all-powerful genre and is a source of life and about life.
A dreamer through his structure as a poet, Bolintineanu illustrates the airy side of the Romantic
movement. His novels, written in the spirit of the age, frequently present that indescribable lyric part which
is not objectified in narration through an accentuated movement says the same Marian Barbu. (Marian
Barbu, 1971:58-63) The critic reminds us the resemblance between Manoil and Young Werthers suffering
by Goethe and the sentimental novel of the end of the 18 th c. Bolintineanus novel Manoil, published in The
Literary Romania in 1855, and is considered by Nicolae Manolescu to be the first epistolary novel in
Romanian literature. It is a novel with sentimental theme, built around the destiny of a young man, the
embodiment of the Romantic hero, a poet, taken over by melancholy and sentimentalism. The novel had
several attempts of printing and knew a rather difficult burst on the literary market. George Sion wanted to
publish the novel and even supported it through an article, Manuel or The Fall and Rise of Man Through
Woman printed in The Gazette of Moldavia, on the 5th of February 1853, where he mentioned: The novel is

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still unknown in our literature, unless through translations. Several novels, good or bad, weve had translated
so far, but these help us make an idea about the habits, the inurements, the life and history of other people.
We need a national novel; an original writing to have before our eyes the Romanian society as it is, and
which, rejoicing in forming our minds and take us through examples of vices away from what we imagine to
be fallen. This deficiency is fulfilled by D. Bolintineanu, the poet who often delighted us with his beautiful
verse. The book will be published in a nice format, on wove board, in the Romanian-French print shop.
Andrei Bodiu speaks about the theatrical nature of the epic through punctuation as a distinction of
originality. The critic notes: The theatric nature of the epic must be understood in a double way. It is born
involuntarily, as a means of hybridism of epic and dramatic, but it is also a form of character dissimulation,
who plays awarely. (Andrei Bodiu, 2002: 26)
The Romantic characters in the Romanian prose derive from history, the real world, where the
author lives, or from imagination, a taboo land, the laws of which are not entirely known. They start from an
imaginary characteristic of every writer, or, sometimes, from a collective Romanian imaginary, and are more
or less tooled in an original manner. The Romantic century is also the century of experimentation,
innovation, and this thing is visible as concerns the character. There is a polymorphism of the characters
manifestations in the whole Romantic literature. This polymorphism starts maybe, at a certain moment, from
the identitary uncertainty which the Romanian people confronted along centuries. The prevalence of images
is typical Romantic, and it is to be found in the Romanian prose at the level of character description, their
presentation in their exterior data. Sometimes, the characters are endowed with sketches, there being an
emphasis on the detail of clothing, hair style, and gestures, the emotional involvement, and the sentimental
tribulations are visible at the exterior.
In the Romantic novels, the characters are freed from the schematics and the conventionalism of
classicism, they are picturesque, dramatic, and alive, and they have individual traits and distinct
physiognomies, unforgettable, with their particularities, tics, fads and obsessions. (Teodor Vrgolici, 1985:
16)
The character is tightly connected with the paradigms which order a society, the genealogy of the
character is double: internal, within the work, and external, in the environment wherefrom it lives:
In the Romantic novel, globally looked upon, there are new types, vigorous individualities, tragic
or grotesque, stormy or anxious, seraphic or diabolic, melancholic or enthusiast, solitary or integrated in
collective movement, with a horizon limited to his own feelings or animated by major ideals of the popular
masses. The dialogue is dynamic, spontaneous and natural, sprinkled with familiarities and trivial
expressions. The heroes escape from the constraint of narration and from the authors trust, they start living
through themselves, they have their own life, independent from the will of those who created them. (Teodor
Vrgolici, 1985: 16)
We can thus delineate an intermingling of the European elements and the vernacular ones in the
Romantic prose. We do not deal with well-delineated borders, with anchorage in one of the extremes. There
are, undoubtedly, well-known adaptations, but we can also identify elements of originality, imaginativeness
and artistic craftsmanship.
Bibliography
BODIU, Andrei (2002), Seven Themes of the mid19th Century Novel, Pteti: Paralela 45 (In
Romanian)
BUJOREANU, Ioan (1984), The Mysteries of Bucharest, Bucharest: Minerva (In Romanian)
CAZIMIR, tefan (1973), The Pioneers of the Romanian Novel, Bucharest: Minerva (In Romanian)
DIMA, Al., CHIIMIA, I. C., CORNEA, Paul, TODORAN, Eugen (1968), The History of
Romanian Literature, The Second Volume, From The Western School to Junimea, Bucharest: Academia
Romn. (In Romanian)
GHICA, Pantazi (1860), A Romanian Bohemian, Bucharest: The National Journals. (In Romanian)
IONESCU, Radu (1974), Distinguished Writings, Bucharest: Minerva (In Romanian)
KOGLNICEANU, Mihail (1967), Writings, Bucharest: Tineretului. (In Romanian)
RUSSO, Alecu (1946), Writings. Commented Romanian Classics, Craiova, The second edition. (In
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Romanian)

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