The Romantic l’entre-deux as an Aesthetic Operational Category in Wasted Genius

• Main Author: Ludmila Braniste
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: Editura Universităţii Aurel Vlaicu Arad 2016-11-01
• Series: Journal of Humanistic and Social Studies
• Subjects: l’entre-deux; the inadapted; problematic character; aesthetic category; anthropological basis; axiological assessment
• Online Access: http://www.jhss.ro/downloads/14/articles/5%20Braniste.pdf

The present study demonstrates the character of l’entre-deux – the inadaptable – is an anthropological basis of Romanticism from both genetic and ontological perspectives, as well as a fundamental aesthetic category for the study of the 19th century. The notion of the maladjusted can be approached neither in absentia, nor as an absolute i.e., a subject for study established once and for all; this is the reason why the analysis of its essence and meanings requires a whole field of research, both in context and as individual instances of verbal art. This would not omit, on the one hand, the ideological, philosophical and literary context of the 19th century, when the notion was born and developed, and, on the other hand, the writer’s personal outlook and way of expression. The artistic realization of the inadaptable can be found in Mihai Eminescu’s literary works, particularly in Wasted Genius. This lyrical novel in the Wertherian vein reveals in what way the dialectics of the changes in the ideological and cultural paradigm generates various metamorphoses and hypostases of inadaptability in literature.