07_Lioara Coturbas.pdf

<font size="3"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Abstract</span>: The novel The Forbidden Forest comprises the main themes in Mircea Eliade’s<br>literature, but at the same time it may be considered an attempt of re-writing the author’s past. The<br>exiled Mircea Eliade, haunted by the shadows of his former political beliefs, wants to renounce his<br>old identity and to build up a new existence outside Romania. He lends his main character, his alter<br>ego Ştefan Viziru, the key moments of his biography; one of the most significant episodes concerning<br>the concealment of his political convictions is represented by the incarceration in the legionary camp<br>in Miercurea Ciuc. If in Memoirs Mircea Eliade does not insist on this fragment of his past, he<br>chooses to reveal the ordeal he went through by means of this work of fiction, thus trying to<br>emphasize the main character’s and implicitly his own apolitical attitude. Ştefan Viziru eludes any<br>political involvement and is unfairly condemned, exactly as Mircea Eliade used to claim. If the<br>character may even be considered a victim of history, Mircea Eliade’s interest in the Legionary<br>Movement cannot be completely overlooked. Even if we disapprove of the articles written in favor or<br>the Iron Guard, in interpreting them we must take into consideration the fact that Mircea Eliade was<br>drawn to the mysticism of this Movement, whose leader advocated the spiritual revolution which can<br>be accomplished only by the new man, about whom Mircea Eliade had written on countless<br>occasions.<br><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">Key words</span>: terror of history, literary transfiguration, legionary camp.</font>

(Il)Legitimate Appendages: The Case of Psalmanazar’s Prefaces

<P align=left><I><FONT face="Times New Roman"><FONT face="Times New Roman">In 1704, George Psalmanazar, a supposed native of the island of Formosa, added his own fabulous construction of another world to an England which was already abundant in fictitious travel accounts. Written 60 years later, Psalmanazar’s own Memoirs did not manage to cast a clear light on the author’s inauthentic discourse. The problematic of legitimacy in relation to historical writings and works of fiction turned into a debatable cultural issue during the European eighteenth century. The great libraries and collections of manuscripts set up by Cotton or Pepys in the seventeenth century were later to be taken on by eighteenth-century scholars, whose job was to assess and legitimate their value. Psalmanazar’s fictitious account passed for a true description of Formosa after it had promoted textual and visual appendages to legitimate the authorial voice. The present article will look at the methods Psalmanazar used to legitimate both the authorial practices and the cultural and literary background against which eighteenth-century outstanding writers, such as Goldsmith and Swift, used Psalmanazar as a source of legitimate inspiration for their writings. </FONT></FONT></I></P>