Series VI: Medical Sciences – SUPPLEMENT ... - Krongres

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brasov • Vol. 2 (51) - 2009
Series 6: Medical Sciences
Supplement – Proceeding of The IVth Balkan Congress of History of Medicine
DISEASE AND DEATH IN THE WORK OF
EUGENE IONESCO
A-J. FABRE 1
Abstract: Ten years after his death, Eugen Ionesco is still the most
celebrated playwright in France. In most great pieces of art, comedy and
tragedy live side by side, and this confirmed in Exit the King, written while
Ionesco was ill and frightened of death The play holds a narrow link between
comedy and tragedy : disease is seen by Ionesco as a disgrace to the intrinsic
existence, medicine as burlesque distraction in the fate of human beings and
physicians as grotesque personages anxious to assert their authority on
patients. The Théatre de l'Absurde had a deep impact in France but very
powerful links have always existed in French cultural life between France
and Romania, among many other examples : Stephane Lupasco, Tristan
Tzara, Emil Cioran, Paul Celan and Martha Lahovary, better known as
Princess Bibesco
Key words: Ionesco, Exit the King, Romania, Theatre of Absurd
Ten years after his death, Eugen Ionesco
is still the most celebrated playwright in
France.
His life was shared between France and
Romania : Ionesco was born in 1909 in
Slatina near Bucharest, but, soon after, was
brought by his family to Paris but, in 1922
Ionesco returned to Romania together with
his sister. There; he learnt Romanian and
attended the college Sfântul Sava in
Bucharest and passed the baccalaureate at
the secondary school in Craiova in 1928.
In 1938, Ionesco comes back to Paris
after having obtained a state grant to write
a thesis (which he never finished…) on
"Topics of sin and topics of death in
French poetry since Baudelaire".
However, when the 2nd World War was
declared, he decided to return home to
work there as French teacher at Sfântul
Sava.
1 International Société for Hstory of Medicine, France
Now the situation in Romania was so
bad that Ionesco, in May 1942 , had no
other choice than return to France with his
wife Rodica Burileanu.
A long difficult period began for Ionesco
until the fifties and the premiere of his
play, "The Bald Soprano" still performed
at the Théatre de la Huchette in Paris : the
15000th representation was recently
celebrated !
Ionesco gained gradually fame in the
sixties as founder of the Theatre of Absurd,
capturing, alongside Samuel Beckett, Jean
Genet, and Arthur Adamov, all the
meaninglessness of existence.
Celebrated everywhere in the world,
Ionesco, suffering since long time of a
severe form of diabetes, died in Paris in
1994
In most great pieces of art, comedy and
tragedy live side by side, and this is the
case with Eugene Ionesco’s Exit the King,