genius loci pt. pdf.qxd - ROMANIAN LIBRARY

In my opinion, as regarding certain literatures (such as the
Italian literature or the French literature), the concatenation of the
„Middle Ages, Humanism, Renaissance, Baroque and Mannerism,
Classicism. Encyclopedism, Romanticism and Risorgimento“ etc. is
recommended because this sequence was actually ascertained with
obvious proof in the regional evolution. The „extrapolation“ is not yet
a solution because of the fact that, in other regions, including European
regions, the chronology of the events, the ideologies, the style
of the creation and therefore the local tradition established and active
is different from the pattern and requires a whole different periodization,
having a specific mark and even a mark of „localism“. In order
to be able to assert, I chose four eras of the Romanian literature,
quite different from the processes we have encountered within the
so strict contemporaneity, within the French literature and within
the west-European literature generally.
Another reason of astonishment is the cultural substance itself.
The very fact that in the Western part we do not encounter
a Byzantine tradition (Christian-orthodox), with ebbing and flowing
in the visual point of view, but constant at deep levels and even in
a way of Tradition with a prevailing local content, that fact should
make a difference and should be a good enough reason for a serious
examination. There are not only distinctive tendencies and original
works, but also literary trends with a certain specific features,
such as the trend initiated by Brâncoveanu (between 1690-1725).
Even the local, messianic Romanticism, appears from the previous
era (century XVIII) of downturn to manuscript and monastery culture
during the very period of the French Encyclopedia.
The secret sub-moon energy, the mysterious nets of which I
tried to identify and to test, has a good explanation by the contribution
of the Christian-orthodox, by the seeming but original Byzantine
substance, because no matter if the Byzantine Empire was still
standing or had fallen, as a metropolis or as symbol, its spirit had
acquired con-substantiality in this space of Limes, which we might
call a „parallel Byzantium“.
Furthermore, it is not only the Byzantine characteristic that
must be underlined and revaluated. It represents the recognizable
but very partial concept of a substance that, considering the
large amount of features, it cannot be all comprised in this content,
but only to a small extent, and it is barely included through a kind
of similitude of common origin or by relation and conjunction of sublevels
that are barely encountered today. Under this historical layer,
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