FUNCȚIILE NARATIVE ALE SOLOMONARULUI ÎN PROZA LUI VASILE VOICULESCU ȘI CEA A LUI MIHAIL SADOVEANU
THE NARRATIVE FUNCTIONS OF THE WIZARD IN VASILE VOICULESCU’S AND MIHAIL SADOVEANU’S FICTION

Summary/Abstract: The wizard, as he appears in folklore studies, is connected to narratives regarding weather predictions and, implicitly, the study of astrology, including ancient wisdom regarding the stars and their influence on the human being. The different understandings of the term were studied by Șăineanu, Tudor Pamfile, I. A. Candrea, Densușianu, Mircea Eliade or Mihai Coman, evincing certain common traits: master of the floods, fellowship with a dragon/snake, key instruments such as the cane and the bridle, appearing to be a human being, alongside a white mare etc, all of these elements being traced back to the legend of „preminte Solomon”. Like any other magical character, they are neither entirely benevolent nor malevolent, protecting both humans and animals. Regarding Romanian prose writings we will analyse three such hypostases: the first one can be found with Mihail Sadoveanu, where in Hanu-Ancuței the image of old man Leonte Zodierul appears associated with the one of the dragon, the second one represents the camouflaging in the character of the traveling salesman Ioniță and his white mare, and the third can be found with Vasile Voiculescu in “Ultimul berevoi”/ The last witch doctor. In the unfolding of the epic, the wizard holds both an important narrative function, like in the prose of Voiculescu, and a catalysing one, as in the case of Sadoveanu. The typologies established by Barthes correspond to the role that writers confer to such a character. The central wizard character brings order to the action, concentrating all narrative events around himself, while the catalysing one merely augments the epic space and aids the redistribution of narrative events.

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