FANTASTIC AND MYTHICAL IN THE SHORT STORY LA ȚIGĂNCI, BY MIRCEA ELIADE
FANTASTIC AND MYTHICAL IN THE SHORT STORY LA ȚIGĂNCI, BY MIRCEA ELIADE

Summary/Abstract: In Mircea Eliade's work, several types of fantastic appear: mythical, demonic, magical, dreamlike. The short story analyzed here can be integrated into the mythical fantasy, but also into the magical and dreamlike one, Eugen Simion considering this short story "a masterpiece of the Romanian fantastic". Several themes and literary motifs appear in this fantastic short story, such as: the exit from historical time, eros, logos, death, creation, the labyrinth, time, memory. The epic technique is complicated, as it is a spiritual itinerary: Life - Death, Profane - Sacred, translated graphically in the following form: Real - Unreal - Real - Unreal. The 8 episodes would mark a symmetrical number of entrances and exits or rather transitions of the character from one existence to another, the short story being read as an allegory of death or a transition towards death. There are also numerous references to fantastic characters, such as Cerberus, the stags or the Bacchantes, Charon, all characters having the purpose of helping the hero in his passage to the other world. In fact, the author's intention was to create two parallel worlds in the everyday universe, in other words, in any analysis it is essential to decipher the manifestation of the sacred in the profane of the existence. Camouflage, however, makes it difficult to recognize the sacred in the modern, desacralized world. The common man needs an initiation into the sacred, to see with the mind's eye, this being the deep meaning of this short story.

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