CARMEN SYLVA. CUGETĂRI ȘI AFORISME REGALE
CARMEN SYLVA. ROYAL THOUGHTS AND APHORISMS

Summary/Abstract: Considering the voices of the Romanian historical Royalty defining for the national culture, probably the literary work of the writer-queen Carmen Sylva (Queen Elizabeth of Romania, 1943-1916 ) is the least known and not often placed in the interest of the critics, even if the Queen was the author of dozens of volumes of poems, prose, memorialistic literary works and aphorisms, but also a well-known translator. Queen Elizabeth of Romania remained deeply connected to the major European culture all her life, staying close to both German and French cultural space; not a few well-known writers would crossed his threshold at his residence in the Carpathians and attended her literary and artistic salons (among them, the poet Jean Richepin, Robert de Montesquiou and the writer Pierre Loti, who will become her confidant and one of the great cultural friends). In the present study, we are interested to analysing Carmen Sylvei's aphorisms, which appeared, in 1882, in Paris, at Calmann-Lévi Publishing House, a volume of thoughts in French, entitled Les pensées d’une reine, with a preface written by Louis Ulbach. Six years later, Carmen Sylva reissued, completed with new texts, the French volume Les pensées d’une reine, this time under the care of her friend, writer and editor Pierre Loti. The volume of aphorisms was awarded the Botta Prize of the French Academy. Thematically, Carmen Sylva's aphorisms cover some generous symbols: there are assertions about life, humanity, love, happiness, suffering, spirit, art, duty, pride, politics.

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