FICTIONALIZED OTHERNESS - IDEALIZATION OF A FANTASY, CHIRA CHIRALINA BY PANAIT ISTRATI Cover Image

ALTERITATEA FICȚIONALIZATĂIDEALIZAREA UNEI FANTASME, CHIRA CHIRALINA DE PANAIT ISTRATI
FICTIONALIZED OTHERNESS - IDEALIZATION OF A FANTASY, CHIRA CHIRALINA BY PANAIT ISTRATI

Author(s): Aritina Micu-Iancu
Subject(s): Aesthetics, Romanian Literature, Theory of Literature, Sociology of Literature
Published by: Editura Aeternitas
Keywords: autobiographism; femininity; female projections; fictionalized otherness;

Summary/Abstract: Written at the instigation of Romain Rolland at the end of 1922, “Kyra Kyralina” manages to bring into the same epic score, the distant echo of times projected into legend, but also slices of life from the present of the pivotal character of the cycle, Adrian Zograffi. The text is part of a very personal form of autobiography, in which the narrator blends his own stories and the stories of others that he assimilates as life experience. This first Istratian creation pays homage to friendship, but also offers images of picturesque and fascinating femininity captured in an idealizing way. The first female projection is the mother of the narrator-character, Joița, a simple but ambitious woman, who tries to transmit to her only child strong values, principles, sometimes different from those of the world of the slums through which she regularly migrates. However, the most powerful images of this triptych text are the two Chire, who initially have a plausible consistency, and then their presence is projected into the realm of the chimerical, increasingly detached from a tangible reality and becoming a real obsession for the one who loses them.

  • Issue Year: 1/2023
  • Issue No: 14
  • Page Range: 71-88
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: Romanian