THE ANIMAL SYMBOL AND THE MYTHICIZATION OF REALITY IN THE PROSE OF ȘTEFAN BĂNULESCU
THE ANIMAL SYMBOL AND THE MYTHICIZATION OF REALITY IN THE PROSE OF ȘTEFAN BĂNULESCU

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the symbolic function of the animal figure in ”Dropia” and ”Mistreții erau blânzi” by Ștefan Bănulescu, situating the analysis within broader debates on mythicization, fictional ontology, and the symbolic intensification of reality in Eastern European prose. Drawing on conceptual distinctions between ontological structure and semantic density, the study employs close textual analysis and ontological inquiry to reassess Bănulescu’s narrative strategies.The article argues that in both texts the animal (the bustard and the wild boar) operates not as an extraordinary or ontologically disruptive presence, but as a symbolic axis that intensifies an otherwise coherent and unified fictional world. Bănulescu’s prose maintains a single ontological level while generating mythic depth through collective memory, archetypal spatial configurations, repetition, and semantic inversion. The elusive bustard becomes a symbol of existential distance and unattainability, structuring a meditation on limit and deferred fulfillment. By contrast, the “gentle” wild boars enact an inversion of traditional archetypal expectations, transforming instinctual force into a regenerative and communal energy, potentially open to allegorical resonance within the socio-political climate of the 1960s.The paper concludes that Bănulescu’s prose articulates a distinct poetics of mythicization, understood as the symbolic deepening of the real within a unified ontological framework. This perspective highlights the complexity of his narrative structures and contributes to broader discussions on myth, archetype, and the semantic reconfiguration of reality in postwar Romanian literature.

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