THE SENTIMENTAL NOVEL IN INTERWAR ROMANIAN LITERATURE: OCTAV DESSILA, A FORGOTTEN WRITER
THE SENTIMENTAL NOVEL IN INTERWAR ROMANIAN LITERATURE: OCTAV DESSILA, A FORGOTTEN WRITER

Summary/Abstract: This article offers an exploration of the interwar sentimental literature of the novelist Octav Dessila. Given that this study is part of an ongoing doctoral thesis investigating the Sentimental Novel in Romanian Interwar Literature, my analysis focuses on the author’s two sentimental novels published at the beginning and at the end of the 1930s: București, orașul prăbușirilor (1930) and Două chemări (1938). On the one hand, I will examine how these works are configured in relation to the techniques and devices characteristic of the sentimental novel. On the other hand, the research aims to explore the manner in which Dessila foregrounds the social dimension that shapes and polarizes the sentimental plot. In this regard, my interest lies particularly in how the characters relate to modernity, and especially to the opposition between traditionalism and modernity, depicted suggestively throughout the novels. Z. Ornea’s study, Tradiționalism și modernitate în deceniul al treilea (“Traditionalism and Modernity in the Third Decade”), serves as a representative critical framework, particularly through its analysis of the dichotomy between patriarchal and capitalist civilizations as reflected in literature. The sentimental dimension of the two narratives remains the main focus of this research and is emphasized through the depiction of emotions, sentimental situations, and eroticism within the texts. At the same time, this study constitutes an effort to re-evaluate popular literature and to bring back into scholarly discussion certain profiles of interwar sentimental novelists who deserve renewed critical attention.

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