“Diamond Air” and “Ruby Dawn”. Mihai Eminescu’s Mineral Imaginary Cover Image

„Aer de diamant” și „zori de rubin”. Imaginarul mineral al lui Mihai Eminescu
“Diamond Air” and “Ruby Dawn”. Mihai Eminescu’s Mineral Imaginary

Author(s): Giovanni Magliocco
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Editura Tracus Arte
Keywords: Mihai Eminescu; mineral; reverie; crystal; diamond; elemental poetics; poetics of space; alchemy; metamorphose; romanticism; decadentism

Summary/Abstract: In her essay Mihai Eminescu o dell’assoluto Rosa del Conte, reflecting on the chromatic sensibility of Mihai Eminescu, remarked that in modern literature only Charles Baudelaire could be placed next to the Romanian poet for his almost morbid passion for all glittering materials: metals, crystals, precious stones. In this contribution we propose to begin a systematic study of the Eminescian mineral imaginary by focusing our attention, this time, only on the “crystalline reveries”. By analyzing the symbolic valorizations of the crystal, considered in all the hypostases disseminated in the Eminescian texts (diamond, emerald, ruby, sapphire, pearl), we will show that for Eminescu the crystal does not represent only the image of a world in the world containing individual destiny, but also a “space-light” which, in its inorganic fixity and imperishable stability, materializes an “oneiric space-time” of eternity.

  • Issue Year: XIII/2017
  • Issue No: 2 (26)
  • Page Range: 89-104
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Romanian