La malchance d’être né
On the Weakness of Being Born

Summary/Abstract: On the Weakness of Being Born is a comparative study of Ionesco and Cioran, who share the same nostalgia for not having been born. By tracing the theme of the refusal of being, both in their Romanian and French works, the present study underlie the regressive nature of the two authors, as well as their kinship with Schopenhauer. The desire for not having been born is, however, a primeval component of the human imaginary, present also in the works of Homer and the Greek tragedy playwrights, in the Bible or in the writings of Herodotus. Despite the fact that only Cioran claimed Thracian inheritance, the conclusion of the study is that the value of the two Romanian authors lies precisely in the fact that their works “perceive” and reproduce ancient voices from the archaic core of the collective imaginary.

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