Angelo Mitchievici, Iaşii ce ce duc… Un oraş abandonat. Nostalgii teodoriene
The vanishing Iaşi… A deserted city. Teodoreanu’s nostalgies
The study represents an imagological approach regarding a decaying city; starting with an analysis of The Isle of the Dead, the famous painting of the Swiss Arnold Böcklin, the author defines the main set of characteristics of a general Necropolis and then observes the same features as they result from the literary representation of Iaşi, the city portrayed by Ionel Teodoreanu in his best-known novel, La Medeleni. A comparison is also drawn between the respective city and the so-called “dead cities” or “abandoned cities”, such as Venice or Bruges – Iaşi being compared by Teodoreanu with a Moldavian Venice. The final part of this comparative imagological investigation makes use of Derrida’s concept of hauntology, as coined in The Specters of Marx, applying this mourning-related concept to the Iaşi of the fin de siècle, understood as a city of shadows.
Keywords: modern Romanian literature, Ionel Teodoreanu, imagology, decadent city, Necropolis, Iaşi, Jacques Derrida, hauntology
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