Benjamin Fundoianu / Fondane. Orientări filosofice
Benjamin Fundoianu / Fondane – philosophical orientations
Although during the Romanian period of his creation Benjamin Fundoianu became known first and foremost as a poet and essayist, as a result of his transmutation to the French cultural space, especially after his spiritual meeting with Lev Şestov, his orientation towards philosophy has become increasingly important. Apart from the numerous essays printed in several more or less well-known publications in France, Belgium or even Argentina, the works which ultimately imposed him as an existentialist philosopher were La conscience malheureuse and Le Lundi existentiel et le Dimanche de l’Histoire. The latter text is, at the same time, his philosophical testament. An aspect which must be discussed is that of personal license reflected by the term of irrésignation, which gave birth to discussions regarding its necessity, as there already existed in French terms which made reference to that specific signified, and there was even the negative form of non-résignation. Irrésignation is not featured in French dictionaries, but, in the ensemble of Benjamin Fondane’s thinking, an opposition arises between the significations invested with it by its creator and the existing term, non-résignation: this is not merely a non-resignation, but an impossibility, a refusal to accept duty, reason and death.
A. Primary
1. Fondane, Benjamin,La conscience malheureuse / The unhappy conscience, Les Editions Denoёl et Steele, Paris, 1936, Reed. Paris, Editions Plasma, 1979.
2. Fondane, Benjamin, Rencontres avec Léon Chestov / Meetings with Lev Shestov. Textes établis et annotés par Nathalie Baranoff et Michel Carassou. Préface de Michel Carassou, Editions Plasma, Paris, 1982.
3. Fondane, Benjamin, Le Lundi existentiel et le Dimanche de l’Histoire, suivi de la philosophie vivante / The existential Monday followed by the living philosophy,Monaco, Editions du Rocher, 1990.
4. Fundoianu, Benjamin,Conştiinţa nefericită. Eseuri / The unhappy conscience. Essays. Traducere de Andreea Vlădescu, Bucureşti, Editura Humanitas, 1993.
5. Fondane, Benjamin, L’être et la connaissance. Essai sur Lupasco / Being and knowledge. Essay on Lupasco, Présenté par Michel Finkenthal, Paris, Editions Paris – Méditerranée, 1998.
6. Fundoianu, Benjamin, Fiinţa şi cunoaşterea. Încercare asupra lui Lupaşcu / Being and knowledge. Essay on Lupasco, Iaşi, Editura Ştefan Lupaşcu, 2000.
B. Secondary
1. Breton, André, Manifestes du surréalisme / Manifestos of surrealism, [Paris], Editura Gallimard, 1973.
2. Calimani, Riccardo, Destins et aventures de l’intellectuel juif en France / Destinies and adventures of the Jew intellectual in France, 1650-1945, Toulouse, Editions Privat, 2002.
3. Carassou, Michel, De Dada à l’existentialisme / From Dada to existentialism, in Fundoianu /Fondane et l’avant-garde, Fondation Culturelle Roumaine, Paris – Méditerranée, 1999, p. 135.
4. Idem, Benjamin Fondane et le Dimanche de l’Histoire / Benjamin Fondane and the Sunday of history, „Euresis. Cahiers roumains d’études littéraires”, Bucarest, Editions Univers,1999-2000, p. 149.
5. Fotiade, Ramona, B. Fondane: from Surrealism to the Existential Fight against Self-evidence, „Euresis. Cahiers roumains d’études littéraires”, Bucarest, Editions Univers,1999-2000, p. 204.
6. Idem (ed.), The Tragic Discourse. Shestov and Fondane’s Existential Thought, Berna, Editura Peter Lang, 2006.
