Imagini ale căutării şi ale arderii în Tulburarea apelor şi Cântecul focului
Images of Seeking and Burning in
Whirling Waters and in The Song of the Fire
The text is trying to approach both the play Tulburarea apelor (Whirling Waters) and the volume of poems Cântecul focului (The Song of the Fire) from an imagistic perspective. The wildfire, that burns the protagonist’s soul in the play, has a creative “portrayal” in Blaga’s poems. The petrifying statement made by Nona (the feminine principle and the embodiment of Satan): “The churches are burning in such a lovely way!” can reflect the statement made by the lyrical self: “We are burning, and we do not forgive ourselves,/ oh, we are burning in the cruel flames,/ flaming one another!” The text is also trying to depict the eschatological dimension of fire; neither Popa (the protagonist), nor the lyrical self can escape from it. The only cathartical aspects that can annihilate Popa’s inner conflict are forgiveness and faith. However, both Popa and the lyrical self “sing” their solitude, and they perceive even God as being “flooded” in an enormous solitude. The images of seeking and burning are shadowed by the hope of immortality, and precisely this aspect provides a mysterious atmosphere, which characterizes Blaga’s works.
Keywords: 20th century Romanian literature, Lucian Blaga’s plays and poems, material imagination, images of fire and of the quest
- Lucian Blaga. Cântecul focului, Opere 2/ The Song of
the Fire, Works 2, Bucureşti: Minerva. - Lucian Blaga. Tulburarea apelor, Teatru 1/ Whirling
Waters, Theatre 1, Bcureşti: Minerva, 1984. - Gaston Bachelard. Psihanaliza focului/ The
Psychoanalysis of Fire, Bucureşti: Univers, 2000. - Dan C. Mihăilescu. Dramaturgia lui Blaga/ Blaga’s
Dramaturgy, Cluj-Napoca: Dacia, 1984.
