Parnassianism

This dissertation is a brief critique on the poetry of Alexandru Mironescu from the literary, mystic-philosophical and biographical points of view, and an attempt to positioning these poems in the context of the history of the Romanian literature and of religious poetry.
poetry, faith, Parnassianism, the Creation, freedom

"Analele Universităţii din București - Limba și Literatura Română", ISSN 1220-0271, Anul LXVIII, pp. 99-116, 2019.

The present article, which uses the hermeneutical strategies promoted by Pierre Brunel’s mythocritique, aims to investigate the Germanic eschatological myth of the “Fate of the Gods” in the poetry of Charles Leconte de Lisle and Lucian Blaga. After a historical-religious introduction on the “Fate of the Gods”, the article outlines its peculiar symbolic constellation. Subsequently, the article turns the archetypical approach into the mythocritical application to poetic texts. The poem "La Légende des Nornes" ("The Legend of Norns", 1862) by Leconte de Lisle is a case of flexibilité of the “Fate of the Gods” myth in a literary text: the French poet reproduces the mythologeme of great winter and combines the outcomes of the deluge and those of conflagration into the original image of a smoking ocean. The poems "Peisaj transcendent" ("Transcendental Landscape", 1929), "Satul minunilor" ("The Village of Miracles", 1938), and "Götterdämmerung" ("Twilight of the Gods", 1970) by Blaga are instead a case of irradiation of the “Fate of the Gods” myth in a literary text: although never mentioning the Germanic eschatological event, the Romanian poet depicts its dying god and the world renewal that follows it.

Aesthetic Movement or Aestheticism
• The Aesthetic movement was born in France thanks to Teophile Gautier and developed in the last part of 19th century; the most influent writers were the Italian D’Annunzio, Huysmans in France, and Oscar Wilde in England (with his masterpiece The Picture of Dorian Gray, in which preface contains quotes, principles and aphorisms, that together are considered the manifesto of the English Aesthetic movement).
• Aesthetics were not politically committed but reflected their disgust for the materialism and utilitarianism (following the Industrial Revolution) and the restrictive moral code of the bourgeois class.
• Therefore, the French artists withdrew from the political and social scene, isolating from society, in what Gautier called “L’ART POUR L’ART” or “ART FOR ART'S SAKE”; he stated that the art or beauty in art will survive over life and time, so art is eternal.
• Gautier was a member of the Parnassian movement, a group of French poets who challenged the old romantics and wished the pursuit of stylistic perfection in all fields of art. The name Parnassian derives from the original Parnassian poets’ journal, Le Parnasse contemporain, itself named after Mount Parnassus, home of the Muses in Greek mythology. The influence of the Parnassians was felt throughout Europe. Many former Parnassians became part of the Symbolist movement in the late 19th century.
• English aesthetics also isolated themselves and wrote texts based on sensations, beauty and a refined style. The artists surrounded themselves with beautiful and pleasant things such as extravagant clothes, perfumes, fragrances, drugs.
• The main theorist of Aesthetic movement in Britain was Walter Pater, who claimed the importance of life as “A WORK OF ART” and considered art the only way to stop the flow of time and the only certainty in life. Pater’s ‘Studies in the History of the Renaissance’ and his masterpiece ‘Marius the Epicurean’ were considered both successful and subversive. ‘Studies in the History of the Renaissance’ is considered the golden book of the British Aesthetic Movement, dealing about the real nature of Italian Renaissance artists, who sometimes were homosexual or atheist. His aim was to challenge conventional moral codes on morality, sexuality, religion and education of Victorian society, which saw Italian Renaissance artists as perfect people: Pater wanted to convey a different point of view.
[The word Aesthetic come from a Greek word, which means to feel and perceive: the writer is somebody who can see thing that other people cannot see.]
The movement is also characterized by the supremacy of sensation and beauty, they recognised Keats as their forerunner, but their vision was different: according to Gautier’s theories they believed in Art for Art’s sake, thus art had not a didactic aim, but was important because it dealt about beauty.
Bohemianism or Bohemian Movement
• A bohemian is a person with artistic or intellectual tendencies, who lives and acts with no regard for conventional rules of behaviour.
• The word “bohemian” first appeared in the English language in the 19th century to describe the non-traditional lifestyles of marginalized and impoverished artists, writers, journalists, musicians, and actors in major European cities. Bohemians were then associated with unorthodox or anti-establishment political or social viewpoints, which often were expressed through free love, frugality, and voluntary poverty.
• Dandy (a type of mind-set bohemianism): no money, but try to appear as if they have it by buying and displaying expensive or rare items – such as brands of alcohol.
• The word “dandy” comes from the song “The Yankee Doodle Dandy” sung by the British troops in the USA during the American Revolution to mock the colourful uniform of the oversea soldiers. Lord Gordon Byron is thought to be a forerunner of the Dandy movement because of his extravagant clothes.
The pre-Raphaelitism
The origins of the Aesthetic Movement can be traced back even to the Pre-Raphaelites, a group of artists who refused any form of art made after Raphael, rejecting academic taste and classical doctrines; they wanted to go back to medieval art, which they believed to be more spontaneous and sincere, in contrast with the more modern sinful art. Pre-Raphaelites were painters and poets who turned their eyes away from the ugly contemporary industrial and urban world. Their paintings were colourful, symbolic and at the same time realistic, reproducing nature in detail.

Decadent movement
• In France, the Decadent Movement is often said to have begun with either Joris-Karl Huysmans' Against Nature (1884) or Baudelaire's Les Fleur du Mal (1857).
• Capitalizing on the momentum of Huysmans' work, Anatole Baju founded the magazine Le Décadent in 1886, an effort to define and organize the Decadent Movement in a formal way. The Decadents were a group of writers who did not only look to escape the boredom of the banal, but they also sought to shock, scandalize, and subvert the expectations and values of society, believing that such freedom and creative experimentation would better humanity.
• They were heavily influenced by Baudelaire’s masterpiece Les Fleur du Mal (1857), though they were also influenced by Gothic novels and the poetry and fiction of Edgar Allan Poe.
• Many were associated with Symbolism, others with Aestheticism. Symbolism was a reaction in favour of spirituality, the imagination and dreams. Symbolists believed that art should represent absolute truths that could only be described indirectly, through symbols.
• The pursuit of these authors, according to Arthur Symons, was "a desperate endeavour to give sensation, to flash the impression of the moment, to preserve the very heat and motion of life," and their achievement, as he saw it, was "to be a disembodied voice, and yet the voice of a human soul.”
• These French decadents lived a very unconventional life, they used drugs, a way to improve perception, to look inside their soul, thus called maudits, (accursed poets). The most important ones were Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Verlaine and Laforgue.

Robert Louis Stevenson
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, published in 1886 by Robert Louis Stevenson, is about a man who transforms between two personae: Dr Henry Jekyll and Mr. Edward Hyde. [The phrase ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ is sometimes used colloquially to refer to someone whose actions cannot be reconciled with each other.]
Plot
• Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde focuses on John Utterson, a lawyer and friend of Dr Jekyll’s. The novel begins with John Utterson talking with his other friend, who has just witnessed an odd situation. A man later identified as Edward Hyde ran over a girl, only to pay off her family later with a check from Dr Jekyll. • The situation is made even stranger because Jekyll's will has recently been changed so Mr. Hyde now stands to inherit everything.  John, believing that the two men are separate people, thinks that the cruel Mr. Hyde is somehow blackmailing Dr Jekyll. John thus questions Dr Jekyll about Hyde, but Jekyll tells him to mind his own business.
• A year later, Mr. Hyde attacks someone else: he beats a man with a cane, resulting in the man's death. The police involve John because he knew the victim. John takes them to Mr. Hyde's apartment, where they find the murder weapon, which is a gift that John himself gave to Dr Jekyll. John questions Dr Jekyll about Mr. Hyde again, but Jekyll insists that Mr. Hyde has run away. He shows John a goodbye note from Mr. Hyde, but the handwriting is suspiciously similar to Dr Jekyll's. 
• For a while, things seem to improve: Mr. Hyde does not reappear and Dr Jekyll seems happier. But then one of John's friends –Dr Lanyon– dies suddenly; Before he dies, however, Lanyon gives John a letter. He says it should only be opened if Dr Jekyll either dies or disappears. 
• Dr Jekyll starts acting even weirder and shuts himself up inside his laboratory. Eventually, his butler and John break into the laboratory, concerned because the voice they heard inside is not the doctor's. Once inside, they find Mr. Hyde dressed in Dr Jekyll's clothes and dead: the doctor has committed suicide. Next to his body is a letter. 
• After he goes home again, John reads both letters now in his possession. They reveal the truth about what has been happening. The letter written by his friend Lanyon explains that Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the same person and that they transform back and forth via potions. The second letter, written by Dr Jekyll, explains the purpose of the transformation: Dr Jekyll wanted to separate his good side and his bad side. He thought he could control it with the potions, but eventually the transformations got out of control and he would transform involuntarily without the aid of the potions. Dr Jekyll tried several things to stop the transformations, but nothing worked. He knew he would turn into Hyde permanently. The letter was his last conscious act as Dr Jekyll.
• Since Mr. Hyde is dead, it can be assumed that, unwilling to face the consequences of his violent actions, Mr. Hyde decided to kill himself first.

Genre
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an example of the Gothic genre. Gothic stories typically blend elements from horror stories with elements from Romantic stories. The persona-changing potions, murders, and eventual suicide in the novel are all examples of the horror elements at work in the text. The Romantic element in the novel comes across in the theme of science versus nature, since Romantic works often are seen as a rebellion against science's rationalization of nature. Gothic novels often explore the human psyche and supernatural phenomena, too. 
On the other hand, the novel can be read as a detective story told by Jekyll’s lawyer, Mr. Utterson.

Machado de Assis’s poem “Soneto de Natal” and the chapter “Um soneto” from his novel Dom Casmurro exhibit striking points of intersection that describe the same process: the creation of a sonnet. In the novel, Bentinho abandons his attempt with only a first and last line. “Soneto de Natal” presents a full fourteen; yet, when scrutinized, it rings as hollow as Bentinho’s. This idea of the lacuna speaks to much of Machado’s early poetry, which suggests that access to the poetic muse is bestowed through suffering by experience. Thus, the young Bentinho, not unlike the mute prophet of one such early poem, struggles for inspiration while “Soneto de Natal” presents the inverse: the prophet granted experience who discovers that he is, like a poet-Moses, slow of verse. By analyzing these two sonnets, taking into account their shared imagery, vocabulary, themes, and the stylistic choices of “Soneto de Natal,” we not only find a Machadian critique of the sonnet-mania of the 1890s, but also unmask “Soneto de Natal” as the anti-promethean exemplar of Bento’s sonnet-making blueprint. In a deft sleight of hand, Machado illustrates his point in the most effective way possible: by passing off satire as the genuine article.