Abstract

Abstract Taking in consideration a broad perspective on Romanian literature and the prevalence of the Byzantine religious model, the orthodox background that provides the dichotomie Good-Bad or Beautiful-Ugly as a statement, the present paper analyses Lucian Blaga’s plays (Tulburarea apelor and Meșterul Manole) as an alternative model. The European cultural influences, the Gnostic, the psychoanalytic and aesthetic visions, the religious syncretism, the mythical and poetic, tragic and expresionst dimensions of his works are the premises of considering Blaga a rewriter of the redemption’s canon for his heroes. Firstly, the present paper proposes reading the plays through Goethe’s grind – the two souls theory (that of the day and that of the night) corresponding to the maternal and the paternal images, in relation with Blaga’s biography. On the other hand, taking in consideration Nietzsche’s theory about ancient tragedy, it analyses the rapport between apollonian and dionysian elements, but also the faustization of the heroes. If masculine characters can be related to different faustic steps, the women have both angelic and mephistophelean features – there are correspondents to the Anima, or to the Shadow, in the Jungian archetypes, to the biblical fallen angel or to the ancient Bacchanta. Nona remains a femnine Mephisto or a Sucubous that reshapes the patter of temptention into the erotic seduction while Mira can be seen as a Margareta or even as a Helena, while the church that Manole built on the foundation of her sacrifice can be read in the same grind as Euphorion – the symbol of Beauty and Perfection or of Manole-Faust’s new soul. The question if Nona and Mira can represent (or not) the Eternal Feminin and the salvation of heroes is sill valid. However, describing the Priest and Manole as dramatic (not as tragic heroes, although we can talk about the resurrection of Hybris, Hamartia, Catastrophe and a possible Nemesis), in relation with a non-Crestian, Gnostic, Bogumilic or Pantheist God (a Deus absconditus or Deus otiosus), their redemption is a non-canonic one. Although the answer that the author provides if we are talking about a damnation or about a path to redemption, from the religious point of view, the priest’s salvation is a Pantheist one, while Manole’s redemption can be seen as an aesthetic one. Both parralel with the classic possibilities of saving heroes, alternative models that rewrite the canon of redemption.

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