Pentru o poetica a imaginarului: xilogeneza în basmul fantastic românesc

Abstract

Configuring a certain form of life and a (different) image of the body-taken, the reason for the birth of a fairytale hero from a wood (xylogenesis), anchors the subject under discussion in an area of the mythical. The interpretive auspices given to wood/tree by archaic cultures, have positioned it almost invariably in the orderly symbolism of the centre (to the World). From the well -known cosmic tree of Old Testament mythology (the „tree of life”) to the famous Yggdrasil of Scandinavian mythology, not to mention the tree of enlightenment Bodhi Gaya, the symbolism of the centre-tree of the World (cosmic tree) is broadly the same. In the imaginary-memory cultural relationship aiming at researching the symbol- ism given to the tree/wood over time, the Romanian cultural space was no exception. We have archaeological references that convey the symbol of the sacred tree (fir tree) present on Dacian pottery; we have studies dedicated to the evolution of the symbolism of the cosmic tree on the traditional costume or to the „taking care” of a funerary tree, to the presence of the tree of life in the portals of some Saxon churches, to the motif of the tree of life in Romanian folk architecture etc. The documentation for this study revealed me, by consulting the anthologies of Romanian fairy tales, some interesting aspects taken for this reason at the level of the fantastic epic. None working mechanically, all reflecting the process of the archaic system of symbolic thinking: without immutable patterns, without refractory visions, but always with a symbolic nucleus in the deep layer of the epic. Considering the structural particularities, the coherence and the specificity of the motif approached in the present study, it must be said that at the level of the Romanian fantastic fairy tale we detected, besides the delimits and at the same time „revolves” around xylogenesis, with ontogenetically- different nuances: wearing wooden clothes or living in a tree to avoid incest, with the opening of the tree only through a magical invocation; heroes and/or animals with „name of a tree” but without having to deal with a proper xylogenesis; the passing away of fairytale characters as a result of some existential-human tragedies, in symbolic forms (metamorphosis in trees); varies. Keywords: imaginary, phenomenology, hermeneutics, Romanian fairytale, xylogenesis.