Evening Star
original title: Luceafăr
Romanticism is a literary movement that appeared in England in the early nineteenth century, from where it spread first in France and Germany, then throughout Europe. This movement appears as a reaction to the strictness of classical rules, being the first form of modernism in universal culture. In Romanian literature we can talk about romanticism with the appearance of Pasoptists, their manifesto being in fact the Introduction to Literary Dacia, signed by Mihail Kogălniceanu, later through the lyrical work of Mihai Eminescu, which intellectualizes and refines the theme and vision of Pasoptists.
Luceafărul is an epic poem that presents the allegory of the condition of the man of genius, seen as a being torn by deep contradictions and in antithesis with the mediocre man, without spiritual aspirations. Secondary themes complete the complex of meanings of the poem: terrestrial and cosmic nature, love in double hypostasis, earthly and fulfilled and that between two entities belonging to incompatible worlds, the fragility and ephemerality of the human condition, universal becoming, the journey to the origins of the universe, time and cosmic space.
The sources of inspiration are folkloric or philosophical in nature, which is an element of romantic aesthetics. The romantic ones are represented on the one hand by the Romanian fairy tales collected by the German traveler Richard Kunisch - Beauty without a body (the theme of incompatible love) and The girl in the golden garden (except that Hyperion does not choose the path of revenge, because it contradicts the higher essence of genius) , on the other hand, by the myth of the Flyer, considered by Călinescu one of the four fundamental myths of the Romanian culture, which is found in the first part of the poem: state of diurnal melancholy, metamorphoses into young people with beautiful appearance.
The sequential analysis of the text allows the identification of elements that highlight the presence of several species: the cosmic pastel is found in the uranium flight of Hyperion, the terrestrial pastel in the erotic painting at the end, the philosophical meditation in the Demiurge's reply, the eclogue in the first part of the poem , through the dialogues between the emperor's daughter and Luceafăr.
The poet's preference for antitheses is reflected in the organization of the poem, through the oppositions established between the four paintings: the interference of the human-terrestrial and cosmic planes, through the aspiration of the emperor's daughter towards Luceafăr, possible only in a dreamlike plane. Antitheses such as terrestrial-cosmic, ephemeral-eternal, perishability-eternity, genius-mediocrity, masculine-feminine illustrate Eminescu's taste for this figure of romantic thought par excellence.
The deepest meanings related to the condition of the man of genius are found in the third painting, which has two poetic sequences: on the one hand Hyperion's flight to the Demiurge, which requires the release of immortality, a fragment that confirms Eminescu's status as creator of the cosmic pastel in Romanian literature, and on the other hand the dialogue of these two characters belonging to the celestial order.
The name by which Luceafărul is designated is Hyperion, etymologically explicable by "the one above / outside time". The elements that make up the limits of human destiny are listed with a contemptuous note: mortals are determined in time and space, subject to chance ("they only have lucky stars") and vanity ("and vain persecutions"), as opposed to the elements of outer space, which support the universal balance.
The last six verses represent the final replica of Hyperion, which summarizes his drama: he cannot fulfill himself emotionally, so he cannot access total knowledge. In contrast to the fate of the mediocre man, subject to chance, the man of genius avoids becoming, thus remaining unaffected, Apollonian, resigned ("But I in my world feel / immortal and cold").
Thus, the poem fits into the romantic current by theme, by motives, the exceptional hypostases embodying allegorical creatures put in exceptional situations, the real-unreal, terrestrial-cosmic, masculine-feminine antitheses. Luceafărul thus represents a maximum point of Eminescu's creation.
