Young Lioness, Love

original title: Leoaică tânără, iubirea

@Vanco1

Published in 

WhiteChaos

 · 3 years ago

Neomodernism is a literary movement of the 1960s and 1980s, characterized by a revival of poetry after, in the post-World War II period, literature had become an instrument of propaganda. This generation of neomodernist writers cultivates great philosophical themes, capitalizes on and reinterprets myths, preferring ambiguous, metaphorical language, irony, playful spirit and parody.

The poem "Young Lioness, Love" is included in the volume "A Vision of Feelings" customizing the hypertext. This volume is part of the first stage of Stanescu's creation, a stage of exuberance, youth and has as its theme love. The text falls into neomodernism : the novelty of the approach to the theme, the ambiguity of the language, the unusualness of the artistic images, the novelty of the metaphors and the prosodic renewals (free verse and ambush).

The theme is love as a force that metamorphoses the individual and the world. The sudden, surprising appearance of love, its violent, aggressive intrusion into human existence definitively transforms the perception of the man in love on the world and on him. Love is a state of continuous vibration and a way of integrating into universal harmonies. The central motif of the text, which by repetition becomes leitmotif, is that of the lioness, a symbol for love.

The paratextual level of discursive analysis implies the title that can be received on two levels: connotative and denotative. At the denotative level, it includes a metaphor explained by apposition. The association between the feeling and the image of the lioness suggests beauty, strength, elegance, but also aggression. The adjective "young" suggests the lack of experience of this feeling. At the connotative level, the title reveals the true science of Stanescu's metamorphosis. The image of the lioness symbolizing love is atypical and shocking for the ordinary reader of classical poetry.

The architecture of poetry is made up of three sequences, following, in turn, the changes and metamorphoses that the one who knew love goes through: the birth of the feeling of love, the transformation of the world after falling in love and the awareness of the transformations produced on one's own being. the young lioness ”.

The first sequence , the first stanza, captures the moment of falling in love, of the miraculous and violent encounter with love, although the feeling already existed in a latent state in the human soul. The feeling appears unexpectedly, taking him by surprise and without giving him time to react in any way: "The young lioness, love / She jumped in front of me./ She had been stalking me / before." "The bite of love" does not hurt, but causes metamorphoses with devastating effects on the poetic self: "The white fangs stuck in my face / The lioness bit me today."

The second sequence , the second stanza, can be interpreted as a cosmogonic picture and is organized symbolically around the metaphor of the circle through which develops the idea that through love, the self integrates into cosmic circularity, the circle being the symbol of perfection and harmony cosmic. This dynamic world, pulsating with life, is organized around the one who lives the moment intensely: "And suddenly around me nature / a circle was made to last / sometimes wider, sometimes closer ...".

The third sequence illustrates that the human being no longer recognizes himself after meeting love. The metamorphosis after living love is irreversible. The transformations of the soul are reflected on the physical plane: "I put my hand to my eyebrow / to my temple and to my chin, / but my hand doesn't know them anymore." The four physical elements are metaphors of poetic knowledge: "eyebrow", "temple", "chin" (contemplation, reflection, utterance), and "hand", a metaphor of creation, concrete, palpable knowledge.
Symmetry is achieved through the two images of lioness love, placed at the beginning and end of the poetic text. The metaphors "young lioness" and "copper lioness" correlate with the different perceptions of the ego on the world, which suggests that the transformation produced by love is irreversible.

At the prosodic level , the feature of neomodernism is highlighted by the use of free verse and the technique of entanglement, which gives fluency to poetic ideas. The lyrical creation consists of three stanzas with unequal lyrics, with variable rhyme, rhythm and measure.

In my opinion , the ambiguity of neomodernist poetry opens up several avenues of interpretation. Poetry of the encounter with love, the lyrical text can also be "read" as a "meeting" of the poet with the captivating inspiration of the being.