Scriitori în oglinda vremii

The "motif of the mirror" is used in different "poses" not only in literature (an example: Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu, The Woman in front of the Oglinzei, the novel from 1921), but also in literary criticism (and another example: Călin Teutișan, The text in the mirror. Reflections of the Eminesian imaginary, the exegesis of 2006), and the idea of the mirror of time, from the title of the book, wants to induce the suggestion that these comments contribute, in a way, to the outline of the way in which criticism and literary history "mirror" the reception of the work of some Romanian writers, from yesterday and today, that this "mirroring" consists of the fragments "mirrored", in whole or in part, by the books, studies or chronicles dedicated to them, the phenomenon being a complex one and in continuous movement, because literature itself crosses a "tunnel of time", and the "mirrors" that accompany it (some are "rear-view mirrors") do nothing but reflect the "images" outlined by literary criticism. The "mirrors" may change, depending on revaluations, but the "weather mirror" is the one that constitutes the up-to-date "image". The books submitted for reading were not chosen by chance, in the middle being - we can openly confess - about elective affinities. Mihai Eminescu, Constantin Noica and Marin Preda represent constants of my own literary history concerns - with a completely special insistence on Marin Preda, the "great loner" of Romanian literature - and Liviu Rebreanu, Hortensia Papadat‑Bengescu, Damian Stănoiu, Ion Minulescu, Emil Cioran, Miron Radu Paraschivescu, Dumitru Radu Popescu and Augustin Buzura are other landmarks for whom I felt a special empathy, sometimes on the grounds that they originate from the same geographical area from which we ourselves come or had close ties with it, sometimes because they impose a significant profile in the Romanian literary context, of yesterday and today, but all of them are among the "big names" of Romanian literature. At the same time, the attention directed towards the progress of literature brought us to the situation of commenting on other volumes of history and literary criticism, without betraying the interest towards what represents the real value of the book, in general, and of the critical approach, in particular.