Danubius International Conferences, 4th International Conference The Danube - Axis of European Identity

The Danube – Mythical Space in the Literary Text (Voiculescu V. and Meniuc G.)

Victoria Fonari
Last modified: 2014-05-29

Abstract

From the perspective of the space the myth of the water is the specific one, which, trough its fluidity comes close to the myth of the air and also, through the dynamic force draws close to the myth of the fire, opposed to the earth  which is the sign of stability.

Studying the myth, we will approach to the image of Danube in the literary texts of Vasile Voiculescu and of George Meniuc. Both authors are tempted to absorb the own experiences through the phantasmagorical images, where the reality blends skillfully with the imagination, water having the function to cross the being into another world which is so little known. 

For V. Voiculescu, the water can be placed neither in the past, nor in the future, it lives in the circle time. It holds the secret of destiny. Even if it seems predictable, it contains the mysteries that can not be definitively perceived. For V. Voiculesc the river lends the poem which links the man to the aquatic life. Thus the fisherman, Amin, is convinced that he comes from the sturgeon, just like the old Santiago, the character from the novel of Ernest Hemingway, who is united with the porpoises and the flying fish.

G. Meniuc is the artist who kept artistically silent in the fifty’s in MSSR, being suspected during his life of the beginning of his literary career in the interwar period. That is why, Danube represents the space of the knowledge, of a freedom that combines the contemplation, the decoding and the memory.  By the Danube (Reni and Tulcea) G. Meniuc reveals the Romanian ethnic space.