M. Eminescu’s theatre, between manuscript and editorial nostalgia
This article deals with a largely forgotten editorial project from 1990, when the eminent scholar and editor Petru Creţia submitted to the readers three plays by M. Eminescu: Decebal, Bogdan Dragoş, Alexandru Lăpuşneanu. Although published fragmentarily in several previous editions, they had never been presented as almost complete and able to resist a thorough aesthetic evaluation. The plays appeared in new versions, with numerous emendations and completions to the already published fragments, but their importance is greater if one takes into account the radical editorial conception that they for the first time put into practice, before its ellaboration in the book Testament of an Eminescu Scholar (1998). The paper discusses his conception, as it emerges from practice, with a special emphasis on the editorial role that it generates. We shall also make an analysis of the volume, and especially of the play Decebal, assessing not so much the intrinsic value of the play, but its functioning in the complex reading relationship that it establishes with the public.
Keywords: M. Eminescu, Petru Creţia, romantic theatre, fragment editing, editor role