A Complete Critical „Experience”
The study analyses Eugen Simion s book on Romanian pre-romantic poets, „Dimineața poeților”, focusing on the innovatory premises of its critical inquiry. First published in 1980, the book soon became an object of debate between the traditional critical paradigm – represented as such by Șerban Cioculescu – and the new critical inquiries, inspired by the French Nouvelle Critique. Gaston Bachelard, Roland Barthes, Georges Poulet or Jean-Pierre Richard are permenant, but flexible, sources of inspiration for the close-reading in „Dimineața poeților”. Eugen Simion s study stands out among the most spectacular re-interpretations of outdated writers in the postwar Romanian criticism.
Keywords: pre-romantic poetry; literary history; critical paradigm; Nouvelle Critique; rhetoric analysis;