The Memory of a Surviver (The Dialogic Principle as Autobiographical Strategy in Radu Cosaşu’s Writings)
The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between intertextual and autobiographical memory in Radu Cosaşu’s work (undoubtedly one of the most interesting in Romanian contemporary literature).
Starting from the assumption that almost every book that he has written carries the stamp of what we might call a “dialogical” dialectics (in Mihail Bahtin’s terms), we will try to reveal some specific characteristics and paradoxes of this case, stressing especially on the author’s quest of preserving his inner freedom, along with the ultimate meaning of some “realms of memory”. In this context, the act of reading plays a crucial part, since the books of the past (especially those written during the period between wars – an almost mythical reference for the Romanian intellectuals), were considered able to offer their readers the possibility of escaping the external constraints of the sombre reality of the totalitarian era. Consequently, Mateiu Caragiale’s novel, Craii de Curtea Veche (Old-Court Philanderers) or Camil Petrescu’s Patul lui Procust (The Procustean Bed), for instance, turned into some sort of fixed marks for our refined reader/writer, eager to break free into o protective space, at the same time “real” and imaginary.
Besides, departing from the investigation of these individual defense mechanisms in Radu Cosaşu’s autobiographical prose, we can envisage the possibility of building a connection between autobiography and collective memory.
Keywords: intertextual memory, autobiographical quest, identity, reading
