In a note published 3 years ago in the daily Cotidianul www.cotidianul.ro I was pointing out the emergence on the Romanian literary scene of a group of young writers. They didn’t have published any volume at the time but they have a certain “grievism” calling and real perspectives to distinguish themselves. Many of those writers rose to my expectations and were noticed for spectacular debuts, nominated for and even winning awards of the Union of the Romanian Writers. Their poems can be found on line at Respiro – www.revistarespiro.com , Liternet - www.liternet.ro , Agora Online - www.aol.ro, Revista de Marti – www.marti.ro, Asalt - www.asalt.seanet.ro , Equivalence – www.vlab.pub.ro/equivalences , Noesis – www.noesis.ro . Also, a discussion about this subject was hosted by the list nadir http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nadir_latent. The “internaut” phenomenon grew to incredible dimensions and some of the young writers became wider known than their masters. There are several such ideas and the ones engaging into a site or web page adventure are more and more. There are Romanian literary sites with thousands of visitors although they just started. Publishing on line is easier first from financial point of view but also one cannot ignore the advantages related to the possibilities of spreading and promoting such a publication. Going back to the concept of grievism and its forms of expression let me mention next some of its founding principles.

If one wants to quote Harold Bloom one probably has to start from the linear description of the limit of the western canon, striping those lines where the interpretative duplicity of the esthetic symbol is suggested. But I will not do such a thing, once because the method of analysing the literary text basically represents, according to Allain Vaillant, only a trivial syntagmatic axiom and second because the limit of the western esthetic canon is already overstepped. As Alexandre Leupin predicted in his paper La fin du siecle (Art Press, November 1999), the age of sexism began to fade and the puerile attempts to restore it were and will be futile. Today people are not impressed anymore by the use of a literary language whose level is lowered in order to attract more readers. The potential reader of today is affected by the intercepting of a reality of obvious epistemological characteristics where he can find possible points of congruence which can motivate him to act and/or to get involved. It is normal to see very interesting things in the culture’s world, being part of such a dynamic society in which the informational systems broke every single communication barrier. There are zillions of internet sites and literary or art web pages. In every moment you are connected to the latest information and you can communicate with everyone on the planet.

Not even Michael Moorcock, the sci-fi visionary, would have suspected some years ago what is jsut happening in this area of interest. Minimalism, runism, biographism, nonmetrism, post textualism, and especially grievism are cultural ideas trying to decipher and somehow deconstruct the fundamentals of the western canon. Grievism is a literary trend originating in new wave and it is characterized by a thematically approach of a reality based on the suppressing of the concept of individuality and incarcerating it in a destructive and restrictive global system.[multiple connections with the French grievity and the American neo-realism.] Relieved of the nebulosity of some premonitory fiction, the grievism succeeds to distinguish itself by his force of resisting at the value level in a system with two major options:
a) elitism – and the migration of the literary text in a micro-universe of eclectic type;
b) mercantilism – and the option of the reader for texts whit no literary value.
The formalist theory of poetical language proves the evasion of the poetical function going beyond the field of poetry, including every discourse, every text in prose or verse, received as a literary message, proving that the literature can be discovered everywhere, in every kind of text. It is clear that nobody can play the role of monitoring the value of everything that is going on, on this immense artistic territory.

Nevertheless... The poetry, in the grievism setting, is not an essence, is not a matrix localized in some area of the poem but the dispersion of the white spaces spread all over its surface, including some elements of the minimal, which are compatibles with every human experience and depending on the existence of some contexts enhanced by the experimental component poetically controlled by an author. [ Daniel Mosoiu – Poeme din mers, Ed. Timpul, 1999 ; Mihai Gotiu – Povestea unuí poem discursiv – Ed. Paralela 45, 2000; George Vasilievici – gabi 78, Ed. Vinea,2001; Elena Vladareanu – Pagini, Ed. Timpul 2002 ].

The latent significations explored in the words should not just make the poetical receiving more positive using potential metaphorical formulations. The grievism proposes the minimal concept of addressing a difficult/dynamic/painful reality which is subduing the individual by absorption. This critic of the form is appreciating the form by reference to the impediments surpassed form the inform, thus by referring to real non esthetical elements transformed in materials of the esthetic imagination. . [ Constantin Virgil Banescu – Cainele, femeia si ocheada – Ed. Timpul, 2000; Adi Urmanov – Carnurile cannonice – Ed. Pontica, 2001; Razvan Tupa – Fetis, Ed. Semne, 2001; Andrei Peniuc – Un animal mic, Ed. Pontica 2002 ].

The grievism has the intention of surpassing the sphere of the traditional lyric and of including in the idea of metaphor all the completed transfers of terms and visionary structures, proving then that the element of denying the traditionalism is an argument in the favor of an ad litteram belief in the mythic capacity of the poetic language of containing its own significance. [Mihai Ignat – Klein spuse – regim de samizdat, 2001 ; Mircea Tuglea – mircea tuglea, Ed. Pontica, 2001; Adela Greceanu – Domnisoara Cvasi, Ed. Vinea 2001; Mugur Grosu – Haltera cu zurgalai, Ed. Pontica, 2001; Iulian Tanase – Iubitafizica, Ed. Vinea,2002;]

[translated from romanian by Gabriel Prajitura]



Gelu Vlaşin
http://site.neogen.ro/Geluvlasin/