ABSTRACT
Two transition figures who contributed to the aesthetic professionalization of the novel were Mihai Eminescu, Romania's preeminent poet, and loan Creanga, the greatest I9th-century Romanian storyteller. Eminescu's unfinished novel Geniu pustiu (Barren Genius), written between I866 and I868 but published only posthumously, followed The Sufferings of Young Werther's example in structuring the narrative around an introspective artistic character with strong feelings, disquieting experiences, and heroic passions that include participation in the I848 national democratic revolution in Transylvania. The novella Sarmanu I Dionis (I873; Poor Dionis) introduced a new narrative tradition in Romanian fiction, romantic-fantastic, violating time and space relationships and pursuing new configurations "within a framework of the extraordinary" (Ciopraga, I973). Eminescu's synthesis of Romanian fantastic folklore with classic myths and Oriental initiatory doctrines paved the way for every important mythopoetic writer of the 20th century, from Sadoveanu and Voiculescu to Mircea Eliade and A.E. Baconsky.
