A VIEW TO EMINESCU’S PHILOSOPHY
Senior lecturer Gabriela Pohoaţă Ph.D,
“Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University, Bucharest
gabriela_pohoata@yahoo.com
Abstract: the present article invites to a reconsideration of the eminescian
thoughtfulness from a philosophical perspective, fact that is less accepted by the
ones that sustain the idea that Eminescu remains only a great poet.
The idea we share into our text is that philosophy can be found everywhere
in Eminescu's writings, both in theoretical and poetic creation. Actually, poetry
was born from a remarkably deep philosophy, and this is exactly what makes it
unique in the space of romanian spirituality as well as in the one of universal
culture.
Keywords: metaphysics, creation, poetry, ontology, absolute, universal
genius.
Approaching the phenomena in Eminescu’s work from a philosophical
perspective is an attempt allowing the perception of what they call “the image of
the absolute creator”, by rendering the mutation that took place inside the
ontology of creation1 itself, and in the stlylistical matrix of Romanian culture, once
that Eminescu’s work came out.
“Eminescu a poet and a man of culture” (of whom G. Călinescu, N.Iorga,
E.Papu, C.Noica and others used to write) would express, in our opinion, in a
more specific way, their endeavour to place Eminescu among the titans of the
world culture, to emphasize his personality through the linguistic form proper to
his value, on the map of the universe.
1. Essentially, the analysis based on Eminescu’s philosophy would bring
together the philosophical culture of the great poet, the specific assimilations of
his great theoretic creation and a redefinition of the poetic universe of Eminescu,
in what G. Călinescu would consider “the poetry universe” in itself. And it is in
here that the references would reveal themselves through the monumental “Mihai
Eminescu’s Work”2; they come into being by publishing his manuscripts, notes,
translations (see vol. XIV of Works, from Kant’s Readings 3 and from the
Fragmentarium4).
With regard to the exceptional “Fragmentarium” we may focus on a question
which might have tempted others as well: do the poet’s manuscripts hide elements
1
UCDC.
Pohoaţă, G., (2004) “Ontologz and creation in Eminescu’s philosophy”, Bucureşti, Ed.
Călinescu, G., (1970), “M.Eminescu’s Work”, ed. 2-a, Bucureşti, Ed. Minerva.
Eminescu, M., (1975), “Kant’s Readings”, Bucureşti, Ed. Univers.
4 Eminescu, M., (1981), Fragmentarium, Bucureşti, Ed. Ştiinţifică şi Enciclopedică.
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which could have ultimately generated a philosophical work in its proper sense of
the word? Could they decipher, with Eminescu, even subsidiarily, intentionally,
the wish to materialize the intellectual effort in the philosophical creation?
We think he considered that, even if some will say that the author of “Poor
Dyonissos”1 was and would be only a great poet. Also, we will try to show that the
profound and detailed introspection Eminescu made in various sciences is also
the way and the time of the birth of his philosophy, for which he had a real call.
Here is what we found in his manuscript no. 2258: “If you scrutiny history, you
will see that all the sciences systematically looked over (…..) used to be bridges to
philosophy.” Here is not only a realistic judgement about the history of human
spirituality, it is also the unveiling of personal project of work and creation.
Eminescu was aware that philosophy, the synthesis of explanatory qualities, could
not start from specific sciences, whose results needed to be assimilated, absorbed
and then passed through the filter of the dialectic negation.
2. We thus think the asceticism – let’s call it a scientific one Eminescu fell
into in the last period of his life – actually was an initiation into philosophy, into
philosophical creation. The thinker needed “stones” for his “temple” that we
suspect he was designing in terms of the “peculiarity of the theory position” of his
creation. In fact, the poet’s philosophical care is familiar to us, as he seemed to
reply to Vasile Conta2; as, what could it be, among others, the Attempts towards
the idealistic metaphysics of the constant ratio of the eternal movement if not an
answer to Conta’s Attempts towards the materialistic metaphysics? What could
the text On soul’s and individual form eternity also suggest if not a metaphysical
approach of the relation between form and substance, starting from Aristotle’s
matter of substance and form? Is the form prior to the content, substance, essence
or do they evolve together? – that was a philosophical unrest. In these texts,
Eminescu makes evidence of the original perception of the antique thinking, and
also of his own philosophy which he wanted to design; it seems that the author
was trying to work out a synthesis between heraclitianism and parmenidism, an
organic conjunction between the permanent flow, transformation and stability of
the being, so that everything complies and imposes a dialectic, a relative stability,
open to the great passage. One should notice here the overcoming of simple
amalgamation of the two philosophical orientations, Eminescu coming closer to
the spirit of a realistic and dialectical vision, through the adequate assimilation
and the essence of Hegel’s method.3
Călinescu recommended a lot of caution with regard to this part of
Eminescu’s work: “Eminescu is a philosopher due to his ambitions related to the
method found out in his thinking, stressing the speculative parts of his work, and
not due to his contemplative attitude of his poems”(idem quotation, p.8). The
renowned critic refers to “Eminescu’s thinking”, “Eminescu’s philosophy”, for the
Eminescu,M. (1977), “Poor Dyonissos”, in Works, vol. VII, Bucureşti, Ed. Minerva.
Vasile Conta (1845-1882), a Romanian philosopher, the author of the Theory of Fatalism and
of the Theory of the universal ondulations.
3 Ciurdariu, M. (1965), Eminescu and his philosophical thinking, in Studii eminesciene,
E.I,.p.79-106.
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“modest understanding” of his preoccupations for morals and politics and, of
course, for the needs of the poetic creation. Călinescu showed that Eminescu had
a”great inclination towards speculation”, he even tried to assimilate a system and
to design it for his own methodical questions”, and he stated that “Eminescu’s
philosophy was a variant- sometimes even more than that -, a commentary on
Schopenhauer’s philosophy” (idem quotation, p.8, 9). Călinescu also stressed that
it was not about “building a thinking way towards an official system”, it was about
“a certain number of data for his own spiritual use or to make a platform to erect a
policy and an ethics (idem quotation p. 121). Also, with reference to the
perspective of research works: beyond the influence of Kant’s and Schopenhauer’s
philosophy plus a lot of other influences (from Pythagoras, Parmenides and Plato
to Bruno, Spinoza on one side, from Buddha and Buddhism to Romanticism on
the other side), we should state: “it is hard to prove the sources of a cogitation
which speaks about the fundamental matters of any thinking. Still, the proof may
be the cultural background.” (idem quotation. P. 120). As a consequence, beyond
the action of influences, Eminescu will always be, in his major creation, himself, a
genuine self, marking a reference on what one could call a universal map. Several
texts are significant for the mentioned ones. Thus, in his letter from
Charlottenburg, of February 5, 1874, addressed to Titu Maiorescu, Eminescu
wrote: “I read Kant rather late, and Scopenhauer also; I actually know them, but
the intuitive rebirth of their thinking in my mind, with the peculiar fragrance of
freshness in my own soul has not been accomplished yet. In Vienna I lived under
the evil of Herbert’s philosophy, which exempted me from Kant….Schopenhauer’s
philosophy is quite accurate when it divides the world into will and
representation. A thing in itself may be searched neither through an inner
perception nor through an exterior one, it should be left aside”.1
Definitely, by understanding such a matter as “a thing in itself” and the
distinctions between “transcendental” and “transcendent” in Kant, the copulative
and the existential sense of the esse, as also the adoption of some fundamental
reserves towards the philosophies dominating the cultural climate in which
Eminescu was formed become evident for the performances reached by the great
poet in using the abstract thinking. Călinescu was right when he said: “Eminescu
was certainly able to have got solid philosophical knowledge. His theoretical
writings, his notes, reveal a person with the skill of wielding as high abstraction as
possible” (idem quot. p. 337).
3. A workshop of the poet, Eminescu’s manuscripts include poems, prose,
notes on history, economics, philosophy and scientific works. They stress his
thirst for knowing and depth of his mind. As Constantin Noica noticed very well2,
they are “the whole conscience of culture”. You may open manuscript 2258 which
contains the translation of the most difficult book by Kant, then you pass to
manuscripts 2255, 2264, 2306 all with philosophical notes”. Searching the
1 Eminescu, M. Works. (1989); critics written by Perpessicius, XVI. Correspondence.
Documentary, Bucureşti, Ed.Academiei.
2 Noica, C, (1967), Eminescu or thoughts about the complex man of the Romanian culture,
Bucureşti, Ed. Eminescu.
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manuscripts in their hidden intimacy we could better understand “Eminescu’s
lesson”, we could pass from myth to reality in many matters. Eminescu’s 1
translation from Kant reveals that the poet perceives the Kantian message trying
to render it in the Romanian language. The poet’s commentaries on these
translations are quite impressive. Thus, on page 114 in manuscript 2258, as a
commentary of a fundamental text or maybe of the entire “Criticism on pure
reason”, Eminescu notes down this thought of major expressiveness. “The
representation is an absolute and simultaneous ball. Dispersing this ball
simultaneously means time and experience. Or maybe also a tow from which we
spin the thread of time, by seeing its contents. Unfortunately, both spinning and
tow keep together.”
He who can see the tow from spinning has definitely a philosophical call.
Eminescu himself seems to have seen the tow of philosophy that moment, the tow
of reality reflected by philosophy or by the spun time.2
With his philosophical call Eminescu deeply searches the Kantian text, so we
can better understand the eulogy he brings to Kant in manuscript 2255:” our land
is poorer in producing genius than the whole universe is in fixed stars, and much
easier will a new solar system be born in the incalculable valleys of the chaos than
a genius is on the earth”.
Even if Eminescu, theoretically, takes on fragmentarism, his eclectic notes in
the manuscripts reveal that his relations with the matters of philosophy are much
more flexible, ample and profound than the “eclectism” or “commentary” of
Schopenhauer’s work.
We think that this relation, in the whole poet’s creation, has two fundamental
aspects: one of influence, another of condition, or better said, of metaphysical
attitude, to which the moral and esthetic option will be naturally added. Leaving
aside the fragments that reflect and state the theoretical preoccupations of the
poet in terms to philosophy, it is obvious that together with his university studies,
philosophy became his favourite option which he chose not as a philosopher, but
as a genius of the Romantic poetry. We want to underline this as a peculiarity
rendering a certain specificity to his relation with philosophy, resulting in his
mastery to mingle, in a sui generis way, his own reflection and creation with the
scientific philosophical, scientific and ethical-religious information, to which he
often added parts of myths and legends, folk traditions and beliefs, elements of
magic and metempsychosis, in relation with any system limits or restrictions, in a
bewitching and endless fabulous world. A similar situation is the influence coming
from the field of philosophy of Kant, Schopenhauer, Plato and Bruno. But beyond
the source he starts from, in his elaborate process Eminescu chooses to select the
material, the energy and the terms of the various philosophical and ethical
conceptions starting with antiquity up to the German classic philosophers, by
modeling, through the magma of this amalgamation and at the temperature of his
genius, those creations, by marvelously stating his autonomy and originality.
Older than these influences, the metaphysical attitude of the poet is an expression
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Eminescu, M. (1975), Reading Kant, Bucureşti, Ed. Univers.
Noica, C. -Quoted work, p.24.
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of the “natural availability” of the poet towards philosophy, which had become
obvious since 1866, with his first version of “Mortua est”, as well as in the verses
addressed to Filemon Ilea, his friend (see manuscript 2259, f7, v.9 v.):”The
Tarnava in its yellow banks……..”, (November 1866)1.
The definition he gave to philosophy, in the manuscript 2285, f.185 v. is
another moment of his metaphysical attitude: “In fact, - he wrote-, philosophy is
not something absolute; Man may design it Himself, and may adjust it to the
circumstance. It is a plan of the soul which can heal our most bitter life moments,
making us believe in its sense, even if it would not be any. There is a philosophy of
love, one of poverty, one of despair, and beyond all these, each human being has
his own particular philosophy. Relativism, visionary-relativism, that is all”.2
The metaphysical attitude, sourced by an unusual power of inner insight,
would open the poet a horizon and a perspective in approaching those matters
which have always raised great questions to Man, a pensive creature, directing
Him to a plus of deeper affection and reflection.
There is philosophy everywhere with Eminescu, in his both theory and
poetry. His philosophical flight gets the supreme form in his metaphysical vision.
Eminescu used philosophy all through his creation, trying to design a theoretical
metaphysics, not a specific one for his poetry. In the manuscripts, there also are
references to philosophy. In manuscript 2306, philosophy is defined as “placing
the human being in notions chosen only by the inner judgement itself, not by
another authority”.
In the spirit of history, “philosophy is rather an outcome and a general
representation of culture at a certain stage”.
As any representative of metaphysics, Eminescu was eager to find out the
inner meaning of the absolute. One can state that the fundamental thesis of the
poet’s metaphysics is the absolute, the world basic invariant, that which will
always stay and be back in existence, an identity of opportunity and reality in
eternity. Eminescu’s metaphysics is the one of finding that invariant which will
not perish in time. “The problem of existence, of its fundamental structure and
definite sense, here is the real obsession of the genius spirit.”3
With Eminescu, existence does not refer to only one single world, it is a
system of three different fields, which we may generically call the triad of the
ontological situations: the existence as a whole; the representation of existence;
the human being itself. Eminescu was distinguished – like nobody else- through
his extraordinary capacity to reach the ontological dimension, to pass over the
limited subjectivity and to vibrate with all his energy inside and through its
universal dimension.
His poetry reaches ontology in its deepest depths, while ontology gets a
strange and admitted poetical force conferring his philosophy a strong original
colour; “originality” becomes evident through both the sign of his pensive
personality and the imposed novelty, bringing about any effort towards the
interpretation of the world. The substance of Eminescu’s creation transpires in his
Torouţiu. I.E., (1903), Literary Studies and Documents, IV, Bucureşti, p. 102-105.
Ibidem, p. 106.
3 Petrovici, I., (1975), Eminescu – the philosophical poetry, Convorbiri literare, no.1.
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poetry, the act of the poetic creation being “a priori” to creation in theory. Like in
philosophy, the “real poetry holds the sign of universality even when it does not
specifically explain it in its doctrinaire form or hint to it through a symbol”. 1
Eminescu will always be the pensive, the philosopher rising from the simple
meditation on existence towards the infinite thirst of knowing, of perfection, of
ideal or towards the pathos of truth and absolute, characteristics of his great
poems, his “Letters” and “The Morning Star”.
Eminescu was both the philosopher and the poet, or both the poet and the
philosopher. Not everybody will admit that, but this is obvious in the substance of
his works. Eminescu is a remarkable illustration on both dimensions.
“Delusive appearances” or “ashes of some volcanoes fallen on his shoulders
from nowhere”, these are the descriptions of the exterior influences, that deluded
the philosophical criticism that got a wrong -more or less willing- way, thus
ignoring the idea of an original philosophical thinking.
“Eminescu was no philosopher!” They consider that2 (see ref.14) “everything
some critics would admit was only an eclectic juxtaposition of themes and
philosophical models belonging to other conceptions, from Vedanta up to
Schopenhauer. Others reduced everything to the implicit cogitation of his poetry
and prose, deliberately ignoring the explicit philosophy, in either the monist
philosophy of some theory texts or in the socio-political thinking”. In fact, these
ways of thinking will analyse the surface work of the poet, without penetrating its
hidden intimacy, thus not taking into account Eminescu’s theoretic approach.
Eminescu is not universal only due to the different thinking ways of his
works, he is universal due to what entirely belongs to him. “His work totally
reveals an eidos which is only his, an essential amount of ideas, themes and
structures which constitute the philosophical structure, a natural passing waysometimes only sketched - or a real one towards an invariant (constant)
theoretical structure belonging to him only”. Eminescu accomplishes in his work a
“vast and original synthesis of no simple echoes and interferences, coming from
many experiences, ideas and feelings from his predecessors, as well as from others
living at the same time with him; a synthesis, involving the integration of trends
and doctrines in a historical sequence, sometimes contradictory”3. (2)
1. The research works with a view to Eminescu very often took the source of
inspiration from his care for a certain philosophy. Otherwise they would not have
make illusive appreciations between Eminescu and Schopenhauer. Thus, in order
to counter certain undesirable interpretations, may we present the following
aspects: 1) the so-called “pessimism” in Eminescu’s works is not the same with
Schopenhauer’s, for the good reason that the latter is the expression of the
relation with the world (the essence of any work) in the language of theory (of
sciences), while the first is evident in the poetic language, thus being no
pessimism (in the sense of the negative attitude, of the ethics of retreating), but a
form of transforming the relation with the world into the relation to value (in
Vianu, T., (1971), Philosophy and poetry, Bucureşti, Ed. Enciclopedică română, p. 16.
Ghideanu, Tudor, Eminescu’s philosophy, revista Cronica 2/1983, Iaşi.
3 Dumitrescu-Buşulenga, Z, (1986), Eminescu and the german romanticism, Bucureşti,
Ed. Eminescu, p.313.
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other words esthetical, and not ethical values); 2) as the recent research works on
Schopenhauer’s posthumous writings stated, he might be rather considered a
disappointed representative of the enlightenment than a pessimist”1.; 3) Eminescu
himself used to write in manuscript 2225,379: “Schopenhauer: his will is but an
organic fracture, that is the human propensity of the gravitation point by the
external circumstances- as in the abstract motives”; 4) is this not the same
disappointed representative of enlightenment, especially if we consider the
criticism of the present and the revaluation of the past in Eminescu’s works?; 5)
the coming back got an even deeper motivation: the creation of Eminescu
transgresses modernism, whose founders were Descartes, Leibnitz, Kant a.s.o, but
not Schopenhauer – quite significant for the post modernism trend (by developing
the “impure reasoning”, the detail of life, and not of life as a form); we consider
that for Eminescu, Kant’s discovery meant, at the same time, a step beyond
Schopenhauer, a return to the primordial backgrounds of the modern philosophy;
6) the community with the Romantics reminds Leibnitz, an opportunity to open
the multiple, plural “worlds” of the works; 7) and that, as it was said2, “through
their common experience and metaphysics”, the romantic position being “one of
the few attitudes of the human spirit which could be neither learned nor
imitated”; 8) like in the worlds of monads, models coming up, making any
reiteration superfluous….; 9) these “worlds” will also allow the comprehension of
the poetic universe..
In fact, the romantic creation in general is marked by Leibnitz, not
marginally, inside the poetic space. The world in “Poor Dyonissos” and “The
Morning Star” do not escape from this action, as the great poet would often use
Leibnitz’s structures. Thus, in manuscript 2264, 213 (quoted by G.Călinescu in the
quot. work, p. 45), he writes:” Under these circumstances the schools in the
county of Vaslui are the best ever possible, as the world in Leibnitz, with all its
evident misery and vanity; it is the best ever possible world, as its possibility and
existence are identical and what is possible does really exist”.
In a higher degree than by the help of space and time in Kant’s works, the
romantic poetic space becomes comprehensive in the horizon of Leibnitz’s monad
system. As a space of setting value in the form of the work and persistent only in
the dynamic experience and feelings structured to its reception, the poetic space is
a closed one, in sense, and an open one, in significance.
Yet, it should be stressed that the form of setting poetic worlds does not
represent a simple transposition of the space models as mentioned – neither that
of the monads3, nor the one brought by the lyrics of Romanticism; it is a totally
new creation which, due to their power of example, the poetic world bear the sign
of a unique inimitable style: Eminescu’s style. Maybe that is why, by evoking
“Eminescu’s Promethean personality”, Perpessicius used to write: “Eminescu’s
1 Boboc, Al., (1990), Eminescu and the modern philosophy, Analele Universitǎţii Bucureşti,
Filosofie, p.3-10.
2 Dumitrescu-Buşulenga, Z, (1986), Eminescu and the german romanticism, Bucureşti,
Ed. Eminescu, p.313.
3 3 Leibniz, G., W., Monadologie, 7, 9, 10 în G.W.Leibniz, (1972) Opere filosofice I, Bucureşti,
Ed. Ştiinţificǎ, p. 509, 510.
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poetry had respectable forerunners for himself ……..Only He was a great
personality of lyrics……as there never was any other miraculous source, like his, in
the Romanian poetry, ever.”1. That is why, the author continued, “Eminescu’s
name follows other laws than the usual ones. He does not need a special day,
because He is worth having every single day. He needs no celebration on special
events, as he is there, an eternal presence among us.”
Here are several motives which makes us sustain the idea that Eminescu had
a very solid and vast philosophic and scientific culture, and furthermore a
maturity in perceiving the above mentioned philosophic conceptions, with even
constructive values. Starting from these premises, one may admit that the
ontology in Eminescu is not a hired philosophy, it springs from the existential
heart of Man, from “our stylistic matrix, showing our participation to the eternal
eidos, to our inalterable essence”2.
Eminescu did not build a philosophic system like Lucian Blaga3, Kant, Hegel
or others. The sense of his philosophy is to disclose the existence, the eternality,
the permanence, the ontology between what may be possible and what may be
real. Nowadays, it is well known that the authentic philosophy, both creative and
questionable, will need no system. It is important that Eminescu had a different
view on philosophy or used Heidegger’s words 4 ; the philosophic question he
raised was not a question of the traditional philosophy. Heraclitus, Parmenides,
Holderlin, Rilke, Nietzsche and some others might have thought like him, too.
“Familiarized with the world of ideas, like any philosopher, he asked himself
fundamental questions from the beginning, on the human condition in the
universe, fervently searching solutions for the conflicts which, in his time,
prevented the achievement of balance between the human existence and the
human essence, between liberty and necessity, rational and social, subjectivity
and objectivity”. 5 His concern for history, classic philology, philosophy,
astronomy, archaeology, magic etc, his intention to put cogitation in an equation
finding intellectual relations through mathematical methods reveal his permanent
thirst to universality, his titanic impetus to master the whole universe.
What is to be noticed here, before any other remarks, is the humanistic
aspiration, the romantic poet’s wish to reach the accomplishment, the initial
harmony and, the most desired thought, to touch the unity of the world, in the
diversity of its phenomena.
Eminescu is not one of the thinkers who might lose the contact with reality;
Goethe, Shakespeare, Leibniz, Nietzsche did not, either. No matter how quick the
evolution of the concept of poetry could be, Eminescu will keep infusing us with a
permanent care for the Being and the Sense. The waving of the ardent desire in
Perpessicius…quoted work, p. 517, 518.
Pohoaţǎ, G., op.cit., p.7,
3 Lucian Blaga (1895- 1961): the greatest Romanian philosopher in between the two wars, the
only creator of a system in the Romanian philosophy, as he himself stated in his Editorial Will
(Cluj, August 25, 1959), in Note on the edition for the Trilogy of knowledge (1983), Bucureşti, Ed.
Minerva. The system has a trilogy architecture, p. 57.
4 Heidegger, M., (1999), Introduction to metaphysics, Bucureşti, Ed. Humanitas.
5 Gheorge, F., (1972), Mihai Eminescu: Analysis and synthesis. Ed. Didactică şi Pedagogică,
Bucureşti, p.15.
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Eminescu is non ending. It reaches a supreme intensity and an existential
decision, as it comes from an original central core, from there where, through a
miraculous coincidence of the one with the multiple, spirituality will always feed
reality. Eminescu linked mystery to rendering ways, he balanced the light and the
language, he made the Romanian syllables to brighten and to become a structure
generating sense to the Word.
No “evolution will ever cast its shadow on Eminescu’s posterity, and the more
the time passes, and the ever deeper steps we make to unveil his truths, the more we
realize that he still is still alive, that he is and will always be our contemporary for
ever. And, in his uniqueness, he will never harm anybody’s Glory.
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