Horia Lovinescu, Between the “Terror of History” and Psychoanalytical Dreams

Authors

  • Ioan Pop-Curșeu Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Keywords:

Horia Lovinescu, Psychoanalysis, historical reading, communism, dramas, artistic creation, myth

Abstract

This paper focuses on Horia Lovinescu (1917-1983), a member of one of the most important dynasties of modern Romanian culture. Six of Horia Lovinescu’s dramas are interpreted in a close reading system, by psychoanalytical tools and by focusing on the family constellations the author imagines. These plays are related to the historical context (“the terror of history”), in order to understand how works of art are the reverberation of biographicalcreative data of the greatest importance and how they echo in a paradoxical way social-political transformations. This double reading, psychological and historical, is justified by the playwright himself, through the construction of his plays and through his many allusions to psychoanalysis in his writings.

Author Biography

Ioan Pop-Curșeu, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

IOAN POP-CURŞEU (b. 4.02.1978, Ocna-Mureş) is, since 2020, Professor at the Faculty of Theatre and Film, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, where he taught for 16 years. He has defended his first PhD dissertation at the University of Geneva in 2007 (De l’homme hyperbolique au texte impossible: théâtralité, theatre(s), ébauches de pièces chez Baudelaire), and the second at the Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca in 2011 (Magic and Witchcraft in Romanian Culture). In 2015, he defended his habilitation dissertation at Babeş-Bolyai University and in 2016 he became a member of Academia Europaea, section: Film, Media and Visual Studies. His research interests are concerned with film aesthetics, art criticism and image theory, nineteenth-century literature and culture, as well as anthropological aspects of magic and witchcraft. He wrote around 150 articles on various themes, writers, and films. His most important books are: Magie şi vrăjitorie în cultura română. Istorie, literatură, mentalităţi (2013), Iconografia vrăjitoriei în arta religioasă românească. Eseu de antropologie vizuală (2020, in collaboration with Ștefana Pop-Curșeu), Etudes comparatives sur la sorcellerie. Anthropologie, cinéma, littérature, arts visuels (2021), Witchcraft in Romania (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, in collaboration with Ștefana Pop-Curșeu), Dada se dă-n spectacol (2023, in collaboration with Ștefana Pop-Curșeu and Ion Pop).

Link to an academic profile: https://ubbcluj.academia.edu/IoanPopCur%C5%9Feu

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Published

2024-07-27

How to Cite

Pop-Curșeu, I. (2024). Horia Lovinescu, Between the “Terror of History” and Psychoanalytical Dreams. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai - Dramatica, 69(1), 49–76. Retrieved from https://dramatica.ro/index.php/j/article/view/303

Issue

Vol. 69 No. 1 (2024): Theatre and Performing Arts in Eastern Europe: New Perspectives

Section

Articles

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.