EVAZIUNE ONIRICĂ DIN COTIDIANUL DISTOPIC ÎN MATRICEA MITOPOETICĂ A FIINȚEI: „NUNȚILE NECESARE” DE DUMITRU ȚEPENEAG [DREAMLIKE ESCAPE FROM DYSTOPIAN EVERYDAY LIFE INTO THE MYTHOPOETIC MATRIX OF BEING: “THE NECESSARY MARRIAGE” BY DUMITRU ȚEPENEAG]

The Romanian writer Dumitru Țepeneag deconstructs myth and reconstructs it within the mystical atmosphere of reverie in his novel Nunțile necesare (The Necessary Marriage). Aesthetic oneirism, which he theorized, serves as a space for the individual's seclusion and self-discovery. The protagonist, Professor Ciobanu, a victim of envious colleagues, metamorphoses into the archetypal shepherd through a lucid dream directed by fantasy. Utopia and dystopia define his existential coordinates: utopia as an ideal world in thanatic dream, dystopia as the 'bad place' of everyday reality. The novel's description of a wedding with echoes of a funeral rite renders images captured by an eye closed to the outside, open to the inside, akin to filming a dream.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The present study aims to capture the way in which the Romanian writer Dumitru Țepeneag deconstructs the myth in order to reconstruct it in the mystical atmosphere of reverie which is highly experienced by the main character of the novel Nunțile necesare (The Necessary Marriage). The theoretician of the aesthetic oneirism in Romanian literature proves to be a talented writer who capitalizes on reverie as a space for the individual’s seclusion and self-discovery. Although he detaches himself from the romantic dream and distances himself from surrealism, the aesthetic oneirism capitalized on by Dumitru Țepeneag in Nunțile necesare (The Necessary Marriage) shares the same values with Eminescu’s dream. The modern Romanian writer presents the gloomy effects of the historical desacralization of reality, in a society that camouflages its strengths under the masks of ideology. Utopia and dystopia are specific features of Ciobanu’s two existential coordinates: utopia, as a representation of an ideal world, typical of the thanatic dream, on one side, and dystopia, as a “bad place”, typical of everyday reality, on the other side. Human identities emptied of ontological essence, becoming banal social presences, are brought into play on the spiritual coordinates of the mioritic scenario. In the mythical dimension of the lucid dream, Dumitru Țepeneag’s character succeeds in individuation, the reintegration of the being, the encounter with the Self. Through a reverie directed by the power of fantasy, he penetrates the original dimension of his name, Ciobanu, which reveals his archetypal essence: the shepherd. The banal professor Ciobanu, victim in a plot directed by envious colleagues, metamorphoses into the shepherd of the people. Through a parallelism between literature and cinema, we have captured the Romanian writer’s talent for objecting to description freed from lyricism. The ideal of “dehumanization” of literary description desired by the theoreticians of the New Novel was, fortunately, not achieved by Dumitru Țepeneag in his literary work. The description of the wedding with echoes of a funeral rite proves to be a successful attempt to render the images captured dryly by the eye closed on the outside, open on the inside, a “filming” of a dream.