7 | 2020
The subgenres of the Romanian novel: imports, backdrop, hybridizations

Dossier coordonné par / Edited by Alex Goldiș, Cosmin Borza

ISSN 2360 – 5189
ISSN–L 2360 – 5189
[Text integral]

As Margaret Cohen broadly argues in her volume The Sentimental Education of the Novel, it has been common for modern literary theorists and historians to “doubt” the analytic relevance and the conceptual functionality of the literary genre. Cohen relies on seminal studies like Fredric Jamesonʼs The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act and Jean-Marie Schaefferʼs Quʼest-ce quʼun genre littéraire?, in order to point out that the literary genre was given a “coup de grâce” by “the deconstructive strain of poststructuralism, with its negative notion of textuality”. Cohen highlights through the whole range of criticism the persistence of essentialist assumptions about “internal forms” or “deep structures” which were presumed to naturally emerge among groups of literary texts.
This state of matters should explain, at least to some extent, the strong reluctance of Romanian critics, or even their manifest refusal to address the (sub)genre systems/categories of the novel. Most often than not, they preferred instead to assign a given novel with canonical value at the extent that it transgressed the confines of one or several subgenres. To this day, Romanian criticism still lacks a conceptual “encyclopedia” of the novel, be it original or translated. Moreover, local lexicographical projects dedicated to literary concepts and ideas usually avoid to define subgenres, and debates concerning the formal structures of the novel are usually led in vague, speculative terms, with little concern for theoretical definition.
Relying on such revised approaches and methodological inquiries as Margaret Cohen’s analysis of the sentimental novel, Franco Moretti’s study of the Bildungsroman, Fredric Jameson’s account of the romance, or Nancy Armstrong’s overview of the domestic novel, which highlight precisely the historicity of the genre’s forms, the thematical issue of the journal Dacoromania litteraria develops a reflection on the novelistic (sub)genres in Romanian literary history while focusing on establishing a series of their possible taxonomies, definitions, internal histories, influential models, local variants etc. All the articles are engaged in the debate on the multitude of novelistic forms within the Romanian literary space, on the cultural codes thereby set in motion, as well as on the historical forces that give them a voice and transform them into a reflection of society.



Alex GOLDIȘ, Cosmin BORZA
Introduction / 5
[Full Text]
Les sous-genres en tant que « genres mondiaux » / Subgenres as “World Genres”

Daiana GÂRDAN
Distant Reading the Social Novel in Romania. Theoretical and Taxonomical Challenges / 10
[Abstract / Rezumat] [Full Text]
Angelo MITCHIEVICI
The Position of the Decadent Novel within Romanian Fin-de-siècle Literature / 22
[Abstract / Rezumat] [Full Text]
Elena CRAȘOVAN
Magical Realism Avatars in the Romanian Novel / 36
[Abstract / Rezumat] [Full Text]
Ștefan BAGHIU
The Socialist Realist Novel in Romania between 1948 and 1955. Novelistic Genres and Subgenres / 56
[Abstract / Rezumat] [Full Text]
Mihaela MUDURE
Three Instances of the Romanian Academic Novel / 72
[Abstract / Rezumat] [Full Text]
Andreea MIRONESCU, Doris MIRONESCU
The Novel of Memory as World Genre. Exploring the Romanian Case / 97
[Abstract / Rezumat] [Full Text]
Adriana STAN
Genres of Realism across the Former Cold War Divide. Neoliberal Novel and Self-fiction / 116
[Abstract / Rezumat] [Full Text]
La diffusion des sous-genres populaires / The Diffusion of Popular Subgenres

Ovio OLARU
Detective Fiction in the East / 126
[Abstract / Rezumat] [Full Text]
Mihai IOVĂNEL
Popular Genres: Science Fiction and Fantasy, Detective Novel, Thriller / 137
[Abstract / Rezumat] [Full Text]
Formes régionales, débats locaux / Regional Forms, Local Debates

Constantina Raveca BULEU
Bucura Dumbravăʼs Outlaw/ Hajduk Novels / 154
[Abstract / Rezumat] [Full Text]
Ștefan FIRICĂ
Political Fiction or Fiction about Politics. How to Operationalize a Fluid Genre in the Interwar Romanian Literature / 164
[Abstract / Rezumat] [Full Text]
Magda WÄCHTER
The Romanian Interwar Novel. Definitional Attempts and Controversies / 182
[Abstract / Rezumat] [Full Text]
Liliana BURLACU
Le ghetto dans le roman roumain de lʼentre-deux-guerres / 194
[Abstract / Rezumat] [Full Text]
Documents

Cosmin BORZA, Alex GOLDIȘ, Adrian TUDURACHI
Subgenurile romanului românesc. Laboratorul unei tipologii / 205
[Abstract] [Full Text]
Comptes rendus / Book Reviews

Contributeurs / Contributors / 233