BIOGRAPHY PUT TO THE TEST:
A DEFENCE OF EXPERIMENTATION
(Abstract)

The recent theory of biography consists mainly in the critique of this type of discourse. Discovering this, we felt encouraged to push through on a path initially chosen under the constraint of several practical difficulties. Our research of two particular cases, that of Eminescu and that of Cioran, have led us to two versions of the biographer’s “crisis”: in the first case, a deficit of information, in the second, an excess thereof. However, considering that “the death of the author” was too readily embraced by some of the more authoritative scholars of literature, we felt entitled to launch a few critical investigations that didn’t have an official support in the traditional conventions of the biographical genre. “Parabiography”, “oneirobiography”, “impossible biography” illustrate the experimental direction that we submit to the attention of those researchers (still) interested in the “life of the author”.

Keywords: Eminescu, Cioran, biography, “biographeme”, identity.