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Social and Behavioral Sciences
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 116 (2014) 4457 - 4461 ^^
5th World Conference on Educational Sciences - WCES 2013
The Myth of the forest in Eminescu's poems
Marius Valeriu Grecu
Pitesti University, 1 Targu din Vale, Pitesti, 110040, Romania
Abstract
Myths have always been a source of inspiration for different literary genres, the ideas and mythical themes becoming important subjects in literary works, because between literature and mythology always existed different esthetical bonds. There are numerous myths expressed in Eminescian works, but the myth of the sacred wood is the most relevant, this myth coming form the old Indies as well as from the Germanic peoples too. In expressing love and care for the wooden areas, the poet used some hypocoristic words as little, dear forest, as well as the collocations like beloved forest, Forest, my precious. The mutual feelings of love or the dialogues between the forest and the poet are expressed in the poems Oh, remain! Why do you wail?, Forest, oh, my dear forest!, Musatin and the Forest. In the golden forests, Dochia had a sumptuous palace and the Dacian Gods lived the dark green of the woods (Memento Mori). The forest was unmoved, having the conscience of eternity, while the man is changing/ wandering alone. The destiny of the wanderer would end once the man entered the spatial dimension.( One Wish Alone I Have)
©2013The Authors.PublishedbyElsevierLtd.
Selection and/or peer-review under responsibilityofAcademicWorld Education and Research Center. Keywords:
1. Introduction
Dumitru M. in his study Forest, Glorious King* (Comments about Eminescu, 1967, p.324) provided a statistical survey regarding word forest in Eminescu's poems and discovered that using in and out the Latin term salbe and a more insistent usage of the Illyrian- Thracian competition between forest and wood imposed itself. The word forest appeared twenty-four times in Eminescu's works between 1870-1874, twenty-four times in the works published between 1875-1878, in order to decrease between 1879-1883 to eleven times, while the word wood increased its usage from forty seven times to fifty five times and even sixty two times.(Zoe Dumitrescu-Busulenga, 1976, p. 37).
Dumitru M. noticed that those were the poet's wishes, but the text's understanding alone were able to outline real meanings, linked to other ways of increasing the inner vision.(Ibidem, p. 37).
In Eminescu's poetical universe, vegetation mingled with water, earth and sky, the forest forming its own universe where there were present some cosmical elements: water, Moon, Sun, stars that, in the poet's imagination gained glamour, eternity and strentgh.
Corresponding Author: Marius Valeriu Grecu Tel: 324723945 E-mail: mariusgrecu@gmail.com
1877-0428 © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.966
The poet had powerful roots in the Romanian folklore, but he also knew Indian and German mythology, where the forest was seen as a sacred being, while for Eminescu it was old, pure and powerful. For him the forest would acquire human qualities, as a superior entity having all kind of activities. (Ibidem, p.38).
2. Heading styles
In Musatin and the Forest the term forest is preferred and this character proposed Musatin to become king, letting him know that I am not a simple forest, but a strong castle . He was charmed in his sleep and by night the Moon bears its shadow with its cold fantastic light, allowing the appearance of Emperor Dochia and her children who, on their naked shoulders carry jugs for milking the deer.
The forest transforms into a proud country having hills, rivers and woods, but also monasteries, fairs and villages. When the forest spoke to the mythical Stefan, the latter refused its offer and left it for fulfilling its historical destiny.
In the poem Oh, remain! the forest, worried about the child's fate, asked the poet to stay, offering him all that he had wished for, because he was beloved and he could tell the forest all his desires. The forest, now a character in itself, rendered the wandering child immortal gifts for convincing him not to go away: a shadow shelder, a look of fire and a herd of deer. Being charmed by all these, the child would perceive time in a different manner years will be moments, and sweet moments will be centuries.
George Calinescu noticed that the beginning of the poem Oh, remain! resembled to one of Herder's poems, Der Wald und der Wanderer.(The Forest and the Wanderer).(Eminescu's culture, Research and studies of Literary and Folklorer, no 1-2, 1956, p.305). Herder's poem missed the issue that was suggestive in Oh, remain!... loving toward nature of a man that lived all his life in the forest and that was charmed by it. Eminescu's sensitivity came from living in the middle of nature when he was a child. (D. Murarasu, 1982, p. 392).
The main theme of this poem is entirely self biography as in the poems As a young boy I was wandering through wood, The Story of the Forest, Murmur of the Forest.
In the postum excerpt As a young boy I was wandering through wood, there is presented the relation between Eminescu, who as a child wandered the forest near his native town Ipotesti, and the legendary woods. I wandered lonely as a child / sleeping often near a spring.
In his sleep, the charm of the forest turned into dream: water sounds easily, the lisp spreads a sweet scent and for this reason he remained a lot of nights/ carressed by the waves voices. In this state of dreaming, the fantasy charmed the young boy: the Moon enlightened his face and he watched it through his eyelids a heavenly landscape, the silver fog floating through the plain, he heard the secret song of a whistling instrument, and he imagined he heard herds of deer coming toward him. In those conditions it came the miracle: from the old lime tree a sweet, angelic fairy came out and went to the boy and adored him. The angelic beauty of the fairy astonished him.
The poet knew the forest for a long time as a magic land with extraordinary powers, protective and calm, as a place where dreams and reality are mingled, as a place where magic was accesible only to a small amount of people.(Zoe Dumitrescu Busulenga, 1976, pp.39-40)
The story of the forest was published in Literary Conversations in March 1878 together with The Story of the Lime Tree, Loneliness and Away from You.
The poem had as an inspiration source the woods, as many of Eminescu's poems, such as The Story of the Lime Tree, Murmur of the Forest, Forest,oh my dear forest!, Leave your world, In the Middle of the Forest. The poem opened with some lines of praising the forest, because many beings lived underneath its trees. The entire universe (Moon, Sun, Stars) was present there with deer, rabits, even springs of water that told stories, all these things were living in an eternal harmony. In this wonderful scenary, where the forest is the supreme master, the hero called his beloved one to come together for remembering their childhood And their luck and love / to resemble like one. Living in the eternal nature, they would have enjoyed the forest's advice and they would have its protection living for ever alongside sea horses, tall bulls, majestic deer ,above all dominating the old forest was the lime tree, who would say: Look at them dreaming/ The fantasy of the forest! / Both of them living a story /1 love them both holly...
Their coming back into childhood and their regression in the old forest would offer the couple the reason for living forever in love.
L.Galdi (Eminescu's poetic style, 1964, p.197) noticed a resemblance with the theme from the Der Hirtenknabe by Heine, but another literary critic, Zoe Dumitrescu Busulenga, (Eminescu and the German Romanticism, 1965, pp. 190-191) underlined the originality from Eminescu's poetry.
Murmur of the Forest was published in Literary Conversations in October 1879. G. Ibraileanu in his work Eminescu. Remarks on his stanzas, underlined that: When the poet let the ellegy and retold the poetry of hapiness and gentle melancoly in Leave your world, Sleepy Little Birds, Murmur Of the Forest,_nature itself becomes an essential landscape again, where the iniatil love got shelter. Murmur of the Forest is one of the poem that had two sources of inspiration nature and love. In those poems Eminescu praised love more than woman.(G. Ibraileanu, 1968, p. 149).
The main hero, charmed by his love, was admiring through the forest the imensity of the lake and listening to the birds' songs. The forest was the place where the birds were having concerts and who spoke so many languages and where everybody was waiting for the fairy to appear because the old lime tree streched its branches to protect her. When the sad spring asked where was its fairy, the hero of the poem said Dear forest, she won't come, she won't come again!! The sadness spread and reached the whole universe, but also the young lover himself come back for becoming one again!. This poem was regarded as a hymn dedicated to nature, to beauty and to people who live in the magical world of the forest, as A. Guillermou said.(The Innner Genesis of Eminescu 's poems, Gh. Bulgar and Gabriel Parvan, 1977, p. 380).The theme of the lost love and the presence of nature as a witness to Eminescu's pain were also present in other poems, too.
Forest, oh, my dear forest! was published in Literary Conversations in October 1879. This poem also contains parts from a popular composition, dating back in 1875, Oh, Forest! (D. Murarasu). The hero of the poem returned from a long time in his beloved and sacred forest and continued the discussion he had started : Forest, o, my forest dear, / What dost thou so lonesome here? / For since I have seen thee last /Many weary years have passed, / And since I have gone away / In the world I much did stray. The forest kept answering back, reminding him the seasons that passed: in winter it stood in the tough blizzard I do as in the past, / Listen to the winter's blast, Which my branches tears and breaks, / Chains with ice my streams and lakes, / On my paths snow-hills will lay, / All my songsters drive away, while in summer it enjoyed the women's happiness: Listen when the women go / Singing their old sad song, / As they walk the path along,/ To the fountain, where they still / Come their water pails to fill.
The single advantage the forest had was its eternity, underlined by the hero's verses: Forest dear with quiet streams / All in this world flowing seems; / Time goes past, but only thou / Still art young and younger now.
If the passing of time didn't affect the forest, living forever, for the young man the passing of time reflected on his appearance, because he was just a passer by on that world. For the forest, the appearance remained the same because nothing had affected its aspect: we all the same remain.
Everyting in this poem reflected eternity and the power of nature, the only one that last after man had died. The returning, the meeting was no longer possible the characters were permanently changed from Oh, remain! Zoe Dumitrescu-Busulenga, 1976, p. 46).
In Forest, oh, my dear forest! some critics found that there was a reason for emphasizinf the contrast between the forest, the sea, the rivers, the moon, the sun and the springs, that stayed the same, and the ageing of man. (D. Caracostea, 1938, p. 231).
Man had only one chance, that of melting into the universe, after wandering in the poem One Wish Alone Have I (ibidem, p. 46). This poem knew many forms and had different titles, all of them being publishedin Maiorescu's edition from December 1883: If I go to sleep, When I am in the tomb, One wish alone I have, I don't want a tomb.
These numerous tries were the result of years of research between 1881-1883, but there were many discussions around the poem One Wish Alone Have I . There weren't any proofs that his editor, Maiorescu, respected the order
of the poems, but Perpessicius said that this poem was created in four distinct moments and those moments were the starting point for the poet's amazing creation. (M. Eminescu, Poems, vol. III, 1944, p. 230).
N.I. Apostolescu in L'influence des romantiques français sur la poésie roumaine, (Paris, 1909) analysed the French influence on Eminescu's works stating the fact that it was, afterall, a combination of a theme by Ronsard, De l'Election de son Sepulcre, with a theme by Paul Bourget (Epilogue), but this literary critic got a final response from G.Ibraileanu: One Wish Alone I have was just a combination? (M.Eminescu, Poems, 1982, p.302)
This ellegy presented the poet's wish after the ending of the vegetation state. Living next to the forest would be the condition for a relaxing state of sleep: That I forever sleep, / The forest near,/ A heaven clear,/ Stretched over the peaceful deep.(Zoe Dumitrescu-Busulenga, 1976, p. 46). D. Murârasu, analysing the verses Let them for me a bed / Of twigs entwine, observed the hero's wish a bit eerie, because the idea of an eternal rest on a bench of branches did not find its roots in any of our funeral traditions and quoted one of Eneida famous passages: some were building from a lot of branches an easy and smooth bench. This strange desire was mirrored in all the versions of the poem.
The old lime tree was also a leitmotif in Eminescu's poetry. In Some critics' opinions, for exemple Tudor Pamfile, (The sky in the Romanian Tradition, 1916, p.77), the lime tree was regarded as a sacred tree, and the town Botosani, had an important place for the poet's source of inspiration, as there were tall old lime trees shadowing the large streets and spreading a special flavour.(D. Murârasu, 1982, pp. 304-305). This was the reason that the poet wanted The wind its trembling chime / And over me the limeIts blossom flings..
From Eminescu's Being a young Boy, Oh, remain! or The Story of the Forest, the wood itself was perceived as a myth, an inner world full of mysteries, but also as an item for the ideal individual^. (Zoe Dumitrescu-Busulenga, 1976, p. 47). In ohter poems by Eminescu, the forest became so thick than transformed itself into wood. There were some hidden meanings due to word wood, that in the poet's creations bore a magical emotional weight that made the hero a superior being, his destiny becoming the destiny of the whole country.(ibidem. p. 47).
In Memento Mori, a creation with multiple solutions, published by Perpessicius in his volume, the forest was often changed by wood : if the river passed through the magical forest, afterwards it got lost between the trees with thick leaves, the gods would met in the middle of the forest, in the silver wood, because the vegetation transformed everything into dream.
The mistery of the forest got lost in the past, when - through magic - the castle had changed and the sun, lighting the dark forest and bending the trees's branches, because the trees were tall and the sun cannot spread through the thick leaves.
In Dochia's story and the Fortune Tellers the poet also treated the well known theme of the forest and the one of the comunion between man and nature:... my dearest forest, where under the lime trees lies/ a little house and a young woman held her baby/ telling the story about her fate / and three fortune tellers gave the baby/ something special and forever / life without death and young for ever.
3.Conclusions
Following the usage of those two words forest and wood in Eminescu's lyrics, we notice that untill 1878 the first word was frequently used and after that period the frequence of the second word increased, because wood was a complete myth (G.Calinescu). This critic stated that the Forest, the Moon, the Sea, the Sun were prototypes of the Universe, thus becoming everlasting. These are the features for Eminescu's poems to become perfect.(Mihai Eminescu's Works, 2, 1976, p. 423)
The forest has always been considered an eternal sping for the Romanians, being in possession of obscure powers that ruled our destiny, being the witness of our people's mythical powers, taking part of its historical evolution.
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