The poet can say about himself "non omnis moriar" - "I will not die completely"...
There is no poet who has not written or does not write verse without a sense of the eternity of his work, just as there is no artist of any kind who is not carried by the belief that his art defeats the common condition of death...
Tradition is a value of continuous flow and summation: it also means that those who judge the literary phenomenon by relating it only to its power to innovate or only to that of traditionalist conformity, are both wrong...
Tradition and renewal are the dialectical terms of our literary development, and the removal of one, whatever it may be, prejudices the contribution of the other to the spiritual source which only their collaboration represents.
In fact, these terms are so connected in Romanian culture that they cannot even be thought of separately except in the abstract. In their concrete reality, they command each other. What we call tradition today is actually innovative spirit resorbed in the specific sum of our literature.
Only the analysis of the birth process of tradition, in which traditionalists appear as revolutionaries and innovators as future traditionalists, gives us the exact picture of reality...
The conclusion is only one. Contemporary literature is to be seen both in its movement of resorption in national specificity, and in that of enriching this specificity. Tradition is thus established before our eyes, springing both from the past and from the future.
Looking at the Romanian culture from the air, it appears to us with several ages, all having a remarkable identity. This identity makes it able to be contained, in a single word of the critical dictionary: in "classicism"...
The first form, therefore, of a country's participation in what we call universal literature is national originality, which has no relation to the extent of its territory. But there is an additional factor to the universalization of any literature: it is the aspiration to the "spirit of the time".
Contemporary literature, no matter how bold and non-conformist it may be, should not be seen in opposition to the concept of tradition, but only in its force to add up to tradition, as in their time the works of the past were added up...
Tradition is constituted from the past as well as from the future before our eyes, springing from the same.
Poetry: ... balance of passion and feeling with intelligence, or, if you like, sometimes intelligence with imagination.
Poetry:... nature redeemed from chaos, from ugliness, from death and disorder; in short, from matter.
Art is unique, only its manifestations are multiple.
Into the world my Muse sinks / and takes as a gift from chance / a fertile inspiration / which art alone does not have.
Any work of art seeks to excite through a certain complex of feelings.
A masterpiece is not, but becoming.
The purpose of art is basically the revelation, in sensible forms, of the secrets of nature.
There cannot be a great scientist, so with an imagination and a complex vision of the world, without having an intimate and deep contact with poetry, with art.
The art of a people enters the international public domain, as a cultural element, when it succeeds in asserting its own character... for art, everywhere, in its higher manifestations, reflects the characteristic aspects of the time and the people on whose soil it was born.. .
We ask a literary work that meets the aesthetic conditions to be the expression of the Romanian soul and collectivity. If you have talent, you are obliged to put it at the service of your nation... Only in this way will Romanian literature be able to contribute to the universal concert of culture.
Nothing has value unless it relates to absolute value, and that is found only in the great, eternal problems. The more a writer makes the inner chord of cosmic feeling or that of death vibrate, the more the work acquires that absolute value towards which it tends. Because human values are relative, but they tend towards absolute perfection. And even if they don't reach him, they bring him closer.
Man shows nature how he should have acted and how he did not act.
Two conditions necessary for the production of great works were noted: the first is the vivacity of a spontaneous, own and personal feeling, expressed as it is experienced; the second is the sympathy between souls, the unceasing help from outside of neighboring ideas, by which the vague ideas carried within you gain warmth, are nourished, multiplied, encouraged.
I am trying to write the history of a literature seeking to define through it the psychology of a people.
In every accomplished artist there is a kind of encyclopaedic philosopher with broad and complex views.
Through your writing every day strive to live beyond your time.
Every work of art represents, to a greater or lesser degree, a conception of life.
There is, in fact, only one theme of art and human thought: man before the enigma of life. Pain is undoubtedly an obstacle to life, but an obstacle that directs our face and eyes to this enigma, exposes it to us under the narrow angle that gives it intelligible lines and allows us, perhaps, to unravel it.
However original the works of genius may be, they are made by men and for men: we vibrate with them in so far as they are full of humanity, and the feeling by which we penetrate their beauty is in no way different from the feeling that created them .