The Remains of the Day
Literature and Political Eloquence in 19th–Century Romania

Area 10 – Scienze dell'antichità, filologico-letterarie e storico-artistiche

The Remains of the Day: Literature and Political Eloquence in 19th–century Romania aims to retrieve the lost rhetorical moments from the history of 19th–century Romanian political eloquence. Assuming that literature and political eloquence do not just co–influence each other, but function within a complex cultural ecology, the problematological model presented here is the best approach. By addressing the works of four eminent orators, a development from the revolutionary seeking for glory (1848), through memory and energy, to a dissident melancholy (1890) can be inferred. But more than sketching an evolution or a sense of tradition, the four moods fashioned by literary experiences indicate which parts have been sunk from the isle of the rhetorical moment. The appeal to literature was thus a way to “cure” the mishaps of rhetorical analysis and the feeling that, much as you strive to tamper with the moment’s “black box”, something is always missing from the picture.

SINTESI