The Incendiary Traveller and Vasco da Gama of Gellu Naum. Surrealist Hero in statu nascendi

The paper presents the early poetic works of Gellu Naum, leading representative of the Romanian surrealism. The point of departure for considerations becomes the theoretical background of Naum’s aesthetic premises. On that basis, surrealism is being reconsidered as a special type of sensibility reclined on an unruly imagination rather than anarchical doctrin. With a starting glimpse of Naum’s debut (The Incendiary Traveller, 1936), surrealism in Romania has earned a lot of consciousness, confirmed by several volumes (particularly Naum’s Vasco da Gama, 1940). The new lease of life brought to the movement by the Romanian group was incontestable.

The principal part of the paper is devoted exclusively to the analysis of Gellu Naum’s early masterpieces – The Incendiary Traveller (1936) and Vasco da Gama (1940). The main aim is to reconstruct Naum’s imaginary areas full of unseen things that underlie the surfaces of the quotidian and consciousness. The Romanian poet concentrates on the liberation of the subject or a person from the necessity of identity. The Surrealist hero (both Vasco da Gama and The Incendiary Traveller) has to be at the same time a textual construct, only a toy in the demonically animated inorganic things’ hands, an inert object, and, at least, the poet’s alter ego, exploratory of the irrational and marvellous, a grand voyager over the devouring sea of objects (sea of bones), a platform build on the basis of free imagination. The goal of the Gellu Naum’s textual representative is to move between worlds, to participate in a fluid series of magical changes in the permanent process of seeking for a secret identity.

The Incendiary Traveller and Vasco da Gama of Gellu Naum. Surrealist Hero in statu nascendi

The paper presents the early poetic works of Gellu Naum, leading representative of the Romanian surrealism. The point of departure for considerations becomes the theoretical background of Naum’s aesthetic premises. On that basis, surrealism is being reconsidered as a special type of sensibility reclined on an unruly imagination rather than anarchical doctrin. With a starting glimpse of Naum’s debut (The Incendiary Traveller, 1936), surrealism in Romania has earned a lot of consciousness, confirmed by several volumes (particularly Naum’s Vasco da Gama, 1940). The new lease of life brought to the movement by the Romanian group was incontestable.

The principal part of the paper is devoted exclusively to the analysis of Gellu Naum’s early masterpieces – The Incendiary Traveller (1936) and Vasco da Gama (1940). The main aim is to reconstruct Naum’s imaginary areas full of unseen things that underlie the surfaces of the quotidian and consciousness. The Romanian poet concentrates on the liberation of the subject or a person from the necessity of identity. The Surrealist hero (both Vasco da Gama and The Incendiary Traveller) has to be at the same time a textual construct, only a toy in the demonically animated inorganic things’ hands, an inert object, and, at least, the poet’s alter ego, exploratory of the irrational and marvellous, a grand voyager over the devouring sea of objects (sea of bones), a platform build on the basis of free imagination. The goal of the Gellu Naum’s textual representative is to move between worlds, to participate in a fluid series of magical changes in the permanent process of seeking for a secret identity.