Codrin Liviu Cuţitaru: The Undertakings of an Anglicist and Americanized from Jassy

One of the most appreciated literary critics and cultural analysts that we have, Codrin Liviu Cuţitaru, is at the same time a rather discreet presence on the national intellectual market. This might be a matter of- temperament, which is related to other particulars and conjunctions (like his strict academic specialization, whereupon at least part of his studies are read within that particular professional “enclave”) but it is also explanatory for a wider category of autochthon meta-litterateurs. I am referring to a (pseudo?) generational “wave” that did not benefit form enough visibility in order to be “homologated”, recognized and commented as such. Within the recent commentaries, passes as valid the supposition that the most recent echelons of critics and essayists that we have are the “first wave” of postmodernism, which originated in 1970, and the most recent wave, the 2000 wave, pertain to the literary and cultural journalism of the inaugural decade of the 21^st century. In reality, numerous young men, philologist of a very good quality, who became in the mean time respectable names, commenced their exegetic exercise shortly before 1989 and immediately after it, towards the second half of the 1990. However, coming shortly after their recent predecessors’ commencement and a little bit too soon, in order to be able to catch the next “train”, which was supposed to take over the younger colleagues, they couldn’t assume a very well delineated collective identity. With all the possibilities available due to the change of regime in 1989, on the other hand still devoid of personal prestige at that time, which could have launch them on the new cultural and jurnalistic market, the majority focused upon their university careers, and as a consequence they concentrated upon research and only subsidiary upon journalism, thus the tendency of the specialised “marginality”. Actually, I do not intend to build a historical- literary fiction from insufficient and desperate data. Eventually, the variant of a unique literary generation, which expands over the three decades that we are talking about, will be settled. At any rate, the effort of imposing a new “90s current” different from the so called “’80s” current is not well founded; and year 2000 did not bring any novelties in the structure of literary languages. We can mention in this context the theory that Laurenţiu Ulici tried to expand: the generational model with three “promotions” out of which the median one were “implosive” and “listed”. (cf. L. Ulici, Romanian Contemporary Literature I- the ‘70s Generation, Eminescu Publishing House, Bucureşti, 1995, p. 12).

Being seriously restrained as concerns the applicability of the idea upon the entire period of the two Romanian literary centuries, XIX and XX, we must bring to a conclusion the arguments that we have put foreword.

A few names with the birth dates in parenthesis: Vasile Spiridon (1958), Ovidiu Pecican (1959), Ioana Pârvulescu (1960), Mircea Vasilescu (1960), Cristian Moraru (1960), Corin Braga (1961), George Ardeleanu (1961), Iulian Costache (1961), Mircea A. Diaconu (1963), Sanda Cordoş (1966), Ioana Bot (1964), Ion Buzera (1966), Laszlo Alexandru (1966), Sebastian Vlad-Popa (1968), Ion Manolescu (1968), Codrin Liviu Cuţitaru, from were we started (1968), Laura Pavel (1968), Călin Teutişan (1969), Mihaela Ursa (1971), Horea Poenar (1973), Antonio Patraş (1973), Victor Cubleşan (1974) and, without doubt, others. The first names of the series, did not manage to make a name for themselves before 1989, although their age would have been suitable. The exception, Cristian Moraru, one of the most active Romanian critics of the second half of the last decade of communist history, left the country in 1992 in order to go to Germany and he finally settled in the Untied States in 1993. Vasile Spiridon and Mircea Vasilescu started to publicize later, Ioana Pârvulescu wrote in the beginning poetry and prose, Ovidiu Pecican, a historian by formation, had polished himself with various genres, until he became a constant commentator of literature, etc. A theme opened for reflection…

An appreciated member of the professoriate from his natal town, Jassy, were he has rubrics in gazettes, Codrin Liviu Cuţitaru expressed himself- therefore- less in the national press and cultural life. All the six books that he has signed until now appeared at publishing houses from Bahlui, and not at the one that dominate the Romanian market, Polirom. Other three books appeared at the University where he teaches.

The Journal of the Wild West. A Study of Mentalities. (The Youth Publishing House, Jassy, 1999, 124 p.) recuperates notes form 1993-1994, from the period in which Codrin Liviu Cuţitaru was a Fulbright stipend student over the Ocean, at universities from Austin, Texas and Tucson- Arizona. The subtitle, too erudite (but in a way subtly self- ironical) corrects the title, because we aren’t given a real journal, but notations and evocations of certain episodes, situations, persons from the respective North- American probation periods, which are not recorded in the manner of on the run notations, but essayistic, speculative, always careful at the psychological, behavioural, cultural implications of the quotidian details: towns, airports, campuses, teachers, cowboys, a barbeque („BBQ”), etc. Example: the theme of the university’s library produces reveries related to postmodernity as an era of „post festum”, which stocks the extensive “textual memory of the world” (p. 79-84); an anticipation of recent Istoreme.

Jurnalul Vestului Sălbatic. Un studiu de mentalităţi (Editura Junimea, Iaşi, 1999, 124 p.) recuperează note din 1993-1994, din perioada în care Codrin Liviu Cuţitaru a fost bursier Fulbright peste Ocean, la Universităţile din Austin, Texas şi Tucson, Arizona. Subtitlul, prea savant (dar într-un sens discret-autoironic), corectează titlul, căci nu ni se oferă un jurnal propriu-zis, ci consemnări sau evocări ale unor episoade, situaţii, personaje din respectivul stagiu Nord-american, şi anume nu în maniera notaţiilor „din mers”, ci eseistice, speculative, mereu atente la implicaţiile psihologice, comportamentale, culturale ale detaliilor cotidiene: oraşe, aeroporturi, campusuri, profesori, cowboys, un barbecue („BBQ”) ş.a.m.d. Un exemplu: topos-ul bibliotecii universitare provoacă reverii legate de postmodernitate ca epocă „post festum”, care a ajuns să stocheze, vastă, „memoria textuală a lumii” (p. 79-84). Anticipare – deci – a Istoreme-lor recente. Cf. mai jos.

Transcendentalism and Ascensionalism. A Project of Cultural Phenomenology of the American Romanticism. („Al.I. Cuza”’s University Press, 2001, Yassy, 212 p.) and The Victorian Novel. A Critical Approach („Al.I. Cuza” University Press, Yassy, 2004, 216 p.) are the “contributions” that the teacher offers to the system of higher education in which he operates. The difference between the books does not consist solely in the language employed (one book is written in Romanian and the other one in English): two literatures and two methodological perspectives. Again, the subtitles tell the truth: the Victorian novel is considered in the light of “a critical approach”, while the American romanticism undergoes a “cultural phenomenology”, thus it is integrated within both extra-literary contexts. The Argument for Transcendentalism…opens with a confession in this respect: “as an Anglicist, I have always claimed my expertise within the literature’s space, by refusing generalisations […]. As an Americanist, I am constantly tempted to transform any discussion about America’s literature in a debate about the New World […]. Somewhere, within the chiaroscuro of the Freudian subconscious I classified the American literature –in the same way as the majority of the incorrigible Europeans- as an annex to the uniquely cultural experiment of the global history, and, as a consequence, fascinating, which deserves in the first place the effort of understanding and assuming it.

He comprises America, as a historical, anthropological, sociological and mental entity” (page 7). Therefore, the British- Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontë sisters, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Henry James and Joseph Conrad are analysed more practically(but not with a rigid consequence: for example, the chapter about the Brontë sisters and George Eliot looks at the formation of the “feminine cultural ego” and the process of emancipation that lead to feminism- The Victorian Novel…, page 43). Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Poe, Melville and Hawthorne are placed with the same minute exploration under the magnifying glass of the specialist in literary techniques, which serve as an object of observation for the “hypostasis and manifestations of Americanism”. (Transcendentalism…, page 171).

Concurrently, between the obligations at the university and the probation periods in English territories, Codrin Liviu Cuţitaru committed himself to critical and essayistic exercises, which are not that academical, by writing articles in the cultural press or by having “intellectual” rubrics in the local press.

In Critical Representations, (Standard Publishing House, Yassy, 2004, page 356) he collects some thematic texts (about postmodernism etc), some commentaries upon books of Romanian literature in the first half, and upon universal literature in the second half (especially, English and American one, as it ca be easily inferred). Book reviews, yes, but very general and constantly digressive, so that the author can draw general conclusions regarding the state of autochthon culture or regarding “mentalist” ideological tendencies and the “global” international civilisations.

A detailed commentary concerning the sixth book that Codrin Liviu Cuţitaru published, Istoreme (The European Institute, “Society and publicistica” Iaşi, 2009, page 440), in the following issue of Art Act Magazine.