Network Temporalities and North American Influence in the Romanian Poetry of the Early 1980s

Abstract

Set within the frame of World Literature, and dwelling on the multifaceted concept of networking, this paper aims to provide a temporal pattern concerning the transfer/import of postwar North American poetic trends within the Romanian poetry of the 1980s. By relating the aestheticized model of Romanian (neo)modernism to the more direct, biographical discourse of the Beat poetry, the influence of which emerged upfront in Romanian poetry starting from the late 1970s, as well to the Confessional model the paper explores overlapping temporalities within the two literary systems, whereby the paradigms of (neo)modernism and postmodernism, respectively, clashed, due to the homogenizing effect of the communist context. Along these lines, I outline the notion of diachrony in synchrony of the Romanian poetry of the early 1980s, when several poetic patterns pertaining to different stages of North American poetry exerted a simultaneous influence during a very short time interval. The attempts made by Romanian poets to synchronize with, or borrow from Anglo-American literature, also involved relaying certain attitudes, views, and values – both aesthetic and largely ideological – that were specific to the source culture.