Biografia romanțată ca proiect editorial recent – Constantin Brâncuși în contextul life writing

Abstract

This paper aims to explore what might be the limits of what we call today Biographical Novel, framed as Biographical Fiction or Life Writing, research that has as its central objective to find an answer to questions such as: what might be the features of the genre and what purpose do they serve today? How do we relate to past personalities in the present context and what can we extract from their lives – can we talk about censorship/ attributing an unrealistic context to a public personality? But more importantly, what is the relationship between fact and fiction constructed, given that the boundary between these is very vulnerable? All these questions are meant to guide the readers throughout the study. Even if the genre is not so much in demand among writers today, probably for reasons related to the economy of time, such writing can become interesting to study how the author chooses to present someone’s life, a choice that must first be well documented, and then fully assumed, with full responsibility for the facts shown. The points on which the paper will focus are related to the novel of Moni Stănilă Brâncuși sau cum a învățat țestoasa să zboare, the biography Constantin Brancusi by Sanda Miller and the „On Constantin Brancusi” study written by Dore Ashton, where the construction of Constantin Brâncuși’s personality, as it appears in their works, will be contextualized in World Literature.