Costache Conachi, the “Founder” of the Amorous Imaginary in Romanian Lyric Poetry

Abstract

Costache Conachi is regarded as a “founder of spirit” (Eugen Simion), whose influence has left a profound mark on the evolution of erotic imagination in Romanian poetry. The poet distilled and essentialized the anacreontic discursive landmarks of the 18th century, thereby prefiguring the compelling lines that defined the vision of Romanian Romanticism. In his verses, he established the ‘eroticonʹ of the gaze, the ‘erotologyʹ of seduction, and sketched the first metaphysical contours of absolute love. The portrayal of love in Conachiʹs poetry is an artful fusion of hedonistic theory and intensely dramatic experience. Here, love reveals all its facets – from the grotesque and the caricatural to the profoundly tragic. What remains with us from Conachiʹs legacy is a seminal poetic erotology, one that has realigned the amorous discourse of its time to new coordinates of sensitivity and artistic vision.