Complete Poems of Lucian Blaga

Lucian Blaga (1895-1961) is judged by many to be Romania’s most original philosopher and greatest poet of the twentieth century. While scholars with access to his works in Romanian are well-aware of their importance, his work has remained, up to now, little known in the English-speaking world. Blaga the poet is inextricably bound up with Blaga the philosopher. This is not to say that his poetry was simply the lyrical expression of his philosophical ideas. He himself always insisted that he wrote poetry in response to a deep creative impulse and denied that he was following some preconceived plan or blueprint. We must take him at his word, for examples abound of ideas and images appearing first in poems that only later on would be fully elaborated in his trilogies. Yet, it is equally true that Blaga the poet and Blaga the philosopher pursued similar goals: to uncover the meaning of existence and to account for man’s place in the universe. This book represents the first substantial effort to make Blaga’s poetical works accessible to a wider audience. A complete collection of Blaga’s poetry, this volume provides readers with insight into the work of this remarkable Romanian scholar. The poems are translated into English by Brenda Walker, one of the best known translators of Romanian poetry into English, along with Stelian Apostolescu. The book includes a foreword by the noted Romanian scholar Mircea Borcila and a comprehensive introduction on Blaga’s life and work by the foremost American specialist on Blaga, Keith Hitchins. Also included is a Chronology of Blaga’s life compiled by Magda Theodorescu.