"Fartate" and "Nefartate" in Lucian Blaga's Arca lui Noe

Lucian Bagiu, Paraschiva Negru

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Abstract

"Arca lui Noe" ("Noah’s Ark", 1944) is based on a folk tale influenced by Bogomilism. Brother and Unbrother stand for the antinomic duality of the absolute principle. Fellow and Unfellow are indestructibly united. Unbrother cannot be mastered and Brother would be an ontic sterility if his fellow absent. However the Bogomilic vision becomes complicated in Blaga's meaning. The greybeard Brother, the Patriarch is "the forefather of all ancestors" who comes "from here and from further away", that is the archetype monad. Yet, if Unbrother is the shadow of Brother, one has to conclude that he dates from the same beginnings, also "the forefather of all ancestors". Therefore, who and where might be their father? If not "in existence" anymore, then the mankind might have been left at the mercy of an amicable but eternal facing of the two brothers. The prototype of humanity looks like a waste, a spiritual mutant so the will of the Patriarch arises with a drastic determination. If the mankind created in the likeness of Brother bears more resemblance to Unbrother, then the Patriarch himself is about to find his own needlessness. Thus a new series of ontology is to be created in order to provide another chance to the ontic itself. Through a coincidentia oppositorum we can assert that in "Manole, the Craftsman" life is a receptacle for creation whereas in "Noah’s Ark" the creation is the sole receptacle for life. One could argue a Sophianic expectation (adapted by the philosopher Lucian Blaga from Spengler and Frobenius, the transcendent descending, revealing itself in a embodiment of the universe): the Ark itself rises as the supreme receptacle of Life, assigned by the absolute.
Original languageRomanian
Pages (from-to)177-187
JournalJournal of Romanian Literary Studies
Issue number8
Publication statusPublished - 2016

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Philosophy
  • Cultural Studies
  • Specific Literatures

Free keywords

  • Bogomilism
  • antinomy
  • life
  • creation
  • ark
  • Lucian Blaga și teatrul: Eseu despre absolutul estetic

    Translated title of the contribution: Lucian Blaga and the Theater : An Essay on the Aesthetic AbsoluteBagiu, L., 2014, Iasi: Tipo Moldova. 340 p. (OPERA OMNIA publicistică şi eseu contemporan)

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