Pompiliu Eliade

Born in Bucharest, he attended primary and high school in his native city, followed by the University of Bucharest, where he obtained a literature degree in 1891.^[1] He then studied at the École Normale Supérieure under Ferdinand Brunetière from 1892 to 1895,^[1][2] obtaining a doctorate in literature in 1898.^[1] His thesis dealt with French influence on Romania's public spirit during the Phanariote era.^[2] Hired as a substitute professor at Bucharest in 1900, he advanced to associate status in 1901 and full professor in 1904.^[1] He was the university's first important professor of French.^[2] In 1912, he was elected a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy. He was part of the Religious Affairs and Public Education Ministry's permanent council.^[1] A member of the National Liberal Party, he was elected to the Assembly of Deputies in 1907, serving for several months.^[3]

In 1908, he became director general of theatres,^[1] and from that year until 1911, served as chairman of the National Theatre Bucharest.^[4] He arrived with grand designs and a serious intent to stage a repertoire of an elevated cultural level, but lacked a practical understanding of the theatre's values and activities. Two individuals took particular issue with Eliade's tenure: the first was Alexandru Davila, whom he had replaced and who formed his own acting troupe in 1909. The second was Ion Luca Caragiale, whose plays Eliade considered too tied to passing phenomena and thus obsolete^[5] (an opinion later taken up by Eugen Lovinescu).^[6] In protest, Caragiale withdrew the rights to his plays from the National Theatre.^[5] Eliade nevertheless considered O noapte furtunoasă "a jewel of the genre", and O scrisoare pierdută the pinnacle of the Romanian theatrical repertoire.^[6]

He married Elisa Popescu (born March 6, 1860^[7]) on July 4, 1902, the widow of a Mr. Carp. They raised the child of Elisa, Mariorel, and also had two children: Cristina (who died during the second world war) and Andrei (born July 4, 1906, died June 18, 1991).^[8]

Eliade's published debut took the form of his undergraduate thesis, inspired by the ideas of Titu Maiorescu: Silogismul și adversarul său Herbert Spencer. He contributed studies, reviews and columns to Literatură și artă română, Vieața nouă, Revista idealistă and L'Indépendance roumaine.^[1] His Causeries litteraires were written in the latter newspaper in the style of Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve from 1901 and published in three volumes in 1903.^[9] They were vehemently attacked by Ștefan Orășanu at the urging of Nicolae Iorga, who himself launched a diatribe against Eliade, who in turn attempted to defend himself. In 1904, he published a study of Grigore Alexandrescu and his French antecedents.^[10]

In French, he wrote two fundamental books about the era when the modern Romanian outlook took shape.^[1] One was his Paris thesis. The second, picking up his study of French influences, was a two-volume work. The first of these, Histoire de l'esprit public en Roumanie au dix-neuvième siècle, appeared in 1905 and covered the years 1821-1828. The second, La Roumanie au XIXe siècle (1914), dealt with the 1828-1834 period.^[1][10] These treatises of cultural history and philosophy remain relevant not only for the richness of their information but also for their style, which recalls Sainte-Beuve and Hippolyte Taine.^[10] In his native language, he wrote two fine introductions to the work of Jean de La Fontaine (Filosofia lui La Fontaine, 1901) and Maurice Maeterlinck (Cu privire la Maurice Maeterlinck, 1912). The 1903 Ce este literatura? Condițiunile și limitele acestei arte is a published course that features his interesting theoretical views about literature,^[1] in the form of fifteen lectures.^[2]