Ionesco, the Great Absent. Vișniec, in the Limelight of Romanian Theatre - ”The History of Romanian Literature. Drama”

Abstract

In the context of the past few years, when the Romanaian culture has been enriched by an impressive number of literary histories – whose substance unfortunately varies between diletantism and monumentality – the publication of the volume by Mircea Ghiţulescu may be received with a certain amount of
skepticism. However, from the very first glimpse it becomes obvious that it is not just another literary history, but
undoubtedly the amplest work of this type dedicated to Romanian theatre. In the almost one thousand pages one may find two centuries of literature and over one thousand of playwrights, the critic trying to capture, sometimes synthetically, but more often than not analytically, the evolution of a genre often placed at the periphery of literature.