{"id":37553,"date":"2025-10-05T23:24:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T20:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mnlr.ro\/?p=37553"},"modified":"2025-10-08T14:28:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T11:28:38","slug":"balancing-all-in-balada-mesterului-manole-conference-held-by-thomas-j-cousineau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mnlr.ro\/en\/balancing-all-in-balada-mesterului-manole-conference-held-by-thomas-j-cousineau\/","title":{"rendered":"Balancing All in „Balada Me\u0219terului Manole” | Conference held by Thomas J. Cousineau"},"content":{"rendered":"

The conference will be held in English<\/strong><\/p>\n

The National Museum of Romanian Literature will host the conference Balancing All in „Balada Me\u0219terului Manole”, held by Thomas J. Cousineau. The event will take place on Saturday, October 11, at 11 o\u2019clock on Nicolae Cre\u021bulescu 8.<\/p>\n

The conference will focus on the ways in which \u2014 in the midst of the apparent misuse of the Manole Legend to promote inequalities of various sorts \u2014 the poem itself, a masterpiece of oral literature, reveals itself, upon a close reading, to be „the great equalizer.”<\/p>\n

„My talk has two interrelated aims: first, to dismantle the connection between human sacrifice and creativity that is at the center of Mircea Eliade\u2019s interpretation of Balada Me\u0219terului Manole; second, to shift interpretation from immuring a woman\u2019s body in a literal monument to creating a literary monument by imitating the bilateral symmetry of the generic human body \u2014 which, as a close reading of the ballad will reveal, serves as its actual cornerstone. I\u2019ll begin by pointing to the two artfully balanced scapegoating rituals that flank the construction ritual involved in the building of the monastery: on the \u201cleft flank,\u201d Manole and his men use Ana as the scapegoat to whom they transfer the punishment that the prince had threatened to inflict upon them; on the \u201cright flank,\u201d, the prince transfers the threat of his figurative fall from eminence (should Manole construct an even grander building for a rival prince) to Manole, upon whom he inflicts a literal fall from the roof of the monastery. From there, I\u2019ll move to the generally ignored figure of the flute-playing shepherd, whose musical art, unlike the architectural achievement of Manole, is entirely independent of Ana\u2019s prolonged suffocation. I\u2019ll then detail the myriad ways in which the rhythmical respiration that he \u201ctransfers\u201d into music emerges in the symmetrical harmonies that pervade the ballad as a whole, beginning with its rhymed couplets and concluding with the figurative diptych created by the resonating names and the shared fate of Ana and Manole. ”<\/p>\n

Thomas J. Cousineau, Professor of English (Emeritus) at Washington College, Fulbright Scholar at the University ofBucharest, and Fulbright Specialist at Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu, is the author of After the Final No: Samuel Beckett\u2019s Trilogy, Waiting for Godot: Form inMovement, RitualUnbound: Reading Sacrifice in Modernist Fiction, Three-Part Inventions: The Novels of Thomas Bernhard, An Unwritten Novel: Fernando Pessoa\u2019s The Book of Disquiet (Recipient of an \u201cOutstanding Title\u201d citation from The American Library Association)<\/em>, and The S\u00e9ance of Reading: UncannyDesigns in Modernist Writing<\/em>, which is based on a series of guest-lecturesthat he presented at various Romanian universities. His current book-in-progress is entitled Bypassing The Plot: The Bilateral Ploy of Writing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Echilibr\u00e2nd totul \u00een \u201eBalada Me\u0219terului Manole\u201d | Conferin\u021b\u0103 sus\u021binut\u0103 de Thomas J. Cousineau<\/strong><\/p>\n

Conferin\u021ba va fi sus\u021binut\u0103 \u00een limba englez\u0103.<\/em><\/p>\n

Muzeul Na\u021bional al Literaturii Rom\u00e2ne v\u0103 invit\u0103 s\u00e2mb\u0103t\u0103, 11 octombrie, de la ora 11.00, la sediul din strada Nicolae Cre\u021bulescu 8, la conferin\u021ba \u201eEchilibr\u00e2nd totul \u00een Balada Me\u0219terului Manole\u201d, sus\u021binut\u0103 de Thomas J. Cousineau.<\/p>\n

Evenimentul se va concentra asupra modului \u00een care \u2014 \u00een ciuda folosirii aparente a Legendei lui Manole pentru a justifica diverse forme de inegalitate \u2014 balada, capodoper\u0103 a literaturii orale, se dezv\u0103luie, la o lectur\u0103 atent\u0103, drept un veritabil \u201emare egalizator\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201ePrezentarea mea are dou\u0103 obiective interconectate: \u00een primul r\u00e2nd, s\u0103 demontez asocierea dintre sacrificiul uman \u0219i creativitate aflat\u0103 \u00een centrul interpret\u0103rii baladei de c\u0103tre Mircea Eliade; \u00een al doilea r\u00e2nd, s\u0103 mut accentul interpret\u0103rii de la zidirea corpului unei femei \u00eentr-un monument fizic, c\u0103tre crearea unui monument literar prin imitarea simetriei bilaterale a corpului uman generic – care, a\u0219a cum va ar\u0103ta o lectur\u0103 atent\u0103 a baladei, serve\u0219te drept adev\u0103rata ei piatr\u0103 de temelie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conferin\u021ba va \u00eencepe cu analiza a dou\u0103 ritualuri de sacrificare simbolic\u0103, echilibrate cu m\u0103iestrie \u0219i plasate de o parte \u0219i de alta a ritualului central de construc\u021bie a m\u0103n\u0103stirii:<\/p>\n

Pe \u201eflancul st\u00e2ng\u201d, Manole \u0219i me\u0219terii s\u0103i o transform\u0103 pe Ana \u00een \u021bap isp\u0103\u0219itor, transfer\u00e2nd asupra ei pedeapsa pe care domnitorul o promisese lor.<\/p>\n

Pe \u201eflancul drept\u201d, domnitorul transfer\u0103 asupra lui Manole amenin\u021barea propriei sale \u201ec\u0103deri\u201d simbolice de la \u00een\u0103l\u021bime (\u00een cazul \u00een care Manole ar construi o m\u0103n\u0103stire \u0219i mai m\u0103rea\u021b\u0103 pentru un rival), provoc\u00e2nd o c\u0103dere literal\u0103 a me\u0219terului de pe acoperi\u0219ul m\u0103n\u0103stirii.<\/p>\n

De acolo, conferin\u021ba va aduce \u00een discu\u021bie figura adesea ignorat\u0103 a p\u0103storului c\u00e2nt\u0103re\u021b la fluier, a c\u0103rui art\u0103 muzical\u0103 \u2014 spre deosebire de realizarea arhitectural\u0103 a lui Manole \u2014 este complet independent\u0103 de sacrificiul Anei. Thomas J. Cousineau va explora apoi modurile \u00een care respira\u021bia ritmic\u0103, transpus\u0103 \u00een muzic\u0103 prin fluierul p\u0103storului, se manifest\u0103 \u00een armonii simetrice care str\u0103bat \u00eentreaga balad\u0103 – de la cupletele rimate, p\u00e2n\u0103 la dipticul figurativ format de numele rezonante \u0219i destinul comun al Anei \u0219i al lui Manole.<\/p>\n

Thomas J. Cousineau este profesor emerit de literatur\u0103 englez\u0103 la Washington College, bursier Fulbright la Universitatea din Bucure\u0219ti \u0219i specialist Fulbright la Universitatea \u201eLucian Blaga\u201d din Sibiu. Este autorul volumelor: After the Final No: Samuel Beckett\u2019s Trilogy, Waiting for Godot: Form in Movement, Ritual Unbound: Reading Sacrifice in Modernist Fiction, Three-Part Inventions: The Novels of Thomas Bernhard, An Unwritten Novel: Fernando Pessoa\u2019s The Book of Disquiet (distins cu titlul \u201eOutstanding Title\u201d de c\u0103tre American Library Association)<\/em> \u0219i The S\u00e9ance of Reading: Uncanny Designs in Modernist Writing<\/em> \u2014 volum bazat pe o serie de conferin\u021be sus\u021binute \u00een universit\u0103\u021bi rom\u00e2ne\u0219ti.<\/p>\n

Lucrarea sa actual\u0103, aflat\u0103 \u00een curs de redactare, se intituleaz\u0103 Bypassing the Plot: The Bilateral Ploy of Writing.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The conference will be held in English The National Museum of Romanian Literature will host the conference Balancing All in…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":37556,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conferinte","category-evenimente"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mnlr.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mnlr.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mnlr.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mnlr.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mnlr.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37553"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mnlr.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37595,"href":"https:\/\/mnlr.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37553\/revisions\/37595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mnlr.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mnlr.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mnlr.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mnlr.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}