Enciclopedia zmeilor – The Encyclopedia of Dragons: The Allegoric Journey

Luminita Chiorean (Université «Petru Maior», Târgu-Mureş, Roumanie) [BIO]

Email: luminitachi@yahoo.com

 

ABSTRACT:

The real journey is a journey in the company of the Other, or of the Other’s culture. The more numerous the communication possibilities are, the more we implode, meaning that we accumulate more energy inside of us. The more “worldwide” our communication is, the more hermetic, the more tribal, the more solipsist our epicenter becomes – a sign of our identity salvation in relation with the otherness (Baudrillard; Guillaume). The Encyclopedia of Dragons, by Mircea Cartarescu, is a parody that is relevant to the theme of the journey and to a certain type of traveler: the allegorist (Todorov). The principle of the epic construction consists in building the simulacrum of a virtual world. The escape from the outside of the Real - here in the Other World –- is possible through a distortion of space, which makes ‘the remote’ space perceivable as ‘the near’. The allegoric journey is meant to help the traveler get as far as possible. The allegorist sees the foreigner and the foreign places as critical metaphors. He travels metaphorically. He travels only when relating himself to his own culture. He uses the Other Land and the hypostases of the Mioritic Dragon as allegories to position him a considerable distance away from his own territory. In communication, the allegorist remains centered in his own culture. As a literary form of the fantastic, fantasy is a form that Cărtărescu prefers, as he prefers the postmodern world. Thus, he proposes a new world populated by fantastic races, dragons (borrowed from fantasy, mythology, dungeons&dragons) – heroes that are seen as negative and that, by communicating through other coordinates, become civilizing elements! It is a parable the communication of which is saturated by the intertext (epic, lyric, ‘proverbial’ etc.) and by irony; consequently, this Encyclopedia (I. The Universe and II. Stories or The Ring Rough House of Meer-Tscha) is a low-fantasy, similar to Pratchett’s The Disk World.