The Romanian Prose and Its Ages

Abstract

The article approaches several significant moments of Romanian prose in the second half of the 20th century, its thesis being that the short story has been the most approachable genre in the demanding process of prose discourse modernisation. Through the 1960s Generation the Romanian literature has reencountered the high level two previous periods had imposed: the period of the classics (for short stories) and the interwar period (for the novel). The short story meant a first step towards the novels, as all the writers belonging to the 1960s Generation published novels at the end of the 1960s. A previous, older competition between the types of prose (so much debated in the interwar period) was reactivated. The 1980s Generation will act in the same manner when it will start playing a role on the literary stage. Short stories offered the opportunity for originality to affirm itself, with many writers preferring the novel. The 1980s Generation proved that the resources of short stories are unlimited and far from being approached sufficiently in their intrinsic mechanisms.