Esilio e critica letteraria: il caso di Matei Călinescu

The intellectual path of the Romanian literary critic and theoretician Matei Călinescu (1934-2009) shows the strong influence of exile on the broad field of literary studies. Firstly, the encounter with the intellectually thriving free world stresses the fragile basis of Romanian literary criticism. Indeed, starting from the 60’s, Romanian literary criticism had struggled against political meddling. Romanian intellectuals had claimed the autonomy of literature, but they failed at elaborating proper theoretical arguments and opening to other fields of knowledge. Furthermore, the literary critic in exile is, by his very nature, a comparativist. He is a bridge between different literary and cultural universes. By analyzing Matei Călinescu’s case study, the following piece casts new light on the interpretation of Romanian literary criticism, placing it in a transnational perspective.