From his early youth he had studied, besides the Rumanian literature, very much the German, especially Goethe, Schiller and the romantics, but did not neglect the other great literatures, old and modern, and of the English poets he had read especially Shakespeare and Byron.
Back in his country he was school inspector and afterwards librarian in the University of Iași (Iassy), but being dismissed by the Liberal government of the time he went to Bucarest, where he became editor in chief of the Conservative paper „Timpul“ (The Time). His daily articles, collected to-day in a volume, contain the nationalist creed. His conservatism was one of conviction and was directed against the Liberals because they had imported all sort of foreign ideas, fashions and institutions, whithout caring for the good old traditions of the country.
At the age of 33 he fell very ill and his mind became clouded. He never wholly recovered till he died in 1889, in a lunatic asylum near Bucarest.
He had begun to write poetry when still very young and published his first poems in provincial papers of Bucovina and Transylvania and, later on, in the Convorbiri Literare (Literary Talks), the review of the circle „Junimea“ (The Youth) of Iassy. This was under the direction of Titu Maiorescu, professor of philosophy and the most important critic of the time, who first collected all the poems in a volume, in 1884, when the poet was already ill.
A dark veil of melancholy hangs over almost all his poetry. This was due perhaps to a hereditary illness. It was strengthened by his disappointment in love, to which were added his philosophical convictions, Eminescu being a disciple of the pessimistic German philosopher Schopenhauer and of the Indian philosophy, for the study of which he even learnt Sanscrit. However, the main cause of his so-called pessimism was, doubtless, the passionate nature of the poet, striving after a perfection which he could not find anywhere, and which made him seek a refuge in his dreams.
Eminescu’s poems are in Rumanian perfect symphonies owing to the poet’s masterly handling of all the musical possibilities of his language. Very much of this is lost in the translations, though we kept as close to the text as possible and especially respected throughout the original form.
We give here but few of his most representative poems, others will follow.
