THE EROTIC POETRY OF ILEANA MALANCIOIU

The erotic lyric of Ileana Malancioiu is of a tragic nature, due to the fact that in her poems Eros meets Thanatos. Out of the volumes in which the erotic theme appears ("Unto Hieronymus", "The Queen's Heart" and "Lilies for Her Ladyship the Bride") "you could easily form a romance novel", as the literary critic Mircea Scarlat once noticed. Based on autobiography and an original setting, the erotic poems include numerous childhood memories and hieratic characters. A constant in the poet's writings is the invocation, in her verses the young girl addressing Hieronymus or "a brave boy". At some point, the eros shapeshifts, as the sensuality gives room to a fraternal sentiment. Not seldom does the poet has the obsession of pairs, even in death being preferable that we go "in couples". Ileana Malancioiu does not write "an erotic poetry in the common sense" (N. Manolescu), but one in which the romantic influences are mixed in with the naturalistic ones, resulting a downright sickly eros, in which the two lovers are mere puppets in the hands of fate. Poems such as "The Bear", that treats the myth of the Flyer in an original manner, or "Prayer", in which the girl falls in love with a fairy tale villain, are all quite remarkable. Another poem, that describes a woman who agrees to being bricked into a wall, is illustrative for the idea that, in the vision of "The Slaughtered Fowl" author, a woman must defend her man and even sacrifice herself for him if necessary.