Mircea Eliade

Dictionary of Literary Biography® • Volume Two Hundred Twenty

Twentieth-Century Eastern European Writers Second Series

Edited by Steven Serafm Hunter College of The City University ofNew York

A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book The Gale Group Detroit • San Francisco • London • Boston • Woodbridge, Conn.

I 'II-

Mircea Eliade {13 March 1907-22 April1986)

Aurelian Craiutu Duke University

BOOKS: Isabel ~z apele Diavolului (Bucharest: Nationala Ciornei, 1930); Soliloquii (Bucharest: Carte cu Semne, 1932); Maitreyi (Bucharest: Cultura Nationala, 1933); translated by Catherine Spencer as Bengal Nights (~ew Delhi: Rupa, 1993; London: Carcanet, 1993; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994); India (Bucharest: Cugetarea, 1934); Intoarcerea dzn rai (Bucharest: Na~ionala Ciornei, 1934; revised edition, Bucharest: Cugetarea, 1934); Lumina ce se stinge (Bucharest: Cartea Romfmeasca, 1934); Oceanografie (Bucharest: Cultura Poporului, 1934); Alchimze Asiatica (Bucharest: Cultura Poporului, 1935); ' Huliganii (Bucharest: Nationala Ciornei, 1935); !jan tier (Bucharest: Cugetarea, 1935 ); Domn4oara Christina (Bucharest: Cultura Nationala, 1936); Yoga. Essai sur les origines de la mystique indienne (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner I Bucharest: Fundatia pentru Literatura ~i Arta "Regele Carol II," 1936): Cosmologie ~i alchimie babiloniana (Bucharest: Vremea, 1937); !jarpele (Bucharest: Nationala Ciornei, 1937); Fragmentarium (Bucharest: Vremea, 1939); Nunta in cer (Bucharest: Cugetarea, 1939); Secretul Doctorului Honigberger (Bucharest: Socec, 1940): translated by William Ames Coates as Two Tales of the Occult (New York: Herder & Herder, 1970); Mitul Rezntegrariz (Bucharest: Vremea, 1942); Salazar ~i revolu(ia in Portugalia (Bucharest: G01jan. 1942): Comentarii la legenda Me~terului Manole (Bucharest: Publicom, 1943); Insula lui Euthanasius (Bucharest: Fundatia Regala pentru Literatura ~i Arta, 1943);

MirceaEliade, 1930

Techniques du Yoga (Paris: Gallimard, 1948); Le Mythe de l'eternel retour.· Archetypes et repetition (Paris: Gallimard, 1949); translated by Willard R. Trask as The Myth of the Eternal Return (New York: Pantheon, 1954; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955); Traite d 'hzstoire des religions (Paris: Payot, 1949); translated by Rosemary Sheed as Patterns in Compar-

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Aspects du mythe (Paris: Gallimard, 1963); translated by Trask as Myth and Reality (New York: Harper & Row, 1963; London: Allen & Unwin, 1964); Nuvele (Madrid: Destin, 1963); Amintiri: I. Mansarda (Madrid: Destin, 1966); From Primitives to Zen. A Thematic Sourcebook of the History of Religions (New York: Harper & Row, 1967; London: Collins, 1967); Pe strada Mantuleasa (Paris: Caietele Inorogului, II, 1968); translated into French by Alain Guillermou as Le Vieil Homme et l'Officier (Paris: Gallimard, 1977); Romanian version translated by Stevenson as The Old Man and the Bureaucrats (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979); La Tigiinci §i alte povestiri (Bucharest: Editura pentru Literatudi, 1969); The Quest. History and Meaning in Religwn (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1969); De Zalmoxis a Gengis-Khan. Etudes comparatives sur les reltgions et le folklore de la Dacie et de /'Europe Orientale (Paris: Payot, 1970); translated by Trask as Zalmoxis, The Vanishing God: Comparative Studies in the Religions and folklore of Dacia and Eastern Europe (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1972); Fragments d'un journal, French version of Eliade's Romanian journal for 1945-1955 and 19571969, translated by Luc Badesco (Paris: Gallimard, 1973); part 2 translated from the French by Fred H. Johnson Jr. as No Souvenirs: Journal, 1957-1969 (New York: Harper & Row, 1977; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978); republished as journal II, 1957-1969 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); part 1 translated from the Romanian by Ricketts as journal I, 1945-1955 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); Australian Religions. An Introduction (Ithaca, N.Y. & London: Cornell University Press, 1973); Histoire des croyances et des idees religieuses. 1. De l'age de la pierre aux mystires d'Eleusis (Paris: Payot, 1976); translated by Trask as A History of Relzgious Ideas. 1. From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1978; London: Collins, 1979); Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions. Essays in Comparative Religions (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1976); In curte la Dionis (Madrid: Caietele Inorogului, 1977); Histozre des croyances et des idees religieuses. 2. De Gautama Bouddha au triomphe du chnstianisme (Paris: Payot, 1978); translated by Trask as A

ative Religion (London & New York: Sheed & Ward, 1958; New York & London: Sheed & Ward, 1958); Le Chamanisme et les techniques archad:ques de l'extase . (Paris: Payot, 1951 ); translated by Trask as Shamanism. Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1964; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964); Images et symboles. Essais sur le symbolisme magico. relzgieux (Paris: Gallimard, 1952); translated by Philip Mairet as Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1961; London: Harvill, 1961); Le Thga. Immortalite et liberte (Paris: Payot, 1954); translated by Trask as Thga: Immortality and Freedom (New York: Pantheon, 1958; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958; revised and enlarged edition, Princeton: Princeton Uni· versity Press, 1969); Foret interdite (Paris: Gallimard, 1955); republished in Romanian as Noaptea de Sanziene (Paris: Editura Ion Cu~a. 1971); Romanian version translated by Mac Linscott Ricketts and Mary Park Stevenson as The Forbidden Forest (Notre Dame & London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978); Forgerons et alchimistes (Paris: Flammarion, 1956); translated by Stephen Corrin as The Forge and the Crucible (New York: Harper, 1962; London: Rider, 1962); Das Heiltge und das Profane. Von \%sen des Religiosen (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1957); republished in French as Le sacre et leprofane (Paris: Gallimard, 1965); French version translated by Trask as The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1959); Mythes, rrves et myst£res (Paris: Gallimard, 195 7); translated by Mairet as Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries: The Encounter between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities (London: Harvill, 1960; New York: Harper, 1961 ); Naissances mystiques (Paris: Gallimard, 1959); translated by Trask as Birth and Rebirth. The Religious Meaning of IniMtion in Human Culture (New York: Harper, 1958; London: Harvill, 1958); Mephistopheles et I 'Androgyne (Paris: Gallimard, 1962); translated by J. M. Cohen as The Two and the One (London: Harvill, 1965); republished as Mephistopheles and the Androgyne: Studies in Religtous Symbol and Myth (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1965); Patarijali et le Yoga (Paris: Seuil, 1962); translated by Charles Lam Markmann as Patanjali and Yoga (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1969); 133

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OTHER: Nae Ionescu, Roza Viinturilor, edited, with an afterword, by Eliade (Bucharest: Cultura NationaHi, 1936); B. P. Hasdeu, Scrieri literare, morale si politzce, 2 volumes, edited, with an introduction and notes, by Eliade (Bucharest: Fundatia Reg?-la pentru Literatura ~i Arta, 1937); ZalmoXIS. Revue des Etudes Religzeuses, 3 volumes, edited by Eliade (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1938-1942); Luceafarul. Revista Scriitorilor Romiim in Exit, founded and edited by Eliade (Paris, 1948-- ); "Litterature orale," in Histoire des Litteratures. I: Litteratures anciennes orientales et orates, edited by R. Queneau (Paris: Gallimard, 1956), pp. 3-26: "Centre du monde, temple, maison," in Le symbolisme cosmique des monuments religieux, edited by Giuseppe Tucci (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, !957), pp. 57-82; Antaios. Zeitschrift for eine freie Welt, founded and edited by Eliade and Ernst Junger (Stuttgart: Klett, 1959- );

History of Religious Ideas. 2. From the Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity (Chicago &

London: University of Chicago Press, 1982); Les promesses de l'equinoxe. Memoires I, translated by

Constantin N. Grigoresco (Paris: Gallimard, 1980); Fragments d'un journa~ II ( 197D-1978), French version of Eliade's Romanian journal for 19701978, translated by Grigoresco (Paris: Gallimard, 1981); translated from the French by Teresa Lavender Fagao as journal Ill, 19701978 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); Uniformes de genera~ translated by Alain Paruit (Paris: Gallimard, 1981): Autobzowaphy, Volume 1: 1907-J937,journey East, jour· ney West, translated by Ricketts (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981}; Le Temps d'un centenatre suivi de Dayan, translated by

Paruit (Paris: Gallimard, 1981); Les Dix-neuf roses, translated by Paruit (Paris: Galli-

mard, 1982); Histoire des croyances et des idies religieuses, III. De Mahomet a l'iige des Riformes (Paris: Payot. I 983);

History of Religions. An Internationaljournal for Comparative Historical Studies, founded and edited by

translated by Alf Hiltebeitel and Diane Apostolow-Cappadona as A History of Religious Ideas, 3. From Muhammad to the Age of Reforms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985): Les Trois Graces, translated by Paruit and MarieFrance Ionesco (Paris: Gallimard, 1984 ); A l'ombre d'une fleur de lys, translated by Paruit (Paris: Gallimard, 1985);

Eliade,J. Kitagawa, and C. Long {University of Chicago Press, 1961- ); "Blaga. Lucian," "Ionescu, Nae," "RadulescuMotru, Constantin," and "Romanian Philosophy," in Encyclopedia of Philosophy. edited by Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan, 1967); "Myth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries," in Dictionary of the History of Ideas (New York: Scribners, 1973), ill: 307-318; "Myths and Mythical Thought," in Myths, by Alexander Eliot, with contributions by Eliade and Joseph Campbell (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976), pp. 12-29; The Encyclopedia of Religion, 16 volumes, edited by Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987).

Briser le toit de la maison: la creativzte et ses symbols

(Paris: Gallimard, 1986); Autobiowaphy, Volume 2: 1937-1960, Exile's Odyssey,

translated by Ricketts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); Youth Without Youth and Other Novellas, edited by Matei Calinescu (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1988); journal IV, 1979--1985, English version of Eliade's Romanian journal for 1979-1985, translated from the Romanian by Ricketts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); The Eliade Guide to World Religions. by Eliade, loan P. Culianu, with Hillary S. Wiesner (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991); jurnal, 2 volumes, original Romanian version of Eliade 's journals for 1941-1985, edited by Mircea Handoca (Bucharest: Humanitas, 1993). PlAY PRODUCTION: Iphigenia, National Theater, February 1941.

SELECTED PERIODICAL PUBLICATIONSUNCOLLECTED: "Itinerariu spiritual, I-XII," Cuviintul, 3, nos. 857, 860, 862. 867, 874, 885, 889,903,911,915,924,928 (1927); "Impotriva Moldovei," Cuviintul, 4. no. 1021 (1928): 1-2; "Apologia virilitatii," Gandirea, 8, no. 8-9 (1928): 352-359; "Iphigenia, drama," Universul Literar, 48, no. 51 ( 1939): 3, 8; "Phenomenologie de la religion ct sociologic religieuse," Critique, 39 (1949): 713-720; "Actualite de 1a mythologie." Crztique, 43 (1950): 236-243;

Bucharest:

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Mircea Eliade

DLB 220 "Psychologic et histoire des religions: a propos du symbolisme du 'Centre,"' Eranos jahrbuch, 19 (1951): 247-282; "1241." Caiete de Dor, 4 (1951): 4-10; "Rencontre avecjung," Combat, 9 October 1952; "Le temps et l'eternite dans Ia pensee indienne," Eranosjahrbuch, 20 ( 1952): 25-55; "Mythologie et histoire des religions," Diogene, 9 (1955): 99-116; "Le symbolisme des tenebres dans les religions archaiques," Polaritis du symbole, Etudes cannilitaines, 39 (1960): 15-28; "History of Religions and a New Humanism," History of Religions, 1 (1961): 1-8; "Notes sur le journal d'Ernst Junger," Antaios, 6 (1964): 488-492; "The Sacred and the Modern Artist," Criterion, 4 (1965): 22-24; "Crisis and Renewal in History of Religions," History of Religions, 5 (1965): 1-17; "Coloana nesfir~ita," Reuista Scriitorilor Romani, 9 (1970): 3-49; "The Sacred in the Secular World," Cultural Hermeneutics, 1 (1973): 101-113; "Literary Imagination and Religious Structure," Criterion, 2 (1978): 30-34. Mircea Eliade, a leading scholar of religions and an acclaimed novelist, was a prominent member of the generation of 1927 that became active in Romania during the late 1920s and dominated the cultural scene throughout the 1930s and most of the 1940s. This generation was the first to receive its education in the "Greater Romania" that emerged from World War I. Mircea EWide was born in Bucharest, Romania, to a family that had strong Romanian roots. (Though he and his family always celebrated his birthday on 9 March, his biographer Mac Linscott Ricketts has reported the discovery of official records listing his birthdate as 13 March 1907.) Eliade's father, Gheorghe Eliade, was an army officer and a native of Moldavia. His mother, Ioana Stoian Vasile Eliade, was a native of the western region of Oltenia, whose people were considered ambitious, pragmatic, and energetic. Eliade thought of himself as a synthesis of contemplation and action. He attributed his moods of deep melancholy to his Moldavian heritage, against which he later rebelled in "'lmpotriva Moldovei" (Against Moldavia), an article published in 1927. Because of his father's military postings, the Eliades moved twice before settling in Bucharest soon after the outbreak of World War I in August

Ekade zn Calcutta, 1930

1914, in a house on Melodiei Street whose attic played an almost mythical role in the writer's life. Eliade entered the elementary school on Mantuleasa Street, which he later described in the novel Pe strada Miintuleasa ( 1968; translated as The Old Man and the Bureaucrats, 1979). In September 1917 he was admitted to the prestigious Spiru-Haret high school in Bucharest. At about ten he began reading novels and detective stories and became passionately interested in natural sciences, chemistry, zoology, and entomology. In the spring of 1921 Eliade's first article, "The Enemy of the Silkworm," was published in jurnalul $lizn(elor populare (] ournal of Popular Sciences); it was followed by a scientific story called "Cum am descoperit piatra filozofala" (How I Discovered the Philosopher's Stone), which was awarded the first prize in a competition sponsored by the same journal. Encouraged by the publication of these articles, Eliade wanted to work in the field of science while also feeling a strong vocation for imaginative literature. His first years in high school also taught him another lesson. While he was driven by an insatiable thirst for knowledge, Eliade learned 135

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Mircea Eliade

The writing of this novel, which centers on a passionate love story, must have had a cathartic significance for the young Eliade. He developed later the philosophy of masculinity and living dangerously that he introduced in the novel in an article, "Apologia virilitatii" (Apology for Virility), a manifesto published in 1928, and in a series of "Letters to a Provincial," published between 1927 and 1929. By 1928 Eliade had already acquired the reputation of an astute essayist. He wrote regularly for the influential Bucharest-based Cuvantu~ directed by his professor Nae Ionescu, one of the most important intellectuals in Romania during the interwar period. Eliade became interested in articulating problems related to his own generation and was unanimously hailed as its spokesman and chief. He addressed the issues in an important series of twelve essays, "Itinerariu spiritual, 1-:XII" (Spiritual Itinerary), published in Cuvantulin the fall of 1927. Written with the belief that everything lay within the powers of young writers, these essays offered a cou· rageous and well-articulated statement of Eliade's ideas about the task and destiny of his generation, which he believed would become unique in the Romanian cultural history. In Eliade's view, young writers had to look for a meaningful equilibrium and synthesis that went beyond a historically bound type of humanism and to express themselves in a plurality of spiritual and cultural experiences. Eliade and his fellows-"impassionate mystics," as an older Romanian writer called them-were influenced by Nikolay Berdyayev, Andre Gide, Hermann Keyserling, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Henri Bergson, and Marcel Proust and emphasized spirituality and inner equilibrium. The strong ethos of authenticity that permeates these essays can also be found in Eliade's best novels of the 1930s. He emphasized lived experience and inner freedom and searched for a higher synthesis between life and culture. In many respects, for Eliade 1928 was a year of destiny. In the spring he again visited Italy. where he did research for his thesis, "Contribu\ii Ia filozofia Rena~terii" (Contributions to Renaissance Philosophy); he defended it and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Bucharest in the fall of the same year. In Rome he became familiar with the work of Surendranath Dasgupta, a Cambridge-educated Yoga scholar, and started toying with the idea of studying in India. In fact, he wrote a letter to Maharaja Mahindra Chandra Nandy ofKassimbazar asking for financial help. While studying Renaissance philosophy, Eliade became persuaded that he had to broaden his cultural horizon and dig deeper to arrive at a more comprehensive humanism-a

that he had difficulty learning things on demand. Instead, he enjoyed discovering alone and was attracted to subjects or authors that were not taught in school. His attic in the house on Melodiei Street soon began to be filled with books and magazines, and became a place for intellectual reveries and hard work. The attic was his exclusive place where he could read with impunity as long as he pleased. At this time, influenced by Jules Payot's The Education of the Will ( 1894), Eliade started waging a war against sleep. Through a process of self-discipline, he managed to get by on only three or four hours per night, and he read thousands of books. Thus, he discovered alchemy and the history of religions, read James George Frazer (in order to learn English) and Edouard Schure, Lautreamont, Leon Bloy, Voltaire, and B. P. Hasdeu. The breadth of their knowledge fascinated Eliade. He also developed a special inclination for Honore de Balzac, whose books he read at the pace of approximately one a day. The teenage Eliade's greatest discovery, however, was Giovanni Papini's L'Uom