El espacio urbano en la obra de Mircea Cartarescuhistoria y metáfora

Résumé

The main role that space and especially urban space play in the current narrative is revealed by academic studies, from different areas (Literature, Sociology, Cinematography, Urbanism, etc.), which have increased in last decades and which consider the city as a plural and polysemic space. This dissertation attempts to apply these theoretical approaches to the prose (narrative, essay, diary…) of Mircea Cărtărescu, one of the most important Romanian and European writers. His work distincly privileges a spatial dimension and, more specifically, urban settings. Bucharest, where Cărtărescu was born, is the main space of his writings, both in his poems and in his prose. Therefore, it has become a literary city, comparable to other famous cities of the universal letters. Talking about Mircea Cărtărescu means talking about Bucharest, since Bucharest bears great its metaphoric and symbolic weight in Cărtărescu’s writings. Cărtărescu’s Bucharest is diverse, made of different spaces and elements that remain throughout all his works and, at the same time, offer new images. Autobiography, onirisim, history or metafiction are just some attributes that converge in this urban space and that this dissertation must take into account. In addition, intertextuality, that concerns the literary field as well as other arts, like music or visual arts, is one of the most important features in the configuration of the Cărtărescu’s urban space. The main purpose of this doctoral work is to categorize this multiplicity of connotations, by recognizing five urban models: real city, body city, mental city, dream city and textual city...