Plunging headlong into the dead death
Ana-Maria HojbotaThe article explores the tumultuous life and work of Gherasim Luca, one of the founders of Romanian surrealism. Based on a many-sided, self-conflicting personality, the hypersensitive nature of the poet converted into a deeply personal “phonetic language” to describe mesmerizing worlds, swarming with hallucinatory images and self-eating emotions. The turbulent historical and personal context, the political involvement and artistic choices that shaped Luca’s unique style and disregard of conventions are also discussed. The article also deals with Gherasim Luca’s obsession with liberation, death and suicide, transparent in his early works and painstakingly documented in “The Dead Death,” a disturbingly lucid premonition of his final gesture. pp. 149–155
Keywords: surrealism, borderline personality disorder