Literature
ROMANIA
The Evening Star
By Miruna
The Evening Star (The Vesper) is the
most significant Romanian poem, written
by Mihai Eminescu, the most famous and
influential Romanian poet.
The poem was inspired by a fairytale
called “The girl in the golden garden” and
later gets a philosophical influence from
Eminescu’s life,
showing the world
the condition of the
misunderstood
genius. It shows a
fantastic love story
between Luceafarul
(The Vesper) and a
daughter of an
e m p e r o r.
The
evening star saw the
emperor’s daughter
looking at him in the
night sky and fell in
love with her. Her
love could be seen
as an attraction of
opposites because
Catalina wants to
explore the extraordinary by reaching for
the stars, and The Vesper wants to meet
the concrete by descending on Earth. On
the other hand, Catalina, the emperor’s
daughter, lives a normal love story with
Catalin, an ordinary man and the
difference is that communication is no
!
longer based on dreams, it’s real. As a
sacrifice for Catalina’s love, The Vesper
asks Hyperion to become mortal and
receives some precious advice because
down there, Catalin showed up and
ruined the illusion of an impossible love.
The Vesper decides to stay in his world
because Catalina
n e ve r u n d e r s t o o d
h i m , l e av i n g h i m
“immortal and
cold” .
Does your country
have this kind of
poem, showing an
impossible love
story? I’d like to
know more about
your literature. Also,
what do you think
about this “condition
of
the
misunderstood
genius”? Does it still
exist?Have you met
people rejected by
society, even though they are brilliant?
30