Critical Approaches to Caragiale's Writings: From the Pressure of the Totalitarian Ideology to Postmodern Re-Configurations

During the Romanian totalitarian age, Caragiale's writings were read through the doctrinaire pattern subjected to the political ideology of the Communist Party which deeply de-formed the politics - aesthetics relationship, favouring the former. Nevertheless, in the contemporary literary critique, Caragiale's “Momente şi schiţe” (Moments and Sketches) as well as his comedies are revised by taking into account their ‘classical’ interpretation, enhancing the new canonical status of Caragiale's work. Obviously, Liviu Papadima's critical approach is different from Mihail Novicov's ideological analysis, the former focusing on the dominance of the aesthetic criterion. Irrespective of the critical approach and of the reading pattern applied, the fact remains that Caragiale's literary discourse is ever more appealing to contemporary readership.