Collected Prose

Urmuz’s work has been claimed as a forerunner of Dada, and of Surrealism as well, and shows again the sharp sense of the vitality of the avant-garde amongst Romanian practitioners.

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The experimental prose written by Urmuz, the pseudonym of Dem. Demetrescu-Buzău (1883- 1923), represents a model for the Romanian avant-garde movement, anticipating not only the Surrealists’ iconoclastic fervor in blowing up all sorts of stereotypes, but also some of the main features of the so called "absurd" theater created by Eugéne Ionesco. Like Ionesco, Urmuz has the propensity towards dissimulating − behind an elaborate network of absurd associations and fantastic scenarios − the tragic consciousness of humans’ limited existence and of language’s limited powers. A look at the literature written by Urmuz proves that the reverse side of the humorous mode and of the ironic enunciation is the anxiety provoked by the unbearable responsibility of living.