Александру Мачедонский: Поэт, новатор и противоречия румынского символизма.

Romanian poet, novelist, dramatist and literary critic

Alexandru Macedonski (; also rendered as Al. A. Macedonski, Macedonschi or Macedonsky; 14 March 1854 – 24 November 1920) was a Romanian poet, novelist, dramatist and literary critic, known especially for having promoted French Symbolism in his native country, and for leading the Romanian Symbolist movement during its early decades. A forerunner of local modernist literature, he is the first local author to have used free verse, and claimed by some to have been the first in modern European literature. Within the framework of Romanian literature, Macedonski is seen by critics as second only to national poet Mihai Eminescu; as leader of a cosmopolitan and aestheticist trend formed around his Literatorul journal, he was diametrically opposed to the inward looking traditionalism of Eminescu and his school. Debuting as a Neoromantic in the Wallachian tradition, Macedonski went through the Realist Naturalist stage deemed "social poetry", while progressively adapting his style to Symbolism and Parnassianism, and repeatedly but unsuccessfully attempting to impose himself in the Francophone world. Despite having theorized "instrumentalism", which reacted against the traditional guidelines of poetry, he maintained a lifelong connection with Neoclassicism and its ideal of purity. Macedonski's quest for excellence found its foremost expression in his recurring motif of life as a pilgrimage to Mecca, notably used in his critically acclaimed Nights cycle. The stylistic stages of his career are reflected in the collections Prima verba, Poezii, and Excelsior, as well as in the fantasy novel Thalassa, Le Calvaire de feu. In old age, he became the author of rondels, noted for their detached and serene vision of life, in contrast with his earlier combativeness. In parallel to his literary career, Macedonski was a civil servant, notably serving as prefect in the Budjak and Northern Dobruja during the late 1870s. As journalist and militant, his allegiance fluctuated between the liberal current and conservatism, becoming involved in polemics and controversies of the day. Of the long series of publications he founded, Literatorul was the most influential, notably hosting his early conflicts with the Junimea literary society. These targeted Vasile Alecsandri and especially Eminescu, their context and tone becoming the cause of a major rift between Macedonski and his public. This situation repeated itself in later years, when Macedonski and his Forța Morală magazine began campaigning against the Junimist dramatist Ion Luca Caragiale, whom they falsely accused of plagiarism. During World War I, the poet aggravated his critics by supporting the Central Powers against Romania's alliance with the Entente side. His biography was also marked by an enduring interest in esotericism, numerous attempts to become recognized as an inventor, and an enthusiasm for cycling. The scion of a political and aristocratic family, the poet was the son of General Alexandru Macedonski, who served as Defense Minister, and the grandson of 1821 rebel Dimitrie Macedonski. Both his son Alexis and grandson Soare were known painters.

The poet's paternal family had arrived in Wallachia during the early 19th century. Of South Slav origin they claimed to have descended from Serb insurgents in Ottoman ruled Macedonia. Alexandru's grandfather Dimitrie and Dimitrie's brother Pavel participated in the 1821 uprising against the Phanariote administration, and in alliance with the Filiki Eteria; Dimitrie made the object of controversy when, during the final stage of the revolt, he sided with the Eteria in its confrontation with Wallachian leader Tudor Vladimirescu, taking an active part in the latter's killing. Both Macedonski brothers had careers in the Wallachian military forces, at a time when the country was governed by Imperial Russian envoys, when the Regulamentul Organic regime recognized the family as belonging to Wallachia's nobility. Dimitrie married Zoe, the daughter an ethnic Russian or Polish officer; their son, the Russian educated Alexandru, climbed in the military and political hierarchy, joining the unified Land Forces after his political ally, Alexander John Cuza, was elected Domnitor and the two Danubian Principalities became united Romania. Both the officer's uncle Pavel were amateur poets. Macedonski's mother, Maria Fisența (also Vicenț or Vicența), was from an aristocratic environment, being the scion of Oltenian boyars. Through her father, she may have descended from Russian immigrants who had been absorbed into Oltenia's nobility. Maria had been adopted by the boyar Dumitrache Pârâianu, and the couple had inherited the Adâncata and Pometești estates in Goiești, on the Amaradia Valley. Both the poet and his father were dissatisfied with accounts of their lineage, contradicting them with an account that researchers have come to consider spurious. Although adherents of the Romanian Orthodox Church, the Macedonskis traced their origin to Rogala bearing Lithuanian nobility from the defunct Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. While the writer perpetuated his father's claim, it is possible that he also took pride in investigating his Balkan roots: according to literary historian Tudor Vianu, who, as a youth, was a member of his circle, this tendency is attested by two of Macedonski's poems from the 1880s, where the South Slavs appear as icons of freedom. Vianu's contemporary, literary historian George Călinescu, postulated that, although the family had been absorbed into the ethnic and cultural majority, the poet's origin served to enrich local culture by linking it to a "Thracian" tradition and the spirit of "adventurers". The family moved often, following General Macedonski's postings. Born in Bucharest, Macedonski son was the third of four siblings, the oldest of whom was a daughter, Caterina. Before the age of six, he was a sickly and nervous child, who is reported to have had regular tantrums. In 1862, his father sent him to school in Oltenia, and he spent most time in the Amaradia region. The nostalgia he felt for the landscape later made him consider writing an Amărăzene ("Amaradians") cycle, of which only one poem was ever completed. Macedonski's father had by then become known as an authoritarian commander, and, during his time in Târgu Ocna, faced a mutiny which only his wife could stop by pleading with the soldiers (an episode which made an impression on the future poet). A stern parent, he took an active part in educating his children. Having briefly served as Defense Minister, the general was mysteriously dismissed by Cuza in 1863, and his pension became the topic of a political scandal. It ended only under the rule of Carol I, Cuza's Hohenzollern successor, when Parliament voted against increasing the sum to the level demanded by its recipient. Having preserved a negative impression of the 1866 plebiscite, during which Cuza's dethronement had been confirmed, Macedonski remained a committed opponent of the new ruler. As a youth and adult, he sought to revive his father's cause, and included allusions to the perceived injustice in at least one poem.

Macedonski left Romania in 1870, traveling through Austria Hungary and spending time in Vienna, before visiting Switzerland and possibly other countries; according to one account, it was here that he may have first met (and disliked) his rival poet Mihai Eminescu, at a time a Viennese student. Macedonski's visit was meant to be preparation for entering the University of Bucharest, but he spent much of his time in the bohemian environment, seeking entertainment and engaging in romantic escapades. He was however opposed to the lifestyle choices of people his age, claiming that they were engaged in "orgy after orgy". At around that date, the young author had begun to perfect a style heavily influenced by Romanticism, and in particular by his Wallachian predecessors Dimitrie Bolintineanu and Ion Heliade Rădulescu. He was for a while in Styria, at Bad Gleichenberg, a stay which, George Călinescu believes, may have been the result of a medical recommendation to help him counter excessive nervousness. The landscape there inspired him to write an ode. Also in 1870, he published his first lyrics in George Bariț's Transylvanian based journal Telegraful Român. The following year, he left for Italy, where he visited Pisa, Florence, Venice, and possibly other cities. His records of the journey indicate that he was faced with financial difficulties and plagued by disease. Macedonski also claimed to have attended college lectures in these cities, and to have spent significant time studying at Pisa University, but this remains uncertain. He eventually returned to Bucharest, where he entered the Faculty of Letters (which he never attended regularly). According to Călinescu, Macedonski "did not feel the need" to attend classes, because "such a young man will expect society to render upon him its homages." He was again in Italy during spring 1872, soon after publishing his debut volume Prima verba (Latin for "First Word"). Having also written an anti Carol piece, published in Telegraful Român during 1873, Macedonski reportedly feared political reprisals, and decided to make another visit to Styria and Italy while his case was being assessed. It was in Italy that he met French musicologist Jules Combarieu, with whom he corresponded sporadically over the following decades. During that period, Macedonski became interested in the political scene and political journalism, first as a sympathizer of the liberal radical current—which, in 1875, organized itself around the National Liberal Party. In 1874, back in Craiova, Macedonski founded a short lived literary society known as Junimea, a title which purposefully or unwittingly copied that of the influential conservative association with whom he would later quarrel. It was then that he met journalist and pedagogue Ștefan Velescu, a meeting witnessed by Velescu's pupil, the future liberal journalist Constantin Bacalbașa, who recorded it in his memoirs. Oltul magazine, which he had helped establish and which displayed a liberal agenda, continued to be published until July 1875, and featured Macedonski's translations from Pierre Jean de Béranger, Hector de Charlieu and Alphonse de Lamartine, as well as his debut in travel writing and short story. At age 22, he worked on his first play, a comedy titled Gemenii ("The Twins"). In 1874 that he came to the attention of young journalist future dramatist Ion Luca Caragiale, who satirized him in articles for the magazine Ghimpele, ridiculing his claim to Lithuanian descent, and eventually turning him into the character Aamsky, whose fictional career ends with his death from exhaustion caused by contributing to "for the country's political development". This was the first episode in a consuming polemic between the two figures. Reflecting back on this period in 1892, Macedonski described Caragiale as a "noisy young man" of "sophistic reasoning", whose target audience was to be found in "beer gardens".

In March 1875, Macedonski was arrested on charges of defamation or sedition. For almost a year before, he and Oltul had taken an active part in the campaign against Conservative Party and its leader, Premier Lascăr Catargiu. In this context, he had demanded that the common man "rise up with weapons in their hands and break both the government agents and the government", following up with similar messages aimed at the Domnitor. He was taken to Bucharest's Văcărești Prison and confined there for almost three months. Supported by the liberal press and defended by the most prestigious pro liberal attorneys (Nicolae Fleva among them), Macedonski faced a jury trial on 7 June, being eventually cleared of the charges. Reportedly, the Bucharest populace organized a spontaneous celebration of the verdict. In 1875, after the National Liberal Ion Emanuel Florescu was assigned the post of Premier by Carol, Macedonski embarked on an administrative career. The poet was upset by not being included on the National Liberal list for the 1875 suffrage. This disenchantment led him into a brief conflict with the young liberal figure Bonifaciu Florescu, only to join him soon afterward in editing Stindardul journal, alongside Pantazi Ghica and George Fălcoianu. The new cabinet eventually appointed him Prefect of Bolgrad region, in the Budjak (at the time part of Romania). In parallel, he published his first translation, a version of Parisina, an 1816 epic poem by Lord Byron, and completed the original works Ithalo and Calul arabului ("The Arab's Horse"). He also spoke at the Romanian Atheneum, presenting his views on the state of Romanian literature (1878). His time in office ended upon the outbreak of the Russo Turkish War. At the time, Russian volunteers were amassed on the Budjak border, requesting from the Romanian authorities the right of free passage into the Principality of Serbia. The National Liberal Premier Ion Brătianu, who was negotiating an anti Ottoman alliance, sent Macedonski signals to let them pass, but the prefect, obeying the official recommendation of Internal Affairs Minister George D. Vernescu, decided against it, and was consequently stripped of his office. Their history is connected with that of the Russo Turkish War, at the end of which Romanian participation on the Russian side resulted in her independence. Macedonski remained committed to the anti Ottoman cause, and, some thirty years later, stated: "We want no Turkey in Europe!" By 1879, the poet, who continued to voice criticism of Carol, had several times switched sides between the National Liberals and the opposition Conservatives.

With the 1880s came a turning point in Alexandru Macedonski's career. Vianu notes that changes took place in the poet's relationship with his public: "Society recognizes in him the nonconformist. [ ] The man becomes singular; people start talking about his oddities." Macedonski's presumed frustration at being perceived in this way, Vianu notes, may have led him closer to the idea of poète maudit, theorized earlier by Paul Verlaine. In this context, he had set his sight on promoting "social poetry", the merger between lyricism and political militantism. Meanwhile, according to Călinescu, his attacks on the liberals and the "daft insults he aimed at [Romania's] throne" had effectively ruined his own chance of political advancement. Florescu parted with the group soon after, due to a disagreement with Macedonski, and was later attacked by the latter for allegedly accumulating academic posts. Literatorul aimed to irritate Junimist sensibilities from its first issue, when it stated its dislike for "political prejudice in literature." This was most likely an allusion to the views of Junimist figure Titu Maiorescu, being later accompanied by explicit attacks on him and his followers. An early success for the new journal was the warm reception it received from Vasile Alecsandri, a Romantic poet and occasional Junimist whom Macedonski idolized at the time, and the collaboration of popular memoirist Gheorghe Sion. Another such figure was the intellectual V. A. Urechia, whom Macedonski made president of the Literatorul Society. In 1881, Education Minister Urechia granted Macedonski the Bene Merenti medal 1st class, although, Călinescu stresses, the poet had only totaled 18 months of public service. In parallel, Macedonski used the magazine to publicize his disagreement with the main Junimist voice, Convorbiri Literare. Among the group of contributors, several had already been victims of Maiorescu's irony: Sion, Urechia, Pantazi Ghica and Petru Grădișteanu. While welcoming the debut of its contributor, Parnassian Neoclassicist novelist and poet Duiliu Zamfirescu, However, Literatorul was also open to contributions from some Convorbiri Literare affiliates (Zamfirescu, Matilda Cugler Poni and Veronica Micle). In November 1880, Macedonski's plays Iadeș! ("Wishbone! ", a comedy first printed in 1882) and Unchiașul Sărăcie ("Old Man Poverty") premiered at the National Theater Bucharest. A sign of government approval, this was followed by Macedonski's appointment to a minor administrative office, as Historical Monuments Inspector. Nevertheless, both plays failed to impose themselves on public perception, and were withdrawn from the program by 1888. Călinescu asserts that, although Macedonski later claimed to have always been facing poverty, his job in the administration, coupled with other sources of revenue, ensured him a comfortable existence. In 1881, Macedonski published a new collection of poetry. Titled Poezii, it carries the year "1882" on its original cover. Again moving away from liberalism, Macedonski sought to make himself accepted by Junimea and Maiorescu. He consequently attended the Junimea sessions, and gave a public reading of Noaptea de noiembrie ("November Night"), the first publicized piece in his lifelong Nights cycle. It reportedly earned him the praise of historian and poet Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, who, although an anti Junimist, happened to be in the audience. Despite rumors according to which he had applauded Macedonski, Maiorescu himself was not impressed, and left an unenthusiastic account of the event in his private diary.

Macedonski's open conflict with Junimea began in 1882, when he engaged in a publicized polemic with Alecsandri. It was ignited when, through Macedonski's articles, Literatorul criticized Alecsandri for accepting Romanian Academy prizes despite being its member, and later involved Sion (whose replies on behalf of the academy were derided by Macedonski). Macedonski also took distance from Alecsandri's style, publishing a "critical analysis" of his poetry in one issue of Literatorul. In turn, Alecsandri humiliated his young rival by portraying him as Zoilus, the prototype of slanderers, and himself as the model poet Horace in the 1883 play Fântâna Blanduziei. The two were eventually reconciled, and Macedonski again spoke of Alecsandri as his ideological and stylistic predecessor. In April 1882, Eminescu had also replied to Macedonski in Timpul journal, referring to an unnamed poet who "barely finishes high school, comes over to Bucharest selling nick nacks and makeup [and goes into] literary dealership". Reproaching Macedonski's attacks on Alecsandri, Eminescu makes a nationalist comment about the young poet bearing "the bastard instincts of those foreigners who were Romanianized only yesterday", and attributes him "the physiognomy of a hairdresser". Through the articles of Petru Th. Missir, Convorbiri Literare gave Poezii a negative review, deemed "malevolent" by literary historian Mircea Anghelescu. At the other end of the political and cultural spectrum, Macedonski faced opposition from the intellectuals attracted to socialism, in particular Contemporanul editors Constantin Mille and Ioan Nădejde, with whom he was engaged in an extended polemic. In the meantime, Macedonski published his own play, which had Cuza for its main character and was eponymously titled Cuza Vodă, In 1883, he also contributed his first sketch story, Casa cu nr. 10 ("The House at Number 10"). In early 1883, he married Ana Rallet Slătineanu. Wealthy and supposedly related to Romanian aristocrats, she would bear him five children in all: the painter Alexis was the eldest, followed by Nikita; the three youngest were two sons (Panel and Constantin Macedonski) and a daughter, Anna (also known as Nina). His heterosexual lifestyle notwithstanding, Macedonski remained a self avowed admirer of male beauties, and was rumored to be a closeted homosexual. The intense anti Literatorul press campaign was initiated in August, when writer Grigore Ventura issued an article condemning Macedonski's attitude (published in the Bucharest based newspaper L'Indépendance Roumaine), with Macedonski responding in the National Liberal organ Românul. During one evening, Macedonski is reported to have been assaulted by anonymous supporters of Eminescu. His previous conflict with Nădejde was also affected by this renewed controversy: while opposed to Junimist policies, the socialists at Contemporanul voiced their admiration for Eminescu's art. Late in 1883, Macedonski and his friends unveiled Ion Georgescu's statue of their mentor Bolintineanu in the National Theater lobby. The circumstances in which this took place rose suspicion of foul play; on this grounds, Macedonski was ridiculed by his former friend Zamfirescu in the journal România Liberă, which left him embittered. Călinescu proposes that, although such negative reactions were invoked by Macedonski's supporters as a sign of their mentor having been marginalized, Macedonski had expressed his dissatisfaction with the cultural environment long before that moment, and was still a respected figure even after the incidents took place.

Having been stripped of his administrative office by the new Brătianu cabinet, Macedonski faced financial difficulties, and was forced to move into a house on the outskirts of Bucharest, and later moved between houses in northern Bucharest. According to Călinescu, the poet continued to cultivate luxury and passionately invested in the decorative arts, although his source of income, other than the supposed assistance "of [European] ruling houses", remains a mystery. Arguing that Macedonski was "always in need of money" to use on his luxury items, poet Victor Eftimiu claimed: "He did not shy away from sending emphatic notes to the potentates of his day [ ], flattering some, threatening others. He would marry off or simply mate some of his disciples with aging and rich women, and then he would squeeze out their assets." Macedonski eventually left Romania in 1884, visiting Paris. On his way there, he passed through Craiova, where he met aspiring author Traian Demetrescu, whose works he had already hosted in Literatorul and who was to become his friend and protégé. Demetrescu later recalled being gripped by "tremors of emotion" upon first catching sight of Macedonski. In France, Macedonski set up contacts within the French literary environment, and began contributing to French or Francophone literary publications—including the Belgian Symbolist platforms La Wallonie and L'Élan littéraire. His collaboration with La Wallonie alongside Albert Mockel, Tudor Vianu believes, makes Alexandru Macedonski one in the original wave of European Symbolists. This adaptation to Symbolism also drew on his marked Francophilia, which in turn complemented his tendencies toward cosmopolitanism. He became opposed to Carol I, who, in 1881, had been granted the Crown of the Romanian Kingdom. In addition to his admiration for Cuza and the 1848 Wallachian revolutionaries, the poet objected to the King's sympathy for France's main rival, the German Empire. In January 1885, after having returned from the voyage, he announced his retirement from public life, claiming that German influence and its exponents at Junimea had "conquered" Romanian culture, and repeating his claim that Eminescu lacked value. In the meantime, Literatorul went out of print, although new series were still published at irregular intervals until 1904 (when it ceased being published altogether). The magazine was reportedly hated by the public, causing Macedonski, Stoenescu, Florescu, Urechia and educator Anghel Demetriescu to try to revive it as Revista Literară ("The Literary Review", published for a few months in 1885). The poet attempted to establish other magazines, all of them short lived, and, in 1887, handed for print his Naturalist novella Dramă banală ("Banal Drama") while completing one of the most revered episodes in the Nights series, Noaptea de mai ("May Night"). Also in 1886, he worked on his other Naturalist novellas: Zi de august ("August Day"), Pe drum de poștă ("On the Stagecoach Trail"), Din carnetul unui dezertor ("From the Notebook of a Deserter"), Între cotețe ("Amidst Hen Houses") and the eponymous Nicu Dereanu. However, late in the same year, he returned to the liberal mainstream, being assigned a weekly column in Românul newspaper. Two years later, he attempted to relaunch Literatorul under the leadership of liberal figure Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, but the latter eventually settled for founding his own Revista Nouă. Around 1891, he saluted Junimeas own break with the Conservatives and its entry into politics at the Conservative Constitutional Party, before offering an enthusiastic welcome to the 1892 Junimist agitation among university students. His literary thesis of the time was titled Poezia viitorului ("The Poetry of the Future"). It upheld Symbolist authors as the models to follow, while Macedonski personally began producing what he referred to as "instrumentalist" poems, composed around musical and onomatopoeic elements, and showing a preference for internal rhymes. Such an experimental approach was soon after parodied and ridiculed by Ion Luca Caragiale, who had by then affiliated and parted with Junimea, in his new Moftul Român magazine. The poet sought to reconcile with his rival, publicizing a claim that Caragiale was being unjustly ignored by the cultural establishment, but this attempt failed to mend relations between them, and the conflict escalated further. While, in 1893, Literatorul hosted fragments of Thalassa in its Romanian language version, the author also launched a daily, Lumina ("The Light"). Two years later, the two Literatorul editors made headlines as pioneers of cycling. An enthusiastic promoter of the sport, Macedonski joined fellow poet Constantin Cantilli on a marathon, pedaling from Bucharest across the border into Austria Hungary, all the way down to Brașov.

Macedonski also returned with a new volume of poetry, Excelsior (consecutive editions in 1895 and 1896), and founded Liga Ortodoxă ("The Orthodox League"), a magazine noted for hosting the debut of Tudor Arghezi, later one of the most celebrated figures in Romanian literature. Macedonski commended his new protégé for reaching "the summit of poetry and art" at "an age when I was still prattling verses". Liga Ortodoxă also hosted articles against Caragiale, which Macedonski signed with the pseudonym Sallustiu ("Sallustius"). The magazine was additional proof of Macedonski's return to conservatism, and largely dedicated to defending the cause of Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan Ghenadie, deposed by the Romanian Synod following a political scandal. It defended Ghenadie up until he chose to resign, and subsequently went out of print. Macedonski was shocked to note that Ghenadie had given up his own defense. In 1895, his Casa cu nr. 10 was translated into French by the Journal des Débats, whose editors reportedly found it picturesque. Although it was positively reviewed by Mercure de France magazine, Bronzes was largely unnoticed by the French audience, a fact which Tudor Vianu attributes to Bogdan Pitești's lack of qualification for the cultural mission Macedonski had trusted him with. By that time, his circle had come to be frequented with regularity by Bogdan Pitești's friend and collaborator, the celebrated painter Ștefan Luchian, who was in the Symbolist and Art Nouveau stage of his career. By 1898, Macedonski was again facing financial difficulties, and his collaborators resorted to organizing a fundraiser in his honor. His rejection of the Orthodox establishment was documented by his political tract, published that year as Falimentul clerului ortodox. Traian Demetrescu, who recorded his visits with Macedonski, recalled his former mentor being opposed to his positivist take on science, claiming to explain the workings of the Universe in "a different way", through "imagination", but also taking an interest in Camille Flammarion's astronomy studies. Macedonski was determined to interpret death through parapsychological means, and, in 1900, conferenced at the Atheneum on the subject Sufletul și viața viitoare ("The Soul and the Coming Life"). The focal point of his vision was that man could voluntarily stave off death with words and gestures, a concept he elaborated upon in his later articles. In one such piece, Macedonski argued: "man has the power [ ] to compact the energy currents known as thoughts to the point where he changes them, according to his own will, into objects or soul bearing creatures." He also attempted to build a machine for extinguishing chimney fires. Later, Nikita Macedonski registered the invention of nacre treated paper, which is sometimes attributed to his father.

The few issues of Literatorul that were printed in 1899 1900 saw the circle being joined by the young Symbolist poet Ștefan Petică. This he did by hosting the articles of aspiring journalist Constantin Al. Ionescu Caion, who accused Caragiale of having plagiarized a Hungarian author by the name of Kemény in his tragedy play Năpasta. Kemény turned out to be non existent. According to Vianu, Macedonski had no prior knowledge of the fraud, but had also been "blinded" by his resentments instead of displaying "discernment", and had even showed evidence of "insanity". Most in Macedonski's own series of anti Caragiale articles were unsigned, or signed with pseudonyms such as Luciliu ("Gaius Lucilius"). Like in the case of Eminescu's conflict with Macedonski, the polemic enlisted a negative response from the public. The poet's associate Th. M. Stoenescu convinced himself that Caragiale was being framed, and refused to allow Revista Literară to be used for endorsing Caion, which caused Macedonski to shun him. Macedonski refused to withdraw his support for the cause even after Caragiale sued Caion, but Forța Morală soon went out of print. Before it did so, the journal hosted some of Macedonski's most renowned poems, including Lewki and Noaptea de decemvrie ("December Night"), together with his article on Remy de Gourmont's thoughts on poetics. In his article of 1903, titled Spre ocultism. Orientări ulterioare spre teozofie și filozofie socială ("Toward Occultism. Later Orientations toward Theosophy and Social Philosophy"), the poet envisaged making his interest in esoteric subjects the basis of a new literary movement. Also that year, poet George Bacovia began attending the literary circle, and gave a reading of his celebrated Plumb poem, being welcomed by Macedonski with a flattering epigram. Macedonski's series of short lived periodicals resumed in 1905, when he founded Le Beau Danube Bleu (French for "The Beautiful Blue Danube") and Liga Conservatoare ("The Conservative League"). He registered more success in 1906, when his Thalassa was published, as Le Calvaire de feu, by Edward Sansot's Paris based publishing house. This followed intense self promotion within the French literary environment, as well as advertisements in the French press. Part of this involved Macedonski sending his book to be reviewed by Émile Faguet, Jean Mounet Sully, Joséphin Péladan, Pierre Quillard and Jean Richepin, who replied with what Vianu deems "the politeness of circumstance." The volume was nonetheless favorably reviewed by the prestigious magazines Mercure de France and Gil Blas. Also in 1906, La Revue Musicale published his interview with Combarieu, through which the latter aimed to verify supposed connections between literary inspiration and musical sensitivity. By 1907, he was concentrating on experiments in physics, and eventually publicized his claim to have discovered that light does not travel through vacuum. He sent a paper on astronomy subjects to be reviewed by the Société Astronomique de France, of which he subsequently became a member. Between 1910 and 1912, Macedonski was again in Paris. Seeking to withdraw himself from Romania's public life due to what he perceived as injustice, he had by then completed work on the French language tragicomedy Le Fou? ("The Madman? "), which was only published after his death. He was actively seeking to establish his reputation in French theater, reading his new play to a circle which included Louis de Gonzague Frick and Florian Parmentier, while, at home, newspapers reported rumors that his work was going to be staged by Sarah Bernhardt's company. His efforts were largely fruitless, and, accompanied by his son Alexis, the poet left France, spent some time in Italy, and eventually returned to Romania. Passing through the German Empire, he learned of Ion Luca Caragiale's sudden death, and wrote Adevărul daily an open letter, which showed that he had come to revise his stance, notably comparing the deceased author's style and legacy to those of Mark Twain. During Macedonski's absence, his style and work had come to be reviewed more positively, in particular by the young authors I. Dragoslav, Horia Furtună, Ion Pillat, Anastasie Mândru, Al. T. Stamatiad, as well as by post Junimist critic Mihail Dragomirescu, who offered Macedonski a good reception in his Convorbiri Critice magazine. Tudor Vianu, who cites contemporary statements by Dragoslav, concludes that, upon arrival, Macedonski was enthusiastically received by a public who had missed him. Around that time, Macedonski also collaborated with the Iași based moderate Symbolist magazine Versuri și Proză. Polemics surrounding his case nevertheless continued: in late 1912, as part of a National Theater adaptation of Alphonse Daudet's Sapho, actor Cazimir Belcot borrowed from Macedonski's appearance and mannerisms to portray a failure.

Macedonski and his protégés had become regular frequenters of Bucharest cafés. Having a table permanently reserved for him at Imperial Hotel's Kübler Coffeehouse, he was later a presence in two other such establishments: High Life and Terasa Oteteleșanu. He is said to have spent part of his time at Kübler loudly mocking the traditionalist poets who gathered at an opposite table. Meanwhile, the poet's literary club, set up at his house in Dorobanți quarter, had come to resemble a mystical circle, over which he held magisterial command. Vianu, who visited the poet together with Pillat, compares this atmosphere with those created by other "mystics and magi of poetry" (citing as examples Joséphin Péladan, Louis Nicolas Ménard, Stéphane Mallarmé and Stefan George). Macedonski himself was seated on a throne designed by Alexis, and adopted a dominant pose. The apparent secrecy and the initiation rites performed on new members were purportedly inspired by Rosicrucianism and the Freemasonry. By then, Macedonski was rewarding his followers' poems with false gemstones. The poet founded Revista Critică ("The Critical Review"), which again closed after a short while, and issued the poetry volume Flori sacre ("Sacred Flowers"). Grouping his Forța Morală poems and older pieces, it was dedicated to his new generation of followers, whom Macedonski's preface referred to as "the new Romania." He continued to hope that Le Fou? was going to be staged in France, especially after he received some encouragement in the form of articles in Mercure de France and Journal des Débats, but was confronted with the general public's indifference. which sought to revive overall interest in his work. At a French Red Cross conference in September, Macedonski paid his final public homage to France, which had just become entangled in World War I. It was also in 1914 that Macedonski commissioned for print his very first rondels and completed work on a tragedy play about Renaissance poet Dante Aligheri—known as La Mort de Dante in its French original, and Moartea lui Dante in the secondary Romanian version (both meaning "Dante's Death"). The aging poet was by then building connections with the local art scene: together with artist Alexandru Severin, he created (and probably presided over) Cenaclul idealist ("The Idealist Club"), which included Symbolist artists and was placed under the honorary patronage of King Carol. 1916 was also the year when Romania abandoned her neutrality and, under a National Liberal government, rallied with the Entente Powers. During the neutrality period, Macedonski had shed his lifelong Francophilia to join the Germanophiles, who wanted to see Romanian participation on the Central Powers' side. In 1915, he issued the journal Cuvântul Meu ("My Word"). Entirely written by him, it published ten consecutive issues before going bankrupt, and notably lashed out against France for being "bourgeois" and "lawyer filled", demanding from Romania not to get involved in the conflict. Commentators and researchers of his work have declared themselves puzzled by this change in allegiance. Macedonski further alienated public opinion during the Romanian Campaign, when the Central Powers armies entered southern Romania and occupied Bucharest. Alexis was drafted and became a war artist, but Macedonski Sr, who received formal protection from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bucharest, chose to stay behind while the authorities and many ordinary citizens relocated to Iași, where resistance was still being organized. His stance was interpreted as collaborationism by his critics. However, Macedonski reportedly faced extreme poverty throughout the occupation. Having by then begun to attend the circle of Alexandru Bogdan Pitești, his promoter and fellow Germanophile, he was once rewarded by the latter with a turkey filled with gold coins.

Literatorul resumed print in June 1918, once Romania capitulated to the Central Powers under the Treaty of Bucharest. A controversial incident occurred soon afterwards, when, going against the counsel of his friend and collaborator Stamatiad, Macedonski signed a Literatorul article where the German military administrator August von Mackensen, who was about to lead his troops out of Romania, was presented in a positive light. In a manner deemed "excessive" by historian Lucian Boia, the Romanian writer was paying homage not just to Mackensen, but also, indirectly, to German Emperor Wilhelm II and the Reichsheer. Soon after reading the piece, Romanian Academy member and fellow Symbolist promoter Ovid Densusianu withdrew his own nomination of Macedonski for an academy seat. During summer, Macedonski also joined the group of public figures who saluted the senior Conservative Germanophile Petre P. Carp (deeming Carp "the veteran of character, honesty and Romanianism"), and, in September, joined Ioan Slavici and Gala Galaction as a contributor to the occupation magazine Rumänien in Wort und Bild, where he prophesied an anti French "political renaissance" of Romania. Alexandru Macedonski faced problems after the Romanian government resumed its control over Bucharest, and during the early years of Greater Romania. What followed the Mackensen article, Vianu claims, was Macedonski's bellum contra omnes ("war against all"). Macedonski also envisaged running in the 1918 election for a seat in the new Parliament (which was supposed to vote a document to replace the 1866 Constitution as the organic law), but never registered his candidature. According to Vianu, he had intended to create a joke political party, the "intellectual group", whose other member was an unnamed coffeehouse acquaintance of his. Literatorul was revived for a final time in 1919. By that stage, Vianu recalls, Macedonski also had problems coming to terms with his age. His last anthumous work was the pamphlet Zaherlina (named after the Romanian version of "Zacherlin"; also known as Zacherlina or Zacherlina în continuare, "Zacherlin Contd. "), completed in 1919 and published the following year. It notably attacked Densusianu, who had become Macedonski's personal enemy. The writer died on 24 November, at three o'clock in the afternoon. Having come to develop an addiction to floral fragrances, he was inhaling a rose petal extract during his last hours. He was buried in Bucharest's Bellu. Traian Demetrescu too recalled that his mentor had been dreaming of becoming a visual artist, and had eventually settled for turning his son Alexis into one. Following the tenets of Dimitrie Bolintineanu and Théophile Gautier, the writer repeatedly called for purity in versification, and upheld it as an essential requirement, while progressively seeking to verify the quality of his poetry through phonaesthetics. A characteristic of Macedonski's style is his inventive use of Romanian. Initially influenced by Ion Heliade Rădulescu's introduction of Italian based words to the Romanian lexis, Macedonski himself later infused poetic language with a large array of neologisms from several Romance sources. Likewise, Vianu notes, Macedonski had a tendency for comparing nature with the artificial, the result of this being a "document" of his values. Macedonski's language alternated neologisms with barbarisms, many of which were coined by him personally. They include claviculat ("clavicled", applied to a shoulder), împălăriată ("enhatted", used to define a crowd of hat wearing tourists), and ureichii (instead of urechii, "to the ear" or "of the ear"). His narratives nevertheless take an interest in recording direct speech, used as a method of characterization. However, Călinescu criticizes Macedonski for using a language which, "although grammatically correct [ ], seems to have been learned only recently", as well as for not following other Romanian writers in creating a lasting poetic style. Vianu, who notes Macedonski's "exclusivity" and "fanaticism", places such statements in connection with Macedonski's personal ambition, "pride" and "the willingness to carry out ventured actions [ ], in stated opposition with the entire surrounding and with contempt for the foreseeable reaction." Almost all periods of Macedonski's work reflect, in whole or in part, his public persona and the polemics he was involved in. George Călinescu's emits a verdict on the relation between his lifetime notoriety and the public's actual awareness of his work: "Macedonski [was] a poet well known for being an unknown poet." Having theorized once, while questioning Junimist rigor, that "the logic of poetry is absurdity itself [italics in the original]", the poet also said: "Poetry is the chaos of spirit and matter, of the cries of distress and mad laughter. From the sublime to the trivial, that is what it should be." He later revised part of this verdict, and, making explicit his adoption of aestheticism, spoke against trivial subjects and in favor of the sublime. While Macedonski also discarded the concept of "social poetry" not long after postulating it, its spirit, Tudor Vianu believes, can still be found in his later contributions. This, the critic notes, was owed to his "social temperament", whose "fundamental experience is that of the social." Discussing this sociable and extrovert character, other critics see in the poet's life and work the imprint of "quixotism". Also according to Vianu, this contrasted with Macedonski's failures in communicating with the public, an experience which made him "misanthropic" and contributed to his ultimate vision of death as freedom. Literary historian Pompiliu Constantinescu concluded: "Macedonski could not resign; his one martyrdom was for Art, as the sole liberation from a tormented life." Other commentators have defined the poet's perspective on life as a result of "neurosis". In respect to the latter characteristic, Vianu notes "no one in Romanian literature has laughed the same way as Macedonski", whereas critic Ștefan Cazimir argues: "[Macedonski was] lacking the sense of relativity in principles, and implicitly a sense of humor." Cazimir adds: "Only when he aged did [Macedonski] learn to smile". George Călinescu himself believes Macedonski to have been "fundamentally a spiritual man with lots of humor", speculating that he was able to see the "uselessness" of his own scientific ventures. Tudor Vianu believes "failure in reaching originality" and reliance on "soppy conventional attributes of the day" to be especially evident wherever Macedonski tried to emulate epic poetry. He also notes that Macedonski's love themed pieces "cannot be listed among [his] most fortunate". At his best, commentators note, he was one of the Romanian literature's classics. Macedonski is thus perceived as the author second only to Eminescu, and as his ideal counterpart—a relation Vianu describes as "the internal dualism [confronting] two familiar gods". Various critics have compared Eminescu's poetic discourse with that of the Symbolist leader, concluding that the two poets often display very similar attitudes. Călinescu writes that, while Macedonski's work is largely inferior to that of his Junimist rival, it forms the best "reply" ever conceived within their common setting.

Late in his life, Macedonski had come to reject Symbolist tenets, defining them as "imbecilities" designed for "the uncultured". The rondels written at this stage, known collectively as Poema rondelurilor, are one of the first instances where the technique is used locally. Like those written previously by Literatoruls Pavelescu and Alexandru Obedenaru, they are based on an earlier motif present in Macedonski's work, that of recurring refrains. Many of the pieces document the poet's final discoveries. One of them is Rondelul crinilor ("The Rondel of the Lilies"), which proclaims fragrances as the source of beatitude: În crini e beția cea rară, "In lilies one finds that exceptional drunkenness". The poet's take on life is also outlined in his final play, Moartea lui Dante. Călinescu writes that, by then, Macedonski was "obsessed" with the Divine Comedy. Macedonski identifies with his hero, Dante Aligheri, and formulates his own poetic testament while identifying World War I Romania with the medieval Republic of Florence. Tudor Vianu remarks: "In Dante's great self pride, Macedonski found his own." He sees the play as the best such work to have been produced by Macedonski, whereas Călinescu deems it "puerile". A number of rondels show Macedonski's late fascination with the Far East, China and Japan. George Călinescu believes that this is to be understood as one item in a large antithesis, the other being Decadent Paris, which one rondel describes as "hell". With the exception of Mihail Dragomirescu, conservative literary critics tended to ignore Macedonski while he was alive. The first such figure was Junimeas Titu Maiorescu, who believed him to be a minor author, referring to him only a couple of times in his books and usually ridiculing him in his articles. One of these texts, the 1886 essay Poeți și critici ("Poets and Critics"), spoke of Macedonski as having "vitiated" poetry, a notion he also applied to Constantin D. Aricescu and Aron Densușianu. Especially radical pronouncements were left by the traditionalist authors Ilarie Chendi and Nicolae Iorga. Chendi wrote of Macedonski being "the caricature of a man", having "a feverish mind" and being motivated by "the brutal instinct of revenge". Iorga, who became better known as a historian, later retracted some of the statements he had made against the poet during the 1890s. Although more sympathetic to the Symbolist author, both Dragomirescu and Gheorghe Adamescu tended to describe him as exclusively the product of French and Decadent literature,

According to Tudor Vianu, Macedonski's intellectual friends (among them Anghel Demetriescu, George Ionescu Gion, Bonifaciu Florescu, Grigore Tocilescu and V. A. Urechia) were largely responsible for passing down "a better and truer image of the abused poet." It was also due to Dragomirescu that Noaptea de decemvrie was included in a literature textbook for final grade high school students, which some argue is the poet's first ever presence in the Romanian curriculum. According to historian Lucian Nastasă, the poet's wife Ana Rallet behaved like an "excellent secretary" while Macedonski was still alive, and thereafter helped sort and edit his manuscript while maintaining "an actual cult" for her husband. Macedonski's cosmopolitan circle was the center of a literary alternative to the prevailing conservatism and Eminescu like traditionalism of the day, the latter tendency being grouped around Sămănătorul magazine for part of Macedonski's lifetime. While Macedonski himself maintained his links with Romanticism and Classicism, commentators have retrospectively recognized in him the main person who announced Romania's first wave in modernist literature. Many first generation disciples were to part with his guidelines early on, either by radicalizing their Symbolism or by stepping out of its confines. Traian Demetrescu was one of the first to do so, focusing on his commitment to socialism—Vianu notes that the split took place "without coldness and the heart's versatility" on Macedonski's part. Literary researcher Lidia Bote argues that it was Petică who first illustrated mature Symbolism, emancipating himself from Macedonski's eclectic tendencies after 1902. By that time, the Symbolist authors Dimitrie Anghel and N. D. Cocea used Macedonski's fantasy prose as an inspiration for their own, and N. Davidescu was borrowing from his mystical discourse. The pictorial and joyous elements in Macedonski's poems were also serving to inspire Stamatiad, Eugeniu Ștefănescu Est and Horia Furtună. In the early stages of his career, Ion Pillat wrote pieces which echo his master's choice of exotic themes. A more discreet legacy of Macedonski's ideas was also preserved inside the conservative and traditionalist camps. Although his separation from Literatorul was drastic, and led him to rally with Junimea, Duiliu Zamfirescu built on some elements borrowed from the magazine's ideology, incorporating them into his literary vision. Many of Macedonski's most devoted disciples, whom he himself had encouraged, have been rated by various critics as secondary or mediocre. This is the case of Theodor Cornel (who made his name as an art critic), Mircea Demetriade, Oreste Georgescu, Alexandru Obedenaru, Another such minor author was the self styled "hermeticist" Alexandru Petroff, who expanded on Macedonski's ideas about esoteric knowledge. Alexis later experimented with scenic design as an assistant to French filmmaker René Clair; his later life, shrouded in mystery and intrigue, led him to a career in Fascist Italy and Francoist Spain. Two years after her father's death, Anna Macedonski married poet Mihail Celarianu. In addition to his polemical portrayals in works by Alecsandri, Eminescu and Caragiale, Macedonski's career was an inspiration for various authors. His image acquired mythical proportions for his followers. Like Demetrescu, many of them left memoirs on Macedonski which were published before or after his death. His admirers were writing poetry about him as early as 1874, and, in 1892, Cincinat Pavelescu published a rhapsodizing portrait of Macedonski as "the Artist". Pavelescu, Dragoslav and Petică paid homage to the writer by leaving recollections which describe him as a devoted and considerate friend. In contrast, traditionalist poet Alexandru Vlahuță authored an 1889 sketch story in which Macedonski (referred to as Polidor) is the object of derision.

Actual recognition of the poet as a classic came only in the interwar period. A final volume of never before published poems, Poema rondelurilor, saw print in 1927. but overall, Călinescu asserts, his opinions on the subject gave little insight into what he actually thought about the poet. He also recounts that Macedonski himself treated Lovinescu with disdain, and once called him "a canary". and Ion Minulescu. The latter was particularly indebted to Macedonski in matters of vision and language. In 1904, Tudor Arghezi also left behind the Literatorul circle and its tenets, eventually arriving to the fusion of modernist, traditionalist and avant garde elements. However, he remained indebted to Macedonski's example in his descriptive prose. The 1912 Simbolul magazine, which moved between conventional Symbolism and the emerging avant garde, also published an Imagist inspired parody of Noaptea de mai, signed by Adrian Maniu. A co founder of Dadaism during the late 1910s, Tristan Tzara is believed by Swedish researcher Tom Sandqvist to have been inspired more or less directly by Macedonski, and in particular by the latter's thoughts on the relation between absurdity and poetry. In his debut poems, Benjamin Fondane Barbu Fundoianu occasionally followed Macedonski, but, by 1920, stated that the Symbolist doyen merely imitated French models to the point of "parasitism". Several avant garde authors returned to Macedonski's literary guidelines by the late 1920s, as they themselves grew more moderate. This was the case of Maniu and Ion Vinea, both of whom published prose works in the line of Thalassa. The same work is also believed to have influenced two non avant garde authors, Davidescu and Mateiu Caragiale, who remained close to the tenets Symbolism. In the same post Symbolist generation, Celarianu (Macedonski's posthumous son in law), and Păstorel Teodoreanu also built on Macedonski's legacy, being later joined in this by the Bessarabian linguist Eugenio Coșeriu (who, in his early poetic career, imitated Macedonski's rondel style). In the late 1920s, when their form of modern psalms inspired Albanian Romanian poet Aleksander Stavre Drenova, Macedonski and Arghezi both made an indirect impact on Albanian literature. Macedonski's status as one of Romanian literature's greats was consolidated later in the 20th century. By this time, Noaptea de decemvrie had become one of the most recognizable literary works to be taught in Romanian schools. A while after this episode, Marin Sorescu, one of the best known modernist poets of his generation, wrote a homage parody of the Nights cycle. Included in the volume Singur între poeți ("Alone among Poets"), it is seen by critic Mircea Scarlat as Sorescu's most representative such pieces. Also then, Noaptea de decemvrie partly inspired Ștefan Augustin Doinaș' ballad Mistrețul cu colți de argint. while Pavel Șușară adapted his rondels to a modernized setting. Macedonski's prose also influenced younger writers such as Angelo Mitchievici and Anca Maria Mosora. In neighboring Moldova, Macedonski influenced the Neosymbolism of Aureliu Busuioc. A magazine by the name of Literatorul, which claims to represent the legacy of Macedonski's publication, was founded in Romania in 1991, being edited by writers Sorescu, Fănuș Neagu and Mircea Micu. In 2006, the Romanian Academy granted posthumous membership to Alexandru Macedonski. Macedonski's poems had a sizable impact on Romania's popular culture. During communism, Noaptea de mai was the basis for a successful musical adaptation, composed by Marian Nistor and sung by Mirabela Dauer. Tudor Gheorghe, a singer songwriter inspired by American folk revival, also used some of Macedonski's texts as lyrics to his melodies. In the 2000s, the refrain of Noaptea de mai was mixed into a manea parody by Adrian Copilul Minune.

Although his poetic theories were largely without echoes in Romanian art, Macedonski captured the interest of several modern artists, including, early on, cartoonist Nicolae Petrescu Găină. Alongside other writers who visited Terasa Oteteleșanu, Macedonski was notably portrayed the drawings of celebrated Romanian artist Iosif Iser. Thalassa, Le Calvaire de feu inspired a series of reliefs, designed by Alexis Macedonski and hosted in his father's house in Dorobanți. In 1975, a bust of Macedonski, the work of Constantin Foamete, was unveiled in Craiova. Several streets named in honor of Alexandru Macedonski, notably in Bucharest (by the ASE), Craiova, Cluj Napoca and Timișoara.