The Symbolic Polysemy of the Chronotope in Dramatic Adaptations of the Myth of Master Manole

This paper aims to explore how the bakhtinian concept of chronotope takes shape in two dramatic versions of one of the most important myths in Romanian culture, namely the myth of Master Manole. The comparative perspective will simultaneously examine the symbolic implications of time and space in the dramatic works of Lucian Blaga and Valeriu Anania, highlighting both the convergences and the differences that emerge in the process of each author’s reworking of the myth. As a starting point for this comparative analysis, we will first and foremost consider the implications of Blaga’s concept of the matrix space, understood as a primordial ontological dimension – a space naturally suited to the enactment of foundational acts, such as the raising of the monastery. Within such a framework, each element bears the imprint of an abyssal aesthetic vocation, which, inevitably, generates symbolic shifts throughout the entire dramatic imaginary. In this manner, we may trace the transfiguration of the details shaping the spatio-temporal horizon and, at the same time, their investiture with symbolic meanings that capture each author’s distinctive perspective on the world refracted through the myth of Master Manole. Moreover, it should be noted that both interpretive paths draw upon Lotman’s theory of the semantic cultural type, which is why the hermeneutic analysis can demonstrate that existence transcends the boundaries of historical time and the constraints of the concrete, operating solely within the spirit of a fertile symbolic polysemy. For Blaga, this symbolic redefinition of the world comes to shape a dramatic imaginary in which the dialectic between beginning and end becomes the very axis of the creation. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the conception of the monastery’s space as a cursed place, opening toward the earth’s depths and the infernal, yet equally imbued with a profound theophanic symbolism of the center, through which — in a paradoxical turn — it acquires the role of mediator between the sacred and the profane, marked by its upward gaze toward the celestial realms. In Valeriu Anania’s text, the conception of space is defined by a twofold process: the interiorization of ontological tension and its symbolic projection into the chronotope of the dramatic imaginary. We are no longer talking strictly of hierophany as an external process, with symbolic materialization outside the creator, but rather of an inner act of awareness of one’s own spiritual imbalance — a hermeneutic framework that allows us, in a more Jungian spirit, to perceive the space of the monastery as a metaphor for the ideal of purification, of reaching the absolute creative consciousness. Thus, the paper moves beyond the concrete and tangible dimension of the chronotope, pursuing a hermeneutic reading that addresses both the apocalyptic–cosmogonic dialectic in Blaga’s drama and the representation of space as a symbolic projection of the inner decay in Anania’s dramatic poem.