Dimitrie Anghel
Who was Dimitrie Anghel?
Romanian poet (1872–1914)
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Dimitrie Anghel (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Dimitrie Anghel (July 16, 1872 – November 13, 1914) was a Romanian poet with Aromanian roots from his father's side, born in Cornești. He studied at the University of Paris, where he was exposed to French symbolism and decadent poetry, shaping his literary style. His first poem was published in the Romanian literary journal Contemporanul in 1890, marking the start of his writing career, which, though productive, was sadly short.
He started his editing career in 1903 with "Traduceri din Paul Verlaine," a volume of translations that showed his grasp of French and admiration for the symbolist movement. He followed this with his own poetry collection "În grădină" in 1905 and "Fantazii" in 1909. Much of his work was done with fellow poet Ștefan Octavian Iosif. Together, they created the dramatic poem "Legenda funigeilor" (1907), the comedy "Cometa" (1908), "Caleidoscopul lui A. Mirea" (1908), and the historical poem "Carmen saeculare" (1909), published in 1910.
In the last years of his life, around 1911, Anghel turned more towards prose. This period saw the creation of "Povestea celor necăjiți" (1911), "Fantome" (1911), "Oglinda fermecată" (1912), "Triumful vieții" (1912), and "Steluța" (1913), expanding his literary work beyond poetry. This late shift showed a writer still evolving artistically, even as his personal life became more complicated.
Anghel's personal life got tangled with Iosif's when he fell in love with Iosif's wife, Natalia Negru. She left and divorced Iosif, marrying Anghel in November 1911. Their relationship was stormy. In the fall of 1914, during a fight, Anghel fired what he meant as a warning shot at Negru, slightly wounding her. Thinking he had killed her, he shot himself in the chest. The wound got infected, and he died of sepsis two weeks later in Iași on November 13, 1914.
Anghel was buried at Eternitatea Cemetery in Iași. At his funeral, an unidentified woman allegedly shouted at Negru, "You miserable woman, who kills all the country's great people!" This incident highlighted the public's strong feelings about his talent and his tragic death. He was forty-two years old.
Before Fame
Dimitrie Anghel was born on July 16, 1872, in Cornești, Romania. His family had Aromanian roots on his father's side. The Aromanian community, a Romance-speaking group across the Balkans, had been part of Romanian cultural and intellectual life for a long time, and Anghel grew up with this mixed heritage. He attended the University of Paris, joining a generation of Romanian intellectuals who looked to France for literary and philosophical ideas.
While in Paris, he experienced the peak of the French symbolist movement, which focused on musicality, imagery, and introspection, and it strongly influenced his poetry. His first published poem appeared in Contemporanul in 1890, a journal that was important for Romanian literary modernism. These early years, split between Romanian roots and French intellectual culture, gave Anghel a dual perspective that set his work apart from many of his peers.
Key Achievements
- Published Traduceri din Paul Verlaine (1903), an influential Romanian translation of French symbolist poetry
- Authored the poetry collections În grădină (1905) and Fantazii (1909), central works of Romanian symbolist verse
- Co-authored multiple works with Ștefan Octavian Iosif, including the dramatic poem Legenda funigeilor (1907) and the historical poem Carmen saeculare (1909)
- Contributed a significant body of prose fiction in his final years, including Oglinda fermecată (1912) and Triumful vieții (1912)
- Introduced Romanian readers to Paul Verlaine's symbolist aesthetics through translation and original work influenced by the French school
Did You Know?
- 01.Anghel's first published poem appeared in Contemporanul in 1890, when he was approximately eighteen years old.
- 02.His editorial debut was a translation volume of Paul Verlaine's poetry, published in 1903, reflecting his deep engagement with French symbolism.
- 03.Anghel shot himself believing he had killed his wife during a quarrel in 1914, but she had only been lightly wounded; he died of a subsequent infection, not the shot itself.
- 04.At his funeral at Eternitatea Cemetery in Iași, an unknown woman in the crowd publicly blamed his widow Negru for his death in a dramatic outburst.
- 05.A substantial portion of his creative output was written in collaboration with poet Ștefan Octavian Iosif, the same man whose wife Anghel later married.