CNTDR 2011

Ion Pillat, a religious poet?

Motto: ‘And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all face of the earth
(…) that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not
far from every one of us. For in him we live, and move, and have our being.’ (Holy Bible, King James
version, Acts, Chapter 17, verses 26-28)

Various volumes have been published in the last two decades regarding
Romanian religious poetry, the authors trying in the forewords and even in the
selection of certain names to define the concept, to classify the diversified
material and to sketch the specific features of this distinct lyric poetry. Beyond
small inevitable subjective differences and theoretical delimitations, the
fundamental question raised by all of them was what criterion should be used in
selecting religious poets and poems. For instance, an anthology lacks important
names such as Eminescu, Arghezi, Blaga or Voiculescu, the authors arguing that
they took into account ‘poems written exclusively by Christian practitioners,
most of them having been imprisoned’; Valeriu Anania found it difficult to refer
to Blaga as to a religious poet for ‘he only uses religious properties and
requisites, borrowing biblical symbols, moments or characters and sometimes a
certain language’; V. Alecsandri is absent in most of the anthologies as he was
little concerned with religion and yet Florentin Popescu includes him in his
anthology for a conventional poem written on Easter. One can find Ion Pillat in
almost all the anthologies published after 1990, among other inter-war poets
especially those gathered around ‘Gândirea’ magazine. The titles often chosen
are predictable: those belonging to volumes like Biserică de altădată (The
Church of Yore) and mainly those included in the cycles Povestea Maicii
Domnului (The Story of Mother of God) and Chipuri pentru o Evanghelie
(Characters for a Gospel), i.e. all declaratively Christian and traditional poems
rather simple and childish, comparable to naïve painting. Can we consider Ion
Pillat a religious poet taking into account only these ‘obviously Christian’
examples? Aren’t there any other clues of authentic spiritual experience in other
poems or volumes than those too often mentioned? These are but a few obscure
doubts which lead us to the same major question faced also by the authors of the
anthologies we were referring to at the beginning of the article: what are the true
features of a religious poet? Could it be the existence of a number of poems with
a biblical instrumentation or tackling religious themes? If so, many of them
could be mere versifying lines or pious attitudes. On the other hand is there a
conventional Easter or Christmas poem a religious one by all means and vice-
versa isn’t there religious a non declarative Christian poem which possesses a
certain metaphysical shiver though? Ion Buzaşi in the foreword to his anthology
of Romanian Religious poetry (Dacia Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca, 2003)
specifies: ‘Beside poets who are religious by definition, as Dumitru Staniloae
would have said, such as Nichifor Crainic, V. Voiculescu, Radu Gyr, our
anthology intends to show there is a sort of diffuse religiosity within the works
of some other poets and also that religious poetry does not mean only those lyric
works which have explicitly religious titles and biblical inspiration, but also
those which express a Christian feeling’. Similarly our article intends to
substantiate that apart from the often mentioned and obviously religious verses
Ion Pillat was a poet and a man in search for the Absolute, this very feverish
seek followed by a true clarification of his mind and soul defining him as a true
religious poet, even if this might be labeled as diffuse religiosity. It is well-
known that long before literary critique’s point of view the poet himself divided
his own creation into three distinct stages1: the first or his youth stage influenced

1
Both in his Confessions and the author’s edition of his works published at Fundaţiile Regale in 1944.
by Parnassianism and Symbolism, the second or his mature stage defined as
traditionalist and the third occurring towards the end of his short life2, a (neo)
classical one. This poetic path is doubled by a spiritual one which can be easily
described: from ignorance to cognition, from doubt to certainty, from Illusions
to Balanced Scales3.
Let us take a closer look to his first stage of creation. If we were guided
by appearances it would seem significant for our approach that Ion Pillat begins
his poetic career by writing two poems both entitled In the Cathedral. One was
written in December 1906 and refers to Notre Dame de Chartres, the other one
dated 1907 being inspired by Notre Dame de Paris. In fact we experience
exterior descriptive and rather conventional poems engendered by the
fascination for Western art and architecture recently discovered in his first
dwelling years in France. And yet one can find few clues about his spiritual
status even in these first shallow poems. There is on one hand a bookish
pessimism originated in Eminescu’s works constantly frequented by the young
admirer, on the other hand a lamentation over the unfaithful and meaningless
Present when compared to a Past rich in faith:

‘Norod din veacuri stinse, credeai în veşnicie –

Din viaţa ta îngustă prin rugă te scăpai
Şi mistic catedrala în aer înălţai
Spre a uita-n văzduhuri a lutului domnie.

Azi am pierdut credinţa în tine, Nemurire!

O, Dumnezeu din ceruri, azi cerul Tău e gol.
Dar sufletul îmi cere cu spaimă un idol,
Căci blestemat-ai omul să creadă în iubire.’

2
The poet died at the age of 54.
3
The titles of two books signed by Ion Pillat, the first in 1916 and the latter posthumously.
 (În catedrală, Notre Dame de Paris)
The modern man perfectly, represented by the adolescent Ion Pillat when
finding alone before nothingness, looks for assistance, for a landmark, other than
God, an idol in particular. The entire modern poetry including Ion Pillat’s
nourished from his Parisian experience has its origin in man’s urgent need and
demand to fill his spiritual void. The successive idols in the first volumes
(Pagan Dreaming, Momentary Eternities and Illusions4) are Buddhism, Greek
pagan gods, lost Past (or Recollection) and Eros, all joyfully found and
worshipped for a while but each time bitterly left as a worn coat. The themes
found in the three debut volumes mentioned above prove our assertion, the
emblematic poem for the illusions experimented one by one by our young poet
bearing the title To the Infidel5:

‘Copil aprindeam lumânări de ceară,

Mă-nchinam cântând la icoane sfinte
Şi păşind simţeam că-mi merge alături
Mântuitorul.

Ca băiat visai de Sakya Muni: zile

Nemişcat steteam recitind cuvântu-i
Şi basmul lui Jizo şi vechea poveste-a
Fecioarei Kwanon.

Ca flăcău zărit-am Centauri o noapte,

Mai albi ca lumina lunii prin ramuri.
Frăţie legai cu neamul sălbatic
Şi zeii păgâni.

4
Visări păgâne, Eternităţi de-o clipă and Amăgiri in Romanian original (RO)
5
Necredincioasei (RO)
 Apoi mi-am fost singur tovarăş şi lege,
Dorinţa dintâi şi visul din urmă.
Orbiseră ochi-mi ţintiţi deapururi
În sufletu-mi trist.

Dar azi mi se cern credinţele moarte.

Se scutură, pier ca frunzele toamnei,
Căci tu mi-ai ieşit în cale-mi, tăcută,
Necredincioaso!’

As seen above one could find not only Eminescu’s poetic tools but also a
lucid chronological review of his own delusions. He walks in life being in tight
communion with God, even if a childish one as described in the first stanza, but
which will make him soon write a poem in prose6 called The Last Saint’s Story
whose subject seems to be taken directly from the Egyptian Patericus. His
Buddhist dreaming alongside with his beloved Centaurs were in fact bookish
experiences of a high school and then a Sorbonne student passionate of history
and geography. The reflexive solitude undertaken in the fourth stanza ends in
tiredness and sadness and the Eros emerging at the end of the poem will soon
fade away proving to be for human experience as unsatisfied as all the others.

‘Iubito de pe vremuri, nu plânge la fereastră,

Nu aştepta la geamuri cu ramuri lungi să bat…
E cerul prea aproape, e umbra prea albastră,
Ca să-mi aduc aminte de tânguirea voastră,
Femei, în care visu-mi în van s-a căutat.’

6
As a matter of fact this marked his editorial debut in 1912.
 (Dezrobire7)

The first signs of change in his understanding the world appear at the end
of Pagan Night8. Sprung from the disciple’s emulation for his master and
therefore dedicated to Alexandru Macedonski this poem describes an
unceaseless transmigration of his soul through a ‘world of pagan ages’9 until it is
stopped and thus saved by the identification with Jesus on the cross:

‘De aur era luna şi s-a făcut ca varul -

Apar trei cruci de sânge pe cer de ametist
Şi-n tropotul năpraznic se-nalţă sfânt Calvarul
Cu patima credinţei şi dragostei lui Christ.
Răsare blând obrazu-I şi dureros de trist
Sub palida lumină mai albă decât varul.

Dar şi-a oprit avântul Licornul sforăind:

Îl ţintuieşte groaza şi tremură deodată…
Iar ochii mei de cruce nu pot să-i mai desprind,
Christos mă fulgerează cu faţa lui ciudată.
Mă turbură privirea în veci neturburată,
Fiori din tălpi la creştet mă ţin şi mă cuprind.

E vis sau nebunie? Dar Christ nu e pe cruce,

Ci eu mă văd eu însumi de cuie răstignit…
Şi luna suie cerul şi vine şi se duce
Prin zări de întuneric… Tăcere… Am murit?
De veacuri stau de strajă pe cruce pironit

7
Emancipation
8
Noapte păgână (RO)
9
A quote from one of Macedonski’s poems
 Şi nimbul nemuririi pe fruntea mea străluce.’

The volume The Garden inside Walls10 indicates the transition from the
first to the second stage of Ion Pillat’s creation and is therefore eclectic. Verses
reminding of his old not yet forgotten illusions coexist with more and more
mature reflections about life. We should take into account not only obviously
biblical or religious poems such as Satan, Monastery or Soror sancta, Mater
dolorosa11 but also titles like The Slop12 (a description of a metamorphosis of a
slop into a marvelous garden, i.e. an allegory for the soul who finds hope in the
transfigurating power of Divine Grace), The Shutter13 (where death is depicted
as a threshold to a new form of life: ‘Azi mă gândesc la noaptea coşciugului de
lemn,/ La Tatăl meu din ceruri, la mâna ce-o să vie/ Să-mi dea, crăpând
mormântul, lumina pe vecie.’), So as to climb to You14 or Command15, poems in
which the soul gets free from the tight imprisonment of the body, house, cell or
even church, experiencing the great liturgy of nature:

‘Deschide-te naturii ca mugurul luminii,

Şi sparge închisoarea îngustului tău trup!
Simţirile să-ţi fie albinele grădinii,
Brăzdând în zbor văzduhul, cu aurite linii,
Ca soarele să-l prindă în mierea unui stup.’
(Poruncă)

This is Ion Pillat’s frame of mind when he steps into his second stage of
creation marked by the famous volume On Argeş River Upstream16. The poem

10
Grădina între ziduri (RO)
11
Satan, Mănăstire and Soror sancta, Mater dolorosa (RO)
12
Balta (RO)
13
Oblonul (RO)
14
Ca să suim la Tine (RO)
15
Poruncă (RO)
16
Pe Argeş în sus (RO)
entitled Homage17 which opens the well-known Florica cycle takes its model
from the Gospel parable of the Prodigal Son: the familiar picturesque nature at
Florica domain where he happily spent his childhood and the piously revived
Past generously welcome the one who knocked about a long time among
strangers:

‘Am rătăcit pe piatra cetăţilor haine

Şi m-am jucat cu anii cum alţii zvârlă mingi…
Tu numai, păstrătoare a zilelor mezine,
Mai poţi cu-a lor lumină pierdută să m-atingi.

Fii pentru regăsitul o mânăstire vie

În care amintirea aprinde lumânări
Şi unde, pe o tâmplă de umbră, reînvie
Ochi cunoscuţi, luceferi ieşind din înnoptări…’

Ion Pillat’s traditionalism is not new poetical clothing as it could be

superficially regarded but a return to his natural way of writing once settled back
in his country. His first poetical attempts later gathered by Ion Pillat himself in a
cycle called The House of Recollection18 as well as others recovered from
various early manuscripts prove that his entire Parnassian and Symbolist canter
was but a mere deviation from his initial natural path retrieved and developed
after 1918. ‘My youth verses were not the ripe fruit of my soul and native land
but the forced one of the brain and foreign libraries’, the poet confessed in 1942.
And yet, his look back to the Past and the obsessive cult of Recollection are but
new ‘illusions’ of the spirit since the would-be pastels in On Argeş River
Upstream – although closer to the truth and subsequently revealing the peace of

17
Închinare (RO)
18
Casa Amintirii (RO)
nature, ancient patriarchal laws and a sort of wisdom of the earth – lament
continuously over the idea of fugit irreparabile tempus. The poet’s captive soul
in the cell of time past and gone is thus irreconcilable. As the volume The
Church of Yore is better known and often mentioned to prove the religious
emotion encapsulated in its poems, although filled with a mysticism lacking
transcendence as Ion Pillat himself described it, we shall not stop to comment
upon it, considering the poet’s Confessions significant once again: ‘The critique
saw Rainer Maria Rilke’s influence in my second stage of creation. I see no
influence here but rather a kind of motive assimilation or more exactly a kindred
inspiration. For instance, excepting the subject and the scenes enumeration in
the cycle The Story of Mother of God which one can find in the holy Bible
otherwise or in the Flemish or Italian primitive painting, I don’t see any
connection of cause-effect type between Rilke’s Marienleben with such a strong
catholic German inspiration, mystical and musical in the same time, and my own
interpretation of Virgin Mary’s life so very Romanian up to its localization in
Argeş area with its rolling hills, so very orthodox in its icon peasant
representation if not even in the ancient heresies of popular borrowed motives. If
I truly had a model it was not Rilke’s work but our people’s with its folklore
poetry…’ Nevertheless Ion Pillat’s approach in The Church of Yore shallow as it
may seem proves to have been a necessary stage to be achieved and surpassed
on his inner spiritual route. In contemplating the deserted and ruined churches –
a metaphor for his own state of spirit at that time – he does not meet despair or
hopelessness, but Divine Grace:

‘Şi-n mine şi-n poiană şi pe drum

Deodată s-a întins atâta pace
Că Dumnezeu plutea ca un parfum
De fân cosit, când claia se desface…
 Şi-aş fi crezut că totu-i zugrăvit
Şi că privesc, copil, o stampă veche,
De nu-mi venea – când şters, când desluşit –
Un zvon adânc de clopot la ureche.’
(Mânăstire)

His clarifying both poetic and spiritual process intuitively sought

since 1928 when he entitled one of his books quite like this Clarification will be
completed with each volume published in the third stage of (neo) classical
creation. The southern solar Greek and Balcic19 experience will have a catalytic
effect in his perfection process. Although he knows he is ‘not cured completely
of Chimera’ as he describes himself in the Sonnet XXII in Minerva’s Shield
cycle20 he feels at peace with himself, with Life, with Past which does not tear
him apart anymore. Everything around him tends to be read as an allegory. The
Last Rose21 teaches him that ‘One can blossom even in death’, a hip rose tree
which grows in a cloven stone of a sarcophagus shows him the kingdom of
death is thus conquered, etc. Most of the poems included in Lost Shore22, Balcic
or Shadow of Time23 deal with the soul and describe a state of completion, of
peace and reconciliation, of serene acceptance of death:

‘Mi-am dezlegat sandala ca o frunză

Ce cade moartă la piciorul meu,
Mi-am limpezit făptura să n-ascunză
Nimic din ce nu duce pân’ la Zeu.

Pe ţărmul mării mă înalţ: o urnă

19
A small town in today Bulgaria where he bought a piece of land in the mid ‘30s and built two houses
20
Scutul Minervei (RO)
21
Roza cea din urmă (RO)
22
Ţărm pierdut (RO)
23
Umbra timpului (RO)
 În care doar lumină am turnat.
Nu plâng, nu chem tot ce-am lăsat în urmă.
Stau singur pentru jertfă împăcat.

Din pietre albe i-am durat altarul,

Din lemne scumpe flăcări i-am ivit –
Şi cerul nalt cum îmi primeşte darul,
Urc rugul împlinirii, fericit.’
(Alesul)24
Of no chance at all does Ion Pillat’s last volume published in 1942 bear
the significant title of Fulfillment25. It takes over and carries on the inner
understanding process as seen in poems like The Founder26:

‘De greu păcat să aflu mântuire

Şi sufletul să mi-l aşez în rai,
Punându-i hram pe Sfântul Niculai,
Smerit durez din viaţă mănăstire.
………………………………….
Acum aştept, încrezător în soartă,
Pe-Arhanghelul trimes de Dumnezeu.’

or Hunting27 (where God –the Hunter send his greyhounds to catch the poet’s
soul who vainly tries to find shelter; it is only when he kneels and surrenders to
the oxymoronical ‘good fangs’ that he understands, as the main character in
Dino Buzzati’s Monster Colombre, that the so-called evil he was fighting to
avoid all his life was in fact the only way of saving his soul):

24
The Chosen One
25
Împlinire (RO)
26
Ctitorul (RO)
27
Vânătoare (RO)
 ‘Ogarii Tăi, o, Doamne,-mi dau de urmă,
I-aud chefnind ne-nduplecat prin zări.
Zadarnic fug în mine şi-n uitări
Adânc m-ascund de apriga lor turmă.

Bătaia lor cumplită nu se curmă.

Îngenunchează – ciută-n tremurări –
Tu, inimă,-ncolţită de-ntrebări
La ape vii când colţii buni te scurmă.

Pe apele curate îţi apleacă

Şi setea pătimaşă şi fiorul
Iubirii care-n veci de veci nu seacă.

Ogarii Tăi, o, Doamne, mi-au rupt lutul –

Acuma poţi, Părinte, să-mi fii scutul
Şi, pradă, îmi prind singur Vânătorul.’

After wandering through successive bookish and luring Maya veils

in his youth, then going through a descriptive and rather formal traditional
period and getting over a short elegiac temptation and the mendacious sirens of
the past, Ion Pillat reaches the equilibrium both in his poetry and personal life. It
is not coincidental that when death occurred he was preparing a volume which
had born the title Inward Path28 for a long time but was changed by the poet

28
Drum lăuntric (RO)
right before he passed away into Balanced Scales, accidentally or not using a
collocation met in the Proverbs of the Old Testament29.
From the literary point of view we face a poetic path with distinct
landmarks and stages as any other poet’s after all. From the spiritual point of
view it represents a feverish and constant search for the purpose of life and for
its major goal which identifies with Divinity. The last question we should
answer at the end of our article is if such a religious approach of Ion Pillat’s
poetry is not a forced perspective. We believe it is not. The numerous spiritual
poems not included in this brief overview support our position as well as his
own involuntary testimony according to which the act of creation is a form of
praying: ‘From my point of view a poem is above all a vital experience (ein
Erlebniss) but a vital experience of a certain type, that is cleared and purified of
any logical connection, which suddenly shakes the soul and in the same time
confers music to sights and plasticity to sounds. It is a sudden tremor followed a
little later by a state of life detachment, by a weird distraction, a state I usually
experience when dreaming’.30

29
Chapter 11, About justice, verse 1: ‘A false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his
delight’.
30
Ion Pillat, Confessions