Mistress of elaborate techniques, autonomous in themes, contemporary Romanian poetry, symbolist with I. Minulescu (1881-1946) and G. Bacovia (1881-1957), hermetic with I. Barbu (1895-1961), now boasts resonant names international such as T. Arghezi (1880-1967) and Lucian Blaga. The creative commitment did not fail even in the period following the socialist revolution. In fact, while the production of the immediate postwar period is characterized by a rhetorically political theme, between the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century there is a radical renewal aimed at the recovery of purely lyrical values. The new generation of poets recognizes its forerunner in N. Labis (1935-1956), proposing a renewed poetic experience full of contents. To the vigorous voices of the Sixties (St. A. Doinas, 1922-2002; A. Philippide, 1900-1979; I. Caraion, 1923-1986; G. Naum, 1915-2001; Nina Cassian, b.1924), add in the following decade those of N. Stănescu (1933-1983), M. Sorescu (1936-1996), C. Baltag (1939-1997), I. Alexandru (b.1942), M. Dinescu (b.1950) etc. The strong contribution of female opera with, among others, I. Mălăncioiu (b.1940), C. Buzea (b.1941), A. Blandiana (n. 1942), who during the 1980s were able to give their verses also the polemical accents of political dissent. Also in the Eighties the so-called “optzecist” poets recognized themselves in a postmodernism, proposing a new type of lyric language. In the years following the 1989 revolution, the work of some writers from exile began to be published in Romania, among which the names of Paul Goma (b.1935) and the narrator, essayist and diplomat Vintila Horia (1915- 1992). Finally, it should be emphasized that one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, Paul Celan, was born in Romania (1920-1970), who nevertheless lived in Paris (the city where he died by throwing himself into the Seine) starting from the years following the Second World War. Of Jewish origin, Celan was dramatically marked by the deportation of his parents; his extraordinary lyric, notable for its visionary ability close to surrealism, symbolic charge and dramatic intensity, is written in German. Also in the prose of the Romanian writers of the twentieth century there is a notable process of renewal. L. Rebreanu (1885-1944) is linked to Slavici, who he gives with the novel Ion a masterpiece of universal measure. According to globalsciencellc, these are the masters who are inspired by two great prose writers who established themselves in the period following the Second World War: M. Preda (1922). -1980) and Titus Popovici (1930-1994) who represent, alongside E. Barbu (1924-1993), the contemporary “classics”. On the other hand, the novel of a city environment is more slowly affirmed: with Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu (1876-1955) and with Matei Caragiale (1885-1936) the novel becomes a subtle investigator of complex psychological processes, within the framework of a society – yesterday or today – refined and decadent. With Camil Petrescu (1894-1957) the commitment turns out to be even more ambitiously cerebral.

Alongside M. Sădoveanu (1880-1961), still recognized today as tutelary deity of Romanian prose, we should remember G. Călinescu (1899-1965), whose works mark the detachment from socialist realism and from the social novel of Popovici and Preda. A role in itself undoubtedly has the prose work of some early expatriate authors, such as Gregor von Rezzori 1914-1998), Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) and Emile Cioran (1911-1995). Rezzori, a noble born on the edge of the Austro-Hungarian empire, in the border province of Bucovina, has always been linked, in his literary themes, to the ideal landscape of his childhood (The snows of a time, An ermine in Cernopol); Mircea Eliade, who lived for a long time in Paris and in the United States, was a writer of refined historical frescoes and historian of religions; Finally, Emile Cioran, prose writer and philosopher who has always expressed himself in the language of his adopted homeland, French, is the author of aphorisms of radical nihilism that have marked the philosophy and literature of the twentieth century (Principles of decomposition, The temptation of to exist). In the sixties and seventies of the twentieth century, Romania also reached the definitive affirmation of a differentiated prose in terms of styles and themes, in step with the innovations of Western literatures. Thus, alongside the science fiction of I. Hobana (b.1931) and the oneirism of D. Tepenag (b.1937), there is the introspection of A. Ivasiuc (1933-1977), N. Breban (b.1934)) and A. Buzura (b. 1938). In the eighties, as we have seen for poetry, there is a profound renewal of prose, thanks to a generation that rediscovers an original epic consciousness and a perfect mastery of the most advanced narrative techniques. After the 1989 revolution we witness, with the return to their homeland of many intellectuals who fled during the dictatorship, the recovery of the literature of exile and the pronounced critical attempt to redefine the history of post-war Romanian literature in a unitary way. Alongside the artistic prose, non-fiction should be mentioned, in which names of the highest order are included. First of all, the critics who, having established themselves between the two wars, continue their activity in the post-war period. United by a predominantly idealistic orientation, they are T. Vianu (1897-1964), V. Streinu (1902-1970), S. Cioculescu (1902-1988) etc. At a critical both of textual mold is comparatist devote D. Caracostea (1879-1964), D. Popovici (1902-1952) and especially Perpessicius (1891-1971), which must in particular the monumental critical edition of the works of Eminescu, completed in 1990 thanks to the work of P. Cretia (1927-1987) and D. Vatamaniuc (b. 1920). In the period following the Second World War, having necessarily overcome the moment linked to a Marxist approach, criticism has assimilated contemporary orientations, unfolding in a very varied and lively panorama, ranging from structuralism and semiotics to deconstructivism, psycho-criticism, variantism.