Along with Mihai Eminescu, Mateiu Caragiale, and Lucian Blaga, Tudor Arghezi is one of the most important writers in twentieth-century Romanian literature. Born while the "national poet," Eminescu, was still alive, Arghezi had an incredibly long literary career notwithstanding his late debut. His first volume of poetry was published when Arghezi was forty-seven, an unusually ripe age for a newcomer. What could have been a simple exception or eccentricity on the map of Romanian literature, however, became a solid presence as Arghezi remained productive until the end of his life, writing prolifically and in several genres. When political reality changed and Romania experienced the beginning of communist rule, Arghezi's output--unlike that of fellow writers who were banned because they belonged to the "bourgeois" Romania--increased, and almost miraculously he maintained his literary authority, largely because of his aesthetic flexibility.

Tudor Arghezi is the pseudonym of Ion N. Theodorescu, born...