SOURCE: "Studies and Essays: Caragiale's Day," in Romanian Review, Vol. 41, No. 6, 1987, pp. 55-67.

In the following essay, Silvestru discusses critical response to Caragiale's works during his lifetime and traces the growing acceptance of his works among inter-national and Romanian audiences of the twentieth century.

The national and international area of spreading of I. L. Caragiale's work, the amount of studies devoted to him and the fact that his plays are untiringly present in the theatres, have all imposed the currency of a new term: CARAGIALEOLOGY. A literary-dramatical society of applied studies, set up in Craiova will probably contribute also to establishing this term, whose pronunciation sounds rather forbidding, but has the same raison d'être as the already established Shakespeareology, Brechtology or Eminescology.

About a century after I. L. Caragiale's literary début one may say that two essential attitudes have manifested themselves towards his writings. For about...