SOURCE: Close, Elizabeth. “From the Familiar to the Unfamiliar: A Rumanian Contribution to European Fantasy: ‘Sŭrmanul Dionis’ by Mihai Eminescu.” AUMLA: Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association 63 (May 1985): 43-52.

In the following essay, Close argues for the inclusion of Eminescu's “Poor Dionis” among Europe's most successful fantastic tales.

There appears to be no generally-agreed definition of fantasy, but one of the essential criteria to which a would-be fantastic tale must conform is surely that of having its starting-point in the familiar world, so that the reader is led gently into an unfamiliar world, without ceasing to believe in the plausibility of the tale. The best description of the process remains Hoffmann's, in Die Serapionsbrüder:

die Basis der Himmelsleiter, auf der man hinaufsteigen will in höhere Regionen, befestigt sein müsse im Leben, so dass jeder nachzusteigen vermag …¹

Tzvetan Todorov, in his important...