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Eugene Ionesco [1912-1994] Romanian/French Dramatist
Page created by Jolly Sharp |
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WWW links: Ionesco Homepage (English) Ionesco Homepage (French) |
Major Works: The Bald Soprano (1950; Eng. 1958) The Lesson (1951; Eng. 1958) The Chairs (1952; Eng. 1958) Rhinoceros (1959: Eng. 1960) Exit the King (1962; Eng. 1963) |
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Eugene Ionesco was born November 26, 1912, in Romania, the son of a Romanian governmental official and a French woman. When he was two, the family moved to Paris. However, in 1916, his father returned to Romania. During Ionesco’s childhood, he experienced an unstable family life. His parents divorced when he was thirteen and Ionesco was sent back to Romania, separated from his mother, had to learn a new language, tried to adjust to a stepmother, and experienced the beginning of the Nazi movement. He studied French literature at the University of Bucharest, writing poems and essays. In 1934, he published Nu [or No] in which he both attacked and defended Romanian writers and critics. After marrying Rodica Burileano in 1936, he returned to France. Not until Ionesco decided to learn English (1948) did he write his first play, La Cantratrice chauve [The Bald Soprano]. For the next several years, his career as a playwright was prolific, including Jacques, The Lesson, The Chairs, Amedee, The Killer, Rhinoceros, Exit the King, Hunger and Thirst, and Macbett. Most of his plays are one-act or non-traditional three-act dramas. Some obvious themes are suffering, fear of death, destruction, emptiness, guilt, mechanization, wretchedness, dreams, spiritual frustration, violence, alienation, and the bleakness of human life. In interviews with Claude Bonnefoy, Ionesco discussed those who influenced him, his work, and his philosophy. Ionesco identified Franz Kafta, Louis Borges, Fayador Dostoyevsky, Marcel Proust, and Gustave Flaubert as authors who impressed him and illuminated his own ideas. Plays by Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet and others inspired what is now known as The Theatre of the Absurd. However, Ionesco stated, “Rather than ‘absurd’ I prefer the expression ‘unusual’ or feeling of the unusual. There are times when the world seems emptied of all expression, all content. There are times when we look at it as though we’d just that moment been born, and then it looks astonishing and inexplicable” (123). The Theatre of the Absurd produced plays, therefore, that were non-conventional, emphasizing the futility and bleakness of human life, as well as the mechanization of language itself.
Ionesco often indicated that many of his plays were based on his own dreams. In fact, he said, “Dreaming is thinking. But much deeper, truer, more authentic than ordinary thinking, because one is somehow forced inside oneself” (10). When asked why he wrote his first play, Ionesco responded, “Perhaps it was to prove that nothing had any real importance, that everything was unlivable - literature, drama, life, human values, they were all unlivable” (55). He also referred to his plays as “anti-plays,” which combine a dream or nightmare sequence with satirical or grotesque humor. When Bonnefoy questioned the meaning of humor, Ionesco asserted that “humor is becoming aware of absurdity while continuing to live in absurdity” (130). In Rhinoceros, the protagonist, Berenger, desires to remain firm in his own convictions and not join the powerful forces trying to overtake him. However, he begins to see all others transforming into rhinoceroses. This excerpt from Rhinoceros illustrates the absurd-grotesqueness of what Berenger pictures.
Ionesco was elected to the French Academy in 1970 and even starred as the lead in his own film La Vase [The Slough]. In 1973, he published a novel, Le Solitaire [The Hermit]. In his latter years, he focused more on art and art criticism before his death in Paris on March 28, 1994.
Works Cited Bonnefoy, Claude. Conversations with Eugene Ionesco. Trans. Jan Dawson. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1996. Ionesco, Eugene. Rhinoceros and Other Plays. Trans. Derek Prouse. New York: Grove, 1960.
Works Consulted Esslin, Martin. “Eugene Ionesco.” Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. 1997. Online. <http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Theatre/Ionesco/ionesco.shtml>. Hayman, Ronald. Eugene Ionesco. World Dramatists. New York: Ungar, 1972. Lamont, Rosette C., and Melvin J. Friedman. The Two Faces of Ionesco. Troy, NY: Whitston, 1978. [includes extensive bibliography] Liukkonen, Petri. “Eugene Ionesco.” Books and Writers. 2002. Online. <http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ionesco.htm>. |
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