Benjamin Fondane (Fundoianu) Barbu Fundoianu Benjamin Wechsler (Wexler, Vecsler)
Fondane-Fundoianu, ca. 1915
Born	(1898-11-14)November 14, 1898 Iași,Kingdom of Romania
Died	October 2, 1944(1944-10-02) (aged 45) Auschwitz-Birkenau,German-occupied Poland
Pen name	F. Benjamin, Diomed, Dio, Funfurpan, I. Hașir, Isaac Laquedem, Const. Meletie, Mielușon, I. G. Ofir, Al. Vilara, Alex. Vilara, Von Doian
Occupation	Poet dramatist opinion journalist critic philosopher translator theater producer screenwriter film director librarian news presenter
Nationality	Romanian,French
Period	1912 – c. 1944
Genre	Biography epic poetry essay free verse idyll lyric poetry memoir ode pastiche pastoral prose poem short story sonnet travel writing verse drama
Literary movement	Neo-romanticism,symbolism,modernism,avant-garde,Expressionism,surrealism,constructivism,Contimporanul,Sburătorul

Benjamin Fondane (French pronunciation:[bɛ̃ʒamɛ̃fɔ̃dan]) orBenjamin Fundoianu (Romanian pronunciation:[benʒaˈminfundoˈjanu]; bornBenjamin Wechsler,Wexler orVecsler, first name alsoBeniamin orBarbu, usually abridged toB.; November 14, 1898 – October 2, 1944) was aRomanian andFrench poet, critic andexistentialist philosopher, also noted for his work in film and theater. Known from his Romanian youth as aSymbolist poet and columnist, he alternatedneoromantic andexpressionist themes with echoes fromTudor Arghezi, and dedicated several poetic cycles to the rural life of his nativeMoldavia. Fondane, who was ofJewish Romanian extraction and a nephew of Jewish intellectualsElias andMoses Schwartzfeld, participated in both minoritysecular Jewish culture and mainstreamRomanian culture. During and afterWorld War I, he was active as acultural critic,avant-garde promoter and, with his brother-in-lawArmand Pascal, manager of the theatrical troupeInsula.

Fondane began a second career in 1923, when he moved toParis. Affiliated withSurrealism, but strongly opposed to itscommunist leanings, he moved on to become a figure inJewish existentialism and a leading disciple ofLev Shestov. His critique of political dogma, rejection ofrationalism, expectation of historical catastrophe and belief in thesoteriological force of literature were outlined in his celebrated essays onCharles Baudelaire andArthur Rimbaud, as well as in his final works of poetry. His literary and philosophical activities helped him build close relationships with other intellectuals: Shestov,Emil Cioran,David Gascoyne,Jacques Maritain,Victoria Ocampo,Ilarie Voronca etc. In parallel, Fondane also had a career in cinema: a film critic and a screenwriter forParamount Pictures, he later worked onRapt withDimitri Kirsanoff, and directed the since-lost filmTararira inArgentina.

Aprisoner of war during thefall of France, Fondane was released and spent theoccupation years in clandestinity. He was eventually captured and handed toNazi German authorities, who deported him toAuschwitz-Birkenau. He was sent to thegas chamber during the last wave of theHolocaust. His work was largely rediscovered later in the 20th century, when it became the subject of scholarly research and public curiosity in both France and Romania. In the latter country, this revival of interest also sparked a controversy overcopyright issues.

Fondane was born inIași, the cultural capital of Moldavia, on November 14, 1898, but, as he noted in a diary he kept at age 16, his birthday was officially recorded as November 15.^[1] Fondane was the only son of Isac Wechsler and his wife Adela (née Schwartzfeld), who also bore daughters Lina (b. 1892) and Rodica (b. 1905), both of whom had careers in acting.^[2] As a child Benjamin spends a lot of time in the north of Moldova in a place known as Fundoaia and hence the name he chooses for himself Fundoianu. From this rural and picturesque area he receives the inspiration for the poems that will later be published in a collection called Priveliști "Landscapes" in Hebrew. As a teenage boy, Fundoianu traveled a lot in the north of Moldova, collected and delved into the local Romanian folklore of the villages, and from that too he was inspired to write songs which, according to his words, he started composing at the age of 8.^[3] Wechsler was a Jewish man fromHertsa region, his ancestors having been born on theFundoaia estate (which the poet later used as the basis for his signature).^[4][5] Adela was from an intellectual family, of noted influence within the urban Jewish community: her father, poet B. Schwartzfeld, was the owner of a book collection, while her unclesElias andMoses both had careers inhumanities.^[5][6] Adela herself was well acquainted with the intellectual elite of Iași, Jewish as well asethnic Romanian, and kept recollections of her encounters with authors linked with theJunimea society.^[7] Through Moses Schwartzfeld, Fondane was also related withsocialist journalistAvram Steuerman-Rodion, one of the literary men who nurtured the boy's interest in literature.^[8]

The young Benjamin was an avid reader, primarily interested in the Moldavian classics ofRomanian literature (Ion Neculce,Miron Costin,Dosoftei,Ion Creangă), Romanian traditionalists orneoromantics (Vasile Alecsandri,Ion Luca Caragiale,George Coșbuc,Mihai Eminescu) and FrenchSymbolists.^[9] In 1909, after graduating from School No. 1 (an annex of theTrei Ierarhi Monastery), he was admitted into theAlexandru cel Bun secondary school, where he did not excel as a student.^[10] A restless youth (he recalled having had his first love affair at age 12, with a girl six years his senior), Fondane twice failed to get his remove before the age of 14.^[11]

Benjamin divided his time between the city and his father's native region. The latter's rural landscape impressed him greatly, and, enduring in his memory, became the setting in several of his poems.^[12] The adolescent Fondane took extended trips throughout northern Moldavia, making his debut infolkloristics by writing down samples of thenarrative and poetic tradition in various Romanian-inhabited localities.^[13] Among his childhood friends was the futureYiddish-language writer B. Iosif, with whom he spent his time in Iași's Podul Vechi neighborhood.^[14] In this context, Fondane also met Yiddishist poetIacob Ashel Groper—an encounter which shaped Fondane's intellectual perspectives onJudaism andJewish history.^[5][15] At the time, Fondane became known to his family and friends asMielușon (frommiel,Romanian for "lamb", and probably in reference to his bushy hairdo), a name which he later used as a colloquial pseudonym.^[16]

Although Fondane later claimed to have started writing poetry at age eight, his earliest known contributions to the genre date from 1912, including both pieces of his own and translations from such authors asAndré Chénier,Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff,Heinrich Heine andHenri de Régnier.^[17] The same year, some of these were published, under the pseudonymI. G. Ofir, in the local literary reviewFloare Albastră, whose owner,A. L. Zissu, was later a noted novelist andZionist political figure.^[11][15][18] Later research proposed that these, like some other efforts of the 1910s, werecollective poetry samples, resulting from a collaboration between Fondane and Groper (the former was probably translating the latter's poetic motifs into Romanian).^[11][15] In 1913, Fondane also tried his hand at editing a student journal, signing his editorial with the pen nameVan Doian, but only produced several handwritten copies of a single issue.^[19]

Fondane's actual debut dates back to 1914, during the time when he became a student at theNational High School Iași and formally affiliated with the provincial branch of thenationwide Symbolist movement. That year, samples oflyric poetry were also published in the magazinesValuri andRevista Noastră (whose owner, writerConstanța Hodoș, even offered Fondane a job on the editorial board, probably unaware that she was corresponding with a high school student).^[20] Also in 1914, the Moldavian Symbolist venueAbsolutio, edited byIsac Ludo, featured pieces he signed with the pen nameI. Hașir.^[11][15][21] Among his National High School colleagues wasAlexandru Al. Philippide, the future critic, who remained one of Fondane's best friends (and whose poetry Fondane proposed for publishing inRevista Noastră).^[21] Late in 1914, Fondane also began his short collaboration with the Iași Symbolist tribuneVieața Nouă. While several of his poems were published there, the review's founderOvid Densusianu issued objections to their content, and, in their subsequent correspondence, each writer outlines his stylistic disagreements with the other.^[22]

During the first two years ofWorld War I andRomania's neutrality, the young poet established new contacts within the literary environments of Iași andBucharest. According to his brother-in-law and biographer Paul Daniel, "it is amazing how many pages of poetry, translations, prose, articles, chronicles have been written by Fundoianu in this interval."^[23] In 1915, four of hispatriotic-themed poems were published on the front page ofDimineața daily, which campaigned for Romanian intervention against theCentral Powers (they were the first of several contributions Fondane signed with the pen nameAlex. Vilara, laterAl. Vilara).^[24] His parallel contribution to theBârlad-based reviewRevista Critică (originally,Cronica Moldovei) was more strenuous: Fondane declared himself indignant that the editorial staff would not send him thegalley proofs, and received instead an irritated reply from manager Al. Ștefănescu; he was eventually featured with poems in three separate issues ofRevista Critică.^[25] At around that time, he also wrote amemoir of his childhood,Note dintr-un confesional ("Notes from aConfessional").^[26]

Around 1915, Fondane was discovered by the journalistic tandem ofTudor Arghezi andGala Galaction, both of whom were alsomodernist authors,left-wing militants and Symbolist promoters. The pieces Fondane sent to Arghezi and Galaction'sCronica paper were received with enthusiasm, a reaction which surprised and impressed the young author.^[27] Although his poems went unpublished, his Iași-themed articleA doua capitală ("The Second Capital"), signedAl. Vilara, was featured in an April 1916 issue.^[28] A follower of Arghezi, he was personally involved in raising awareness about Arghezi's unpublished verse, theAgate negre ("Black Diamonds") cycle.^[29]

Remaining close friends with Fondane, Galaction later made persistent efforts of introducing him to criticGarabet Ibrăileanu, with the purpose of having him published by thePoporanistViața Românească review, but Ibrăileanu refused to recognize Fondane as an affiliate.^[30] Fondane had more success in contactingFlacăra review and its publisherConstantin Banu: on July 23, 1916, it hosted hissonnetEglogă marină ("MarineEclogue").^[31] Between 1915 and 1923, Fondane also had a steady contribution to Romanian-language Jewish periodicals (Lumea Evree,Bar-Kochba,Hasmonaea,Hatikvah), where he published translations from international representatives ofYiddish literature (Hayim Nahman Bialik,Semyon Frug,Abraham Reisen etc.) under the signaturesB. Wechsler,B. Fundoianu andF. Benjamin.^[11][32] Fondane also completed work on a translation of theAhasverus drama, by the Jewish authorHerman Heijermans.^[33]

His collaboration with the Bucharest-basedRampa (at the time a daily newspaper) also began in 1915, with his debut as theatrical chronicler, and later with hisCarpathian-themed series in thetravel writing genre,Pe drumuri de munte ("On Mountain Roads").^[32] With almost one signed or unsigned piece per issue over the following years, Fondane was one of the more prolific contributors to that newspaper, and frequently made use of either pseudonyms (Diomed,Dio,Funfurpan,Const. Meletie) or initials (B. F.,B. Fd.,fd.).^[34] These included his January 1916 positive review ofPlumb, the first major work by Romania's celebrated Symbolist poet,George Bacovia.^[35]

In 1917, after Romania joined theEntente side and was invaded by the Central Powers, Fondane was in Iași, where the Romanian authorities had retreated. It was in this context that he met and befriended the doyen of Romanian Symbolism, poetIon Minulescu. Minulescu and his wife, authorClaudia Millian, had left their home in occupied Bucharest, and, by spring 1917, hosted Fondane at their provisional domicile in Iași. Millian later recalled that her husband had been much impressed by the Moldavian teenager, describing him as "a rare bird" and "a poet of talent".^[36] The same year, at age 52, Isac Wechsler fell ill withtyphus and died in Iași'sSfântul Spiridon Hospital, leaving his family without financial support.^[37]

At around that time, Fondane began work on the poetry cyclePriveliști ("Sights" or "Panoramas", finished in 1923).^[38] In 1918, he became one of the contributors to the magazineChemarea, published in Iași by the leftist journalistN. D. Cocea, with help from Symbolist writerIon Vinea. In the political climate marked by thePeace of Bucharest and Romania's remilitarization, Fondane used Cocea's publication to protest against the arrest of Arghezi, who had been accused ofcollaborationism with the Central Powers.^[39] In this context, Fondane spoke of Arghezi as being "Romania's greatest contemporary poet" (a verdict which was later to be approved of by mainstream critics).^[40] According to one account, Fondane also worked briefly as afact checker forArena, a periodical managed by Vinea andN. Porsenna.^[41] His time withChemarea also resulted in the publication of hisBiblical-themedshort storyTăgăduința lui Petru ("Peter's Denial"). Issued byChemarea's publishing house in 41bibliophile copies (20 of which remained in Fondane's possession), it opened with the tractO lămurire despre simbolism ("An Explanation of Symbolism").^[42]

In 1919, upon the war's end, Benjamin Fondane settled in Bucharest, where he stayed until 1923. During this interval, he frequently changed domicile: after a stay at his sister Lina's home inObor area, he moved on Lahovari Street (nearPiața Romană), then inMoșilor area, before relocating toVăcărești (a majority Jewish residential area, where he lived in two successive locations), and ultimately to a house a short distance away fromFoișorul de Foc.^[43] Between these changes of address, he established contacts with the Symbolist andavant-garde society of Bucharest: a personal friend of graphic artistIosif Ross, he formed an informal avant-garde circle of his own, attended by writersF. Brunea-Fox,Ion Călugăru,Henri Gad,Sașa Pană,Claude Sernet-Cosma andIlarie Voronca, as well as by artist-directorArmand Pascal (who, in 1920, married Lina Fundoianu).^[44] Pană would later note his dominant status within the group, describing him as the "stooping green-eyed youth from Iași, the standard-bearer of the iconoclasts and rebels of the new generation".^[45]

The group was occasionally joined by other friends, among them Millian and painterNicolae Tonitza.^[46] In addition, Fondane and Călugăru frequented the artistic and literary club established by the controversialAlexandru Bogdan-Pitești, a cultural promoter and political militant whose influence spread over several Symbolist milieus.^[47] In a 1922 piece forRampa, he remembered Bogdan-Pitești in ambivalent terms: "he could not stand moral elevation. [...] He was made of the greatest of joys, in the most purulent of bodies. How many generations of ancientboyars had come to pass, like unworthy dung, for this singular earth to be generated?"^[48]

Pressed on by his family and the prospects of financial security,^[49] Fondane contemplated becoming a lawyer. Having passed hisbaccalaureate examination in Bucharest, he was, according to his own account, a registered student at theUniversity of Iași Law School, obtaining a graduation certificate but prevented from becoming alicentiate by the opposition of faculty memberA. C. Cuza, theantisemitic political figure.^[50] According to a recollection of poetAdrian Maniu, Fondane again worked as a fact checker for some months after his arrival to the capital.^[41] His activity as a journalist also allowed him to interviewArnold Davidovich Margolin, statesman of the defunctUkrainian People's Republic, with whom he discussed the fate ofUkrainian Jews before and after theSoviet Russian takeover.^[51]

Over the following years, he restarted his career in the press, contributing to various nationally circulated newspapers:Adevărul,Adevărul Literar și Artistic,Cuvântul Liber,Mântuirea, etc.^[52] The main topics of his interest were literary reviews,essays reviewing the contribution of Romanian and French authors, various art chronicles, and opinion pieces on social or cultural issues.^[53] A special case was his collaboration withMântuirea, a Zionist periodical founded by Zissu, where, between August and October 1919, he published his studies collectionIudaism și elenism ("Judaism andHellenism").^[5][15][54] These pieces, alternating with similar articles by Galaction, showed how the young man's views incultural anthropology had been shaped by his relationship with Groper (with whom he nevertheless severed all contacts by 1920).^[11][15]

Fondane also renewed his collaboration withRampa. He and another contributor to the magazine, journalistTudor Teodorescu-Braniște, carried out a debate in the magazine's pages: Fondane's articles defended Romanian Symbolism against criticism from Teodorescu-Braniște, and offered glimpse into his personal interpretation of Symbolist attitudes.^[36] One piece he wrote in 1919, titledNoi, simboliștii ("Us Symbolists") stated his proud affiliation to the current (primarily defined by him as an artistic transposition of eternalidealism), and comprised the slogan: "We are too many not to be strong, and too few not to be intelligent."^[55] In May 1920, another of hisRampa contributions spoke out againstOctavian Goga,Culture Minister of theAlexandru Averescu executive, who contemplated sacking George Bacovia from his office of clerk.^[35] The same year,Lumea Evree published hisverse drama fragmentMonologul lui Baltazar ("Belshazzar's Soliloquy").^[33]

Around the time of his relocation to Bucharest, Fondane first met the moderate modernist criticEugen Lovinescu, and afterward became both an affiliate of Lovinescu's circle and a contributor to his literary reviewSburătorul.^[56][57] Among his first contributions there was a retrospective coverage of theboxing match betweenJack Dempsey andGeorges Carpentier, which comprised his reflections on the mythical power of sport and the clash of cultures.^[58] Although aSburătorist, he was still in contact with Galaction and the left-wing circles. In June 1921, Galaction paid homage to "the daring Benjamin" in an article forAdevărul Literar și Artistic, calling attention to Fondane's "overwhelming originality."^[59]

A year later, Fondane was employed by Vinea's new venue, the prestigious modernist venueContimporanul. Having debuted in its first issue with a comment on Romanian translation projects (Ferestre spre Occident, "Windows on theOccident"),^[60] he was later assigned the theatrical column.^[61] Fondane's work was again featured inFlacăra magazine (at the time under Minulescu's direction): the poemCe simplu ("How Simple") and the essayIstoria Ideii ("The History of the Idea") were both published there in 1922.^[62] The same year, with assistance from fellow novelistFelix Aderca, Fondane grouped his earlier essays onFrench literature asImagini și cărți din Franța ("Images and Books from France"), published byEditura Socec company.^[63] The book included what was probably the first Romanian study ofMarcel Proust's contribution as a novelist.^[64] The author announced that he was planning a similar volume, grouping essays about Romanian writers, both modernists (Minulescu, Bacovia, Arghezi, Maniu, Galaction) and classics (Alexandru Odobescu,Ion Creangă,Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea,Anton Pann), but this work was not published in his lifetime.^[65]

Also in 1922, Fondane and Pascal set up the theatrical troupeInsula ("The Island"), which stated its commitment toavant-garde theater. Probably named after Minulescu's earlier Symbolist magazine,^[66] the group was likely a local replica ofJean Copeau's nonconformist productions in France.^[67] Hosted by the Maison d'Art galleries in Bucharest, the company was joined by, among others, actresses Lina Fundoianu-Pascal andVictoria Mierlescu, and directorSandu Eliad.^[61] Other participants were writers (Cocea, Pană, Zissu,Scarlat Callimachi,Mărgărita Miller Verghy,Ion Pillat) and theatrical people (George Ciprian,Marietta Sadova,Soare Z. Soare,Dida Solomon,Alice Sturdza,Ionel Țăranu).^[68]

Although it stated its goal of revolutionizing theRomanian repertoire (a goal published as anart manifesto inContimporanul),Insula produced mostly conventional Symbolist andNeoclassical plays: its inaugural shows includedLegenda funigeilor ("Gossamer Legend") byȘtefan Octavian Iosif andDimitrie Anghel, one ofLord Dunsany'sFive Plays and (in Fondane's own translation)Molière'sLe Médecin volant.^[69] Probably aiming to enrich this program with samples ofYiddish drama, Fondane began, but never finished, a translation ofS. Ansky'sThe Dybbuk.^[11] The troupe ceased its activity in 1923, partly because of significant financial difficulties, and partly because of a rise in antisemitic activities, which put its Jewish performers at risk.^[70] For a while,Insula survived as a conference group, hosting modernist lectures on classical Romanian literature—with the participation of Symbolist and post-Symbolist authors such as Aderca, Arghezi, Millian, Pillat, Vinea,N. Davidescu,Perpessicius, and Fondane himself.^[71] He was at the time working on his own play,Filoctet ("Philoctetes", later finished asPhiloctète).^[72]

In 1923, Benjamin Fondane eventually left Romania for France, spurred on by the need to prove himself within a different cultural context.^{[49][57][73][74]} He was at the time interested in the success ofDada, an avant-garde movement launched abroad by the Romanian-born authorTristan Tzara, in collaboration with several others.^[75] Not dissuaded by the fact that his sister and brother-in-law (the Pascals) had returned impoverished from an extended stay inParis, Fondane crossed Europe by train and partly by foot.^[76]

The writer (who adopted hisFrancized name shortly after leaving his native country)^[77][78] was eventually joined there by the Pascals. The three of them continued to lead abohemian and at times precarious existence, discussed in Fondane's correspondence with Romanian novelistLiviu Rebreanu,^[79] and described by researcher Ana-Maria Tomescu as "humiliating poverty".^[80] The poet acquired some sources of income from his contacts in Romania: in exchange for his contribution to the circulation of Romanian literature in France, he received official funds from the Culture Ministry's directorate (at the time headed by Minulescu); in addition, he published unsigned articles in various newspapers, and even relied on handouts from Romanian actressElvira Popescu (who visited his home, as did avant-garde painterM. H. Maxy).^[81] He also translated into French Zissu's novelAmintirile unui candelabru ("The Recollections of a Chandelier").^[49] For a while, the poet also joined his colleagueIlarie Voronca on the legal department of L'Abeille insurance company.^[50][78]

After a period of renting furnished rooms, Fondane accepted an offer from Jean, brother of the deceased literary theoristRemy de Gourmont, and, employed as a librarian-concierge, moved into the Gourmonts' museum property on Rue des Saints-Pères, some distance away from to the celebrated literary caféLes Deux Magots.^[82] In the six years before Pascal's 1929 death, Fondane left Gourmont's house and, with his sister and brother-in-law, moved into a succession of houses (on Rue Domat, Rue Jacob, Rue Monge), before settling into a historical building once inhabited by authorBernardin de Saint-Pierre (Rue Rollin, 6).^[83] Complaining about eye trouble and exhaustion, and several times threatened with insolvency, Fondane often left Paris for the resort ofArcachon.^[84]

Claudia Millian, who was also spending time in Paris, described Fondane's new focus on studyingChristian theology andCatholic thought, fromHildebert to Gourmont's ownLatin mystique (it was also at this stage that the Romanian writer acquired and sent home part of Gourmont's bibliophile collection).^[85] He coupled these activities with an interest in grouping together the cultural segments of theRomanian diaspora: around 1924, he and Millian were founding members of the Society of Romanian Writers in Paris, presided upon by the aristocratElena Văcărescu.^[85] Meanwhile, Fondane acquired a profile on the local literary scene, and, in his personal notes, claimed to have had his works praised by novelistAndré Gide and philosopherJules de Gaultier.^[50] They both were his idols: Gide's work had shaped his own contribution in theprose poem genre,^[15] while Gaultier did the same for his philosophical outlook.^[49] The self-exiled debutant was nevertheless still viewing his career with despair, describing it as languishing, and noting that there was a chance of him failing to earn a solid literary reputation.^[86]

The mid-1920s brought Benjamin Fondane's affiliation withSurrealism, the post-Dada avant-garde current centered in Paris. Fondane also rallied withBelgian Surrealist composersE. L. T. Mesens andAndré Souris (with whom he signed a manifesto onmodernist music), and supported Surrealist poet-directorAntonin Artaud in his efforts to set up a theater named afterAlfred Jarry (which was not, however, an all-Surrealist venue).^[87] In this context, he tried to persuade the French Surrealist group to tour his native country and establish contacts with local affiliates.^[88]

By 1926, Fondane grew disenchanted with thecommunist alignment proposed by the main Surrealist faction and its mentor,André Breton. Writing at the time, he commented that the ideological drive could prove fatal: "Perhaps never again will [a poet] recover that absolute freedom that he had in thebourgeois republic."^[89][90] A few years later, the Romanian writer expressed his support for the anti-Breton dissidents ofLe Grand Jeu magazine, and was a witness at the 1930 riot which opposed the two factions.^[91] Hisanti-communist discourse was again aired in 1932: commenting on indictment of Surrealist poetLouis Aragon for communist texts (read by the authorities as instigation to murder), Fondane stated that he did believe Aragon's case was covered by thefreedom of speech.^[92][93] His ideas also brought him into conflict withPierre Drieu La Rochelle, who was moving away from an avant-garde background and into the realm offar right ideas.^[94] By the early 1930s, Fondane was in contact with the mainstream modernistJacques Rivière and hisNouvelle Revue Française circle.^[49]

In 1928, his own collaboration with the Surrealists took shape as the bookTrois scenarii: ciné-poèmes ("Three Scenarios: Cine-poems"), published byDocuments internationaux de l'esprit nouveau collection, with artwork byAmerican photographerMan Ray and Romanian painterAlexandru Brătășanu^[95] (one of his other contacts in the French Surrealist photographers' group wasEli Lotar, the illegitimate son of Arghezi).^[96] The "cine-poems" were intentionally conceived as unfilmable screenplays, in what was his personal statement about artistic compromise betweenexperimental film and the emerging worldwidefilm industry.^[97] The book notably comprised his verdict about cinema being "the only art that was never classical."^[98]

With time, Fondane became a contributor to newspapers or literary journals in France, Belgium, andSwitzerland: a regular presence inCahiers du Sud of Marseille, he had his work featured in the Surrealist press (Discontinuité,Le Phare de Neuilly,Bifur), as well as inLe Courrier des Poètes,Le Journal des Poètes,Romain Rolland'sEurope,Paul Valéry'sCommerce etc.^[99] In addition, Fondane's research was hosted by specialized venues such asRevue Philosophique,Schweizer Annalen andCarlo Suarès'Cahiers de l'Étoile.^[83] After a long period of indecision,^[72] the Romanian poet became a dedicated follower ofLev Shestov, aRussian-bornexistentialist thinker whose ideas about the eternal opposition betweenfaith andreason he expanded upon in later texts.^[100] According to intellectual historianSamuel Moyn, Fondane was, withRachel Bespaloff, one of the "most significant and devoted of Shestov's followers".^[101] In 1929, as a frequenter of Shestov's circle, Fondane also metArgentinian female authorVictoria Ocampo, who became his close friend (after 1931, he became a contributor to her modernist review,Sur).^[72][94] Fondane's essays were more frequently than before philosophical in nature:Europe published his tribute Shestov (January 1929) and his comments ofEdmund Husserl'sphenomenology, which included his own critique ofrationalism (June 1930).^[72]

Invited (on Ocampo's initiative)^{[57][72][78][90][94][102]} by theAmigos del Arte society ofBuenos Aires, Fondane left for Argentina andUruguay in summer 1929. The object of his visit was promoting French cinema with a set of lectures in Buenos Aires,Montevideo and other cities (as he later stated in aRampa interview withSarina Cassvan-Pas, he introducedSouth Americans to the work ofGermaine Dulac,Luis Buñuel andHenri Gad).^[103] In this context, Fondane met essayistEduardo Mallea, who invited him to contribute inLa Nación's literary supplement.^[94] His other activities there included conferencing on Shestov at theUniversity of Buenos Aires and publishing articles on several subjects (from Shestov's philosophy to the poems of Tzara), but the fees received in return were, in his own account, too small to cover the cost of decent living.^[104]

In October 1929, Fondane was back in Paris, where he focused on translating and popularizing some of Romanian literature's milestone texts, fromMihai Eminescu'sSărmanul Dionis to the poetry ofIon Barbu, Minulescu, Arghezi and Bacovia.^[105] In the same context, the expatriate writer helped introduce Romanians to some of the new European tendencies, becoming, in the words of literary historianPaul Cernat, "the first important promoter of French Surrealism in Romanian culture."^[106]

In the mid-1920s, Fondane and painterJános Mattis-Teutsch joined the external editorial board ofIntegral magazine, an avant-garde tribune published in Bucharest byIon Călugăru,F. Brunea-Fox and Voronca.^[107] He was assigned a permanent column, known asFenêtres sur l'Europe/Ferestre spre Europa (French and Romanian for "Windows on Europe").^[108] WithBarbu Florian, Fondane became a leading film reviewer for the magazine, pursuing his agenda in favor of non-commercial and "pure" films (such asRené Clair'sEntr'acte), and praisingCharlie Chaplin for hislyricism, but later making some concessions totalkies and the regularHollywood films.^[109] Exploring what he defined as "the great ballet of contemporary French poetry", Fondane also published individual notes on writers Aragon,Jean Cocteau,Joseph Delteil,Paul Éluard andPierre Reverdy.^[110] In 1927,Integral also hosted one of Fondane's replies to the communist Surrealists in France, asLe surréalisme et la révolution ("Surrealism and Revolution").^{[90][111][112]}

He also came into contact withunu, the Surrealist venue of Bucharest, which was edited by several of his avant-garde friends at home. His contributions there included a text on Tzara's post-Dada works, which he analyzed as Valéry-like "pure poetry".^[113] In December 1928,unu published some of Fondane's messages home, asScrisori pierdute ("Lost Letters").^[114] Between 1931 and 1934, Fondane was in regular correspondence with theunu writers, in particularStephan Roll,F. Brunea-Fox andSașa Pană, being informed about their conflict with Voronca (attacked as a betrayer of the avant-garde) and witnessing from afar the eventual implosion of Romanian Surrealism on the model of French groups.^[115] In such dialogues, Roll complains aboutright-wing politicalcensorship in Romania, and speaks in some detail about his own conversion toMarxism.^[116]

With Fondane's approval and Minulescu's assistance,^[72]Priveliști also saw print in Romania during 1930. Published byEditura Cultura Națională, it sparked significant controversy with its nonconformist style, but also made the author the target of critics' interest.^[117] As a consequence, Fondane was also sending material toIsac Ludo'sAdam review, most of it notes (some hostile) clarifying ambiguous biographical detail discussed in Aderca's chronicle toPriveliști.^[118] His profile within the local avant-garde was also acknowledged inItaly andGermany: theMilanese magazineFiera Letteraria commented on his poetry, reprinting fragments originally featured inIntegral;^[119] in its issue of August–September 1930, theExpressionist tribuneDer Sturm published samples of his works, alongside those of nine other Romanian modernists, translated by Leopold Kosch.^[120]

As Paul Daniel notes, the polemics surroundingPriveliști only lasted for a year, and Fondane was largely forgotten by the Romanian public after this moment.^[121] However, the discovery of Fondane's avant-garde stance by traditionalist circles took the form of bemusement or indignation, which lasted into the next decades. Theconservative criticConst. I. Emilian, whose 1931 study discussed modernism as a psychiatric condition, mentioned Fondane as one of the leading "extremists", and deplored his abandonment of traditionalist subjects.^[122] Some nine years later, the antisemitic far right newspaperSfarmă-Piatră, through the voice ofOvidiu Papadima, accused Fondane and "the Jews" of having purposefully maintained "the illusion of a literary movement" under Lovinescu's leadership.^[123] Nevertheless, before that date, Lovinescu himself had come to criticize his former pupil (a disagreement which echoed his larger conflict with theunu group).^[124] Also in the 1930s, Fondane's work received coverage in the articles of two other maverick modernists:Perpessicius, who viewed it with noted sympathy, andLucian Boz, who found his new poems touched by "prolixity".^[125]

Back in France, where he had become Shestov's assistant,^[126] Fondane was beginning work on other books: the essay on 19th-century poetArthur Rimbaud—Rimbaud le voyou ("Rimbaud the Hoodlum")—and, despite an earlier pledge not to return to poetry, a new series of poems.^[72][121] His eponymously titled study-portrait of German philosopherMartin Heidegger was published byCahiers du Sud in 1932.^[127] Despite his earlier rejection of commercial films, Fondane eventually became an employee ofParamount Pictures, probably spurred on by his need to finance a personal project^[78][128] (reputedly, he was accepted there with a second application, his first one having been rejected in 1929).^[72] He worked first as an assistant director, before turning to screenwriting.^[90] Preserving his interest in Romanian developments, he visited the Paris set ofTeleviziune,^[129] aRomanian cinema production for which he shared directorial credits.^[106] His growing interest in Voronca's own poetry led him to review it for Tudor Arghezi's Bucharest periodical,Bilete de Papagal, where he stated: "Mr. Ilarie Voronca is at the top of his form. I'm gladly placing my stakes on him."^[130]

In 1931, the poet married Geneviève Tissier, a trained jurist^[121] andlapsed Catholic.^[78] Their home on Rue Rollin subsequently became a venue for literary sessions, mostly grouping theCahiers du Sud contributors. The aspiring author Paul Daniel, who became Rodica Wechsler's husband in 1935, attended such meetings with his wife, and recalls having met Gaultier, filmmakerDimitri Kirsanoff, music criticBoris de Schlözer, poetsYanette Delétang-Tardif andThérèse Aubray, as well as Shestov's daughter Natalie Baranoff.^[131] Fondane also enjoyed a warm friendship withConstantin Brâncuși, the Romanian-born modern sculptor, visiting Brâncuși's workshop on an almost daily basis and writing about his work inCahiers de l'Étoile.^[132] He witnessed first-hand and described Brâncuși'sprimitivist techniques, likening his work to that of a "savage man".^[133]

Rimbaud le voyou was eventually published by Denoël & Steele company in 1933, the same year when Fondane published his poetry volumeUlysse ("Ulysses") withLes Cahiers du Journal des Poètes.^{[72][78][134]} The Rimbaud study, partly written as a reply toRoland de Renéville'smonographRimbaud le Voyant ("Rimbaud the Seer"),^[90] consolidated Fondane's international reputation as a critic and literary historian. In the months after its publication, the book earned much praise from scholars and writers—fromJoë Bousquet,Jean Cocteau,Benedetto Croce andLouis-Ferdinand Céline,^[72][135] toJean Cassou,Guillermo de Torre^[136] andMiguel de Unamuno.^[72] It also found admirers in theEnglish poetDavid Gascoyne, who was afterward in correspondence with Fondane, and the American novelistHenry Miller.^[90]Ulysse itself illustrated Fondane's interest in scholarly issues: he sent one autographed copy toRaïssa Maritain, wife ofJacques Maritain (both of whom were Catholic thinkers).^[78][137] Shortly after this period, the author was surprised to read Voronca's own French-language volumeUlysse dans la cité ("Ulysses in the City"): although puzzled by the similarity of titles with his own collection, he described Voronca as a "great poet."^[138] Also then, in Romania, B. Iosif completed the Yiddish translation of Fondane'sPsalmul leprosului ("The Leper's Psalm"). The text, left in his care by Fondane before his 1923 departure, was first published inDi Woch, a periodical set up in Romania by poetYankev Shternberg (October 31, 1934).^[139]

The 1933 establishment of aNazi regime in Germany brought Fondane into the camp ofanti-fascism. In December 1934, hisApelul studențimii ("The Call of Students") was circulated among the Romanian diaspora, and featured passionate calls for awareness: "Tomorrow, inconcentration camps, it will be too late".^[140][141] The following year, he outlined his critique of all kinds oftotalitarianism,L'Écrivain devant la révolution ("The Writer Facing the Revolution"), supposed to be delivered in front of the Paris-held International Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture (organized by left-wing and communist intellectuals with support from theSoviet Union).^[142][143] According to historian Martin Stanton, Fondane's activity in film, likeJean-Paul Sartre's parallel beginnings as a novelist, was itself a political statement in support of thePopular Front: "[they were] hoping to introduce critical dimensions in the fields they felt thefascists had colonized."^[144] Fondane nevertheless ridiculed the communist version ofpacifism as a "parade of big words", noting that it opposed mere slogans to concreteGerman re-armament.^[51] Writing for the film magazineLes Cahiers Jaunes in 1933, he expressed the ambition of creating "anabsurd film about something absurd, to satisfy [one's] absurd taste for freedom".^[78]

Fondane left the Paramount studios the same year, disappointed with company policies and without having had any screen credit of his own (although, he claimed, there were over 100 Paramount scripts to which he had unsigned contributions).^[145] During 1935, he and Kirsanoff were in Switzerland, for the filming ofRapt, with a screenplay by Fondane (adapted fromCharles Ferdinand Ramuz'sLa séparation des races novel).^{[72][90][146]} The result was a highly poetic production, and, despite Fondane's still passionate defense ofsilent film,^[72][78] the first talkie in Kirsanoff's career.^[147] The poet was enthusiastic about this collaboration, claiming that it had enjoyed a good reception fromSpain toCanada, standing as a manifesto against the success of more "chatty" sound films.^[148] In particular, French critics and journalists hailedRapt as a necessary break with thecomédie en vaudeville tradition.^[149] In the end, however, the independent product could not compete with the Hollywood industry, which was at the time monopolizing theFrench market.^[150] In parallel with these events, Fondane followed Shestov's personal guidance and, by means ofCahiers du Sud, attacked philosopherJean Wahl'ssecular reinterpretation ofSøren Kierkegaard'sChristian existentialism.^[151]

Despite selling many copies of his books and havingRapt played at the Panthéon Cinema, Benjamin Fondane was still facing major financial difficulties, accepting a 1936 offer to write and assist in the making ofTararira, an avant-gardemusical product of theArgentine film industry.^[94][152] This was his second option: initially, he contemplated filming a version ofRicardo Güiraldes'Don Segundo Sombra, but met opposition from Güiraldes' widow.^[94] While en route to Argentina, he became friends with Georgette Gaucher, aBreton woman, with whom he was in correspondence for the rest of his life.^[72]

Under contract with the Falma-film company, Fondane was received with honors by theRomanian Argentine community, and, with the unusual cut of his preferred suit, is said to have even become a trendsetter in local fashion.^[153] For Ocampo and theSur staff, literary historian Rosalie Sitman notes, his visit also meant an occasion to defy thexenophobic and antisemitic agenda of Argentine nationalist circles.^[154] Centered on thetango,^[155] Fondane's film enlisted contributions from some leading figures in several national film and music industries, havingMiguel Machinandiarena as producer andJohn Alton aseditor;^[72] in starred, among others,Orestes Caviglia,Miguel Gómez Bao andIris Marga.^[57] The manner in whichTararira approached its subject scandalized the Argentine public, and it was eventually rejected by its distributors^{[78][94][141][156]} (no copies survive, but writerGloria Alcorta, who was present at a private screening, rated it a "masterpiece").^[94] Fondane, who had earlier complained about the actors' resistance to his ideas, left Argentina before the film was actually finished.^[72] It was on his return trip that he met Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, with whom he and Geneviève became good friends.^{[72][78][94][137]}

With the money received in Buenos Aires, the writer contemplated returning on a visit to Romania, but he abandoned all such projects later in 1936, instead making his way to France.^[157] He followed up on his publishing activity in 1937, when his selected poems,Titanic, saw print.^[158] Encouraged by the reception given toRimbaud le voyou, he published two more essays with Denoël & Steele:La Conscience malheureuse ("The Unhappy Consciousness", 1937) andFaux traité d'esthétique ("False Treatise ofAesthetics", 1938).^[159] In 1938, he was working on a collected edition of hisFerestre spre Europa, supposed to be published in Bucharest but never actually seeing print.^[62] At around that date, Fondane was also a presenter for the Romanian edition of20th Century Fox's internationalnewsreel,Movietone News.^[160]

In 1939, Fondane wasnaturalized French. This followed an independent initiative of theSociété des écrivains français professional association, in recognition for his contribution to French letters.^[160]Cahiers du Sud collected the required 3,000francs fee through a public subscription, enlisting particularly large contributions from music producer Renaud de Jouvenel (brother ofBertrand de Jouvenel) and philosopher-ethnologistLucien Lévy-Bruhl.^[161] Only months after this event, with the outbreak ofWorld War II, Fondane was drafted into theFrench Army. During most of the "Phoney War" interval, considered too old for active service, he was in themilitary reserve force, but in February 1940 was called under arms with the216 Artillery Regiment.^[162] According to Lina, "he left [home] with unimaginable courage and faith."^[163] Stationed at theSainte Assise Castle inSeine-Port, he edited andstenciled a humorous gazette,L'Écho de la I C-ie ("The 1st Company Echo"), where he also published his last-ever work of poetry,Le poète en patrouille ("The Poet on Patrolling Duty").^[164]

Fondane was captured by the Germans in June 1940 (shortly before thefall of France), and was taken into a German camp as aprisoner of war.^[90][165] He managed to escape captivity, but was recaptured in short time.^[90][166] After falling ill withappendicitis, he was transported back to Paris, kept in custody at theVal-de-Grâce, and operated on.^[90][167] Fondane was eventually released, theGerman occupiers having decided that he was no longer fit for soldierly duty.^[166]

He was working on two poetry series,Super Flumina Babylonis (a reference toPsalm 137) andL'Exode ("The Exodus"), as well as on his last essay, focusing on 19th-century poetCharles Baudelaire, and titledBaudelaire et l'expérience du gouffre ("Baudelaire and the Experience of the Abyss").^[168] In addition to these, his other French texts, incomplete or unpublished by 1944, include: thepoetic drama piecesPhiloctète,Les Puits de Maule ("Maule's Well", an adaptation ofNathaniel Hawthorne'sThe House of the Seven Gables) andLe Féstin de Balthazar ("Belshazzar's Feast"); a study about the life and work of Romanian-born philosopherStéphane Lupasco; and the selection from his interviews with Shestov,Sur les rives de l'Illisus ("On the Banks of theIllisus").^[169] His very last text is believed to be a philosophical essay,Le Lundi existentiel ("The Existential Monday"), on which Fondane was working in 1944.^[94][170] Little is known aboutProvèrbes ("Proverbs"), which, he announced in 1933, was supposed to be an independent collection of poems.^[171]

According to various accounts, Fondane made a point of not leaving Paris, despite the growing restrictions and violence.^{[78][166][170]} However, others note that, as a precaution against the antisemitic measures in theoccupied north, he eventually made his way into the more permissivezone libre, and only made returns to Paris in order to collect his books.^[172][173] Throughout this interval, the poet refused to wear theyellow badge (mandatory for Jews),^{[78][170][174]} and, living in permanent risk, isolated himself from his wife, adopting an even more precarious lifestyle.^[57] He was still in contact with writers of various ethnic backgrounds, and active on the clandestine literary scene. In this context, Fondane stated his intellectual affiliation to theFrench Resistance: his former Surrealist colleaguePaul Éluard published several of his poems in the pro-communistEurope, under the name ofIsaac Laquedem (a nod to theWandering Jew myth).^[175] Such pieces were later included, but left unsigned, in theanthologyL'Honneur des poètes ("The Honor of Poets"), published by the Resistance activists as an anti-Nazi manifesto.^[90][176] Fondane also preserved his column inCahiers du Sud for as long as it was possible, and had his contributions published in several other clandestine journals.^[78]

After 1941, Fondane became friends with another Romanian existentialist in France, the youngerEmil Cioran. Their closeness signaled an important stage in the latter's career: Cioran was slowly moving away from his fascist sympathies and his antisemitic stance, and, although still connected to the revolutionary fascistIron Guard, had reintroducedcosmopolitanism to his own critique of Romanian society.^{[170][177][178]} In 1943, transcending ideological boundaries, Fondane also had dinner withMircea Eliade, the Romanian novelist and philosopher, who, like their common friend Cioran, had an ambiguous connection with the far right.^[179] In 1942, his own Romanian citizenship rights, granted by theJewish emancipation of the early 1920s, were lost with the antisemitic legislation adopted by theIon Antonescu regime,^[180] which also officially banned his entire work as "Jewish".^[181] At around that time, his old friends outside France made unsuccessful efforts to obtain him asafe conduct to neutral countries. Such initiatives were notably taken by Jacques Maritain from his new home in theUnited States^[78] and by Victoria Ocampo in Argentina.^[94][182]

He was eventually arrested bycollaborationist forces in spring 1944, after unknown civilians reported his Jewish origin.^{[170][173][183][184]} Held in custody by theGestapo, he was assigned to the local network ofHolocaust perpetrators: after internment in theDrancy transit camp, he was sent on one of the transports to theextermination camps inoccupied Poland, reachingAuschwitz-Birkenau. In the meantime, his family and friends remained largely unaware of his fate.^[185] After news of his arrest, several of his friends reportedly intervened to save him, including Cioran, Lupasco and writerJean Paulhan.^{[78][170][173]} According to some accounts, such efforts may have also involved another one of Cioran's friends, essayistEugène Ionesco (later known for his work in drama).^[186]

Accounts differ on what happened to his sister Lina. Paul Daniel believes that she decided to go looking for her brother, also went missing, and, in all probability, became a victim of another deportation.^[185] Other sources state that she was arrested at around the same time as, or even together with, her brother, and that they were both on the same transport to Auschwitz.^{[51][78][170][173][187]} According to other accounts, Fondane was in custody while his sister was not, and sent her a final letter from Drancy; Fondane, who had theoretical legal grounds for being spared deportation (a Christian wife), aware that Lina could not invoke them, sacrificed himself to be by her side.^{[78][94][170][173]} While in Drancy, he sent another letter, addressed to Geneviève, in which he asked for all his French poetry to be published in the future asLe Mal des fantômes ("The Ache of Phantoms").^[188][189] Optimistically, Fondane referred to himself as "the traveler who isn't done traveling".^[78][188]

While Lina is believed to have been marked for death upon arrival (and immediately after sent to thegas chamber),^[78] her brother survived the camp conditions for a few more months. He befriended two Jewish doctors, Moscovici and Klein, with whom he spent his free moments engaged in passionate discussions about philosophy and literature.^[51] As was later attested by a survivor of the camp, the poet himself was among the 700 inmates selected for extermination on October 2, 1944, when the Birkenau subsection outsideBrzezinka was being evicted bySS guards.^[190] He was aware of impending death, and reportedly saw it as ironic that it came so near to an expectedAllied victory.^[166] After a short interval in Block 10, where he is said to have awaited his death with dignity and courage, he was driven to the gas chamber and murdered.^[170][191] His body was cremated, along with those of the other victims.^[5][166]

As a young writer, Benjamin Fondane moved several times between the extremes ofSymbolism andneoromantic traditionalism. Literary historianMircea Martin analyzed the very first of his aspastiches of several, sometimes contradictory, literary sources. These influences, he notes, come from local traditionalists,Romantics and Neoromantics—Octavian Goga (the inspiration for Fondane's earliest pieces),Grigore Alexandrescu,Vasile Alecsandri,George Coșbuc,Ștefan Octavian Iosif; from French Symbolists—Paul Verlaine; and from Romanian disciples of Symbolism—Dimitrie Anghel,George Bacovia,Alexandru Macedonski,Ion Minulescu.^[192] The young author had a special appreciation for the 19th centurynational poet,Mihai Eminescu. Familiar with Eminescu's entire poetic work,^[15] he was one of the young poets who tried to reconcile Eminescu's Neoromantic, ruralizing, traditionalism with the urban phenomenon that was Symbolism.^[193] While Fondane continued to credit Minulescu's radical and jocular Symbolism as a main influence on his own poems, this encounter was overall less significant than his enthusiasm for Eminescu;^[194] in contrast, Bacovia's desolate and macabre poetry left enduring traces in Fondane's work, shaping his depiction of provincial environments and even transforming his worldview.^{[90][184][195][196]}

Fondane's early affiliation withOvid Densusianu's version ofRomania's Symbolist current was, according to literary historianDumitru Micu, superficial. Micu notes that the young Fondane sent his verse to be published by magazines with incompatible agendas, suggesting that his collaboration withVieața Nouă was therefore incidental, but also that, around 1914, Fondane's own style was a "conventional Symbolism".^[23] Writing in 1915, the poet himself explained that his time with the magazine in question ought not be interpreted as anything other than conjectural.^[23] During his polemic withTudor Teodorescu-Braniște, he defined himself as an advocate of an "insolent" Symbolism, a category defined by and aroundRemy de Gourmont.^[36] This perspective was further clarified inO lămurire..., which explained howTăgăduința lui Petru was to be read: "A clear, although Symbolist, book. For it is, unmistakably, Symbolist. [...] Symbolism doesn't necessarily meanneologism, morbid, bizarre,decadent, confusing and badly written. But rather—if there is talent—original, commonsensical, depth, non-imitation, lack of standard, subconscious, new and sometimes healthy."^[42] From a regional point of view, the young Fondane is sometimes included with Bacovia in theMoldavian branch of Romanian Symbolism, or, more particularly, in the Jewish Moldavian subsection.^[197]

The various stylistic directions of Fondane's early poetry came together inPriveliști. Mircea Martin reads in it the poet's emancipation from both Symbolism and traditionalism, despite it being opened with a dedication to Minulescu, and againstEugen Lovinescu's belief that suchpastorals were exclusively traditionalist.^[198] According to Martin,Priveliști parts from its Romantic predecessors by abandoning the "descriptive" and "sentimentalist" in pastoral conventions: "Everything seems designed on purpose to confound and defy the traditional mindset."^[199] Similarly, writer-criticGheorghe Crăciun found thePriveliști texts contiguous with other early forms of Romanian modernism.^[196]

Nevertheless, much of the volume still adheres tolyricism and the conventionalidyll format, primarily by identifying itself with the slow rhythms of country life.^[200] These traits were subsumed by literary historianGeorge Călinescu into a special category, that of "traditionalist Symbolism", centered on "that which brings man closer to Creation's interior life".^[201] The same commentator suggested that the concept linked modernism and traditionalism through the common influence ofCharles Baudelaire,^[202] whom Fondane himself credited as the "mystical power" behindPriveliști.^[196] The cycle also recalls Fondane's familiarity with another pastoral poet,Francis Jammes.^[11][15] Of special note is anode,Lui Taliarh ("At Thaliarchus"), described by Călinescu as the masterpiece ofPriveliști.^[203] Directly inspired byHorace'sOdes I.9, and seen by Martin as Fondane's will to integrate death into life (or "plenary living"),^[204] it equates existence with the seasonal cycle:

From its traditionalist core,Priveliști created a modernist structure of uncertainty and violent language. According to Mircea Martin, the two tendencies were so intertwined that one could find both expressed within the same poem.^[206] The very preference for vitalism and the energy of wilderness, various critics assess, is a modernist reaction to the drama ofWorld War I, rather than a return to Romantic ideals.^[184][207] In this interval, Fondane had also discovered the poetic revolution promoted byTudor Arghezi, who united traditionalist discourse with modernist themes, creating new poetic formats. Martin notes that Fondane, more than any other, tried to replicate Arghezi's abruptprosody and "tooth and nail" approach to theliterary language, but lacked his mentor's "verbal magic."^[208] The same critic suggests that the main effect of Arghezi's influence on Fondane was not in poetic form, but in determining the disciple to "discover himself", to seek his own independent voice.^[209]Paul Cernat also sees Fondane as indebted to Arghezi's mix of "cruelty" and "formal discipline".^[210] In contrast to such assessments, Călinescu saw Fondane not as an Arghezian pupil, but as a traditionalist "spiritually related" toIon Pillat's own post-Symbolist avatar.^[211] This verdict was implicitly or explicitly rejected by other commentators: Martin argued that Pillat's omnipresent "calm joy", modulated with "impeccable taste", clashed with Fondane's "tension", "surprises" and "intelligence superior to [his] talent";^[209] Cernat assessed thatPriveliști was at "the antipode" of Pillat and Jammes, that its themes pointed tosocial alienation and apatriarchal universe gone "off its rocker".^[212]

Statements made by the young Fondane, in which he explains his indifference toward the landscape as it is, and his preference for the landscape as the poet himself creates it, have been a traditional source for critical commentary.^[196][213] As Martin notes, this attitude led the poet and travel writer to express an apathy, or even boredom, in regard to the wild landscape, to promote "withdrawal" rather than "adhesion", "solitude" rather than "communion".^[214] However, as a way of cultivating a cosmic level of poetry, Fondane's work veered intosynesthesia andvitalism, being commended by critics for its tactile, aural or olfactory suggestions.^[215] In one such poem, cited by Călinescu as a sample of "exquisite freshness", the author imagines being turned into a ripewatermelon.^[216] These works also part with convention in matters ofprosody (with a modern treatment ofalexandrines) andvocabulary (a stated preference forSlavic versusRomance terminologies).^[196] In addition, Martin, who declared himself puzzled at noting that Fondane would not publish some of his most accomplished poems of youth, made special note of their occasional disregard forRomanian grammar and otherartistic licenses (left uncorrected by Paul Daniel on Fondane's explicit request).^[217] Some of thePriveliști poems look upon nature with ostentatious sarcasm, focusing on itsgrotesque elements, its rawness and its repetitiveness, as well as attacking the idyllic portrayal of peasants in traditionalist literature.^[218] Martin notes in particular one of the untitled pieces aboutHertsa region:

Literary historianOvid Crohmălniceanu was the first to suggest, in the 1960s, that the underlying traits of such imagery made the post-Symbolist Fondane anExpressionist poet, who had detected "the fundamentalanarchy of the universe".^[220] The verdict was echoed and amended by those of other critics. Martin finds that it applies to many of Fondane's early poems, where "explosive" imagery is central, but opines that, generally toned down bymelancholy, their message too blends into a new form of "crepuscular wisdom".^[221] ScholarDan Grigorescu stresses that the neo-romantic and symbolist element is dominant throughout thePriveliști volume and, contrary to Crohmălniceanu's thesis, argues that Fondane's projection of the self into the nature is not Expressionist, but rather a convention borrowed from Romanticism (except for "perhaps, [...] the exacerbated dilatation" in scenes in which terrified cattle are driven into town).^[222] In Grigorescu's interpretation, the volume has some similarities with the pastoral Expressionism of Romanian writersLucian Blaga andAdrian Maniu, as well as with the wilderness paintings ofFranz Marc, but is at "the opposite pole" from the "morbid hallucination" Expressionism ofH. Bonciu andMax Blecher.^[223] He indicates that, overall, Fondane's contributions confuse critics by following "contradictory directions", a mix that "hardly finds any grounds for comparison within [Romanian] poetry."^[224] In contrast, Paul Cernat sees both Fondane's poetry andIon Călugăru's prose as "Expressionistécorchés", and connects Fondane's "modern attitude" to his familiarity with the poems ofArthur Rimbaud.^[225]

The introduction of rhetorical violence within a traditional poetic setting announced Fondane's transition into the more radical wing of the modernist movement. During hisPriveliști period, in his articles forContimporanul, the poet stated that Symbolism was dead,^[226] and in subsequent articles drew a line between the original and non-original sides of Romanian Symbolism, becoming particularly critical of Macedonski.^[227] Defining his programmatic approach as leading, through the avant-garde, into aNeoclassical modernism (or a "newClassicism"),^{[49][228][229]} Benjamin Fondane argued: "To be excessive: that is the only way of being innovative."^[230] His perspective, mixing revolt and messages about creating a new tradition, was relatively close toContimporanul's own artistic program, and as such a variant ofConstructivism.^[231] During his own transition from Symbolism, Fondane looked on the avant-garde itself with critical distance. Discussing it as the product of a tradition leading back toStéphane Mallarmé, he reproachedCubism for displaying a limitation of range, and viewedFuturism as essentially destructive (but also useful for having created a virgin territory to support "constructive man"); likewise, he foundDada a solid, but limited, method of combatinginterwar period's "metaphysical despair".^[232]

The affiliation to the avant-garde came with a sharp critique ofRomanian culture, accused by Fondane of promoting imitation andparochialism. During a period which ended with his 1923 departure, the young poet sparked polemic with a series of statements in which, reviewing the impact of localFrancophilia, he equated Romania with acolony of France.^{[49][74][233][234]} This theory proposed a difference betweenWesternization and "parasitism": "If a foreign intellectual direction is always useful, an alien soul is always a danger."^[74][235] He did not cease to promote foreign culture at home, but stated a complex argument about the need to recognize differences in culture: his global conclusion about civilizations, which he viewed as equal but not identical, built on Gourmont's theory about an "intellectual constancy" throughout human history, as well as on philosopherHenri Bergson's critique ofmechanism.^[236] In parallel, Fondane criticized the cultural setting ofGreater Romania, noting that it was soBucharest-focused thatTransylvanian authors only became widely known by attending the capital'sCasa Capșa restaurant.^[237] In his retrospective interpretation of Romanian literature, the avant-garde essayist stated that there were precious few authors who could be considered original, primarily citingIon Creangă, the peasant writer, as a model of authenticity.^[74][238] While stating this point in hisImagini și cărți din Franța, Fondane cited in his favor a traditionalist culture critic, historianNicolae Iorga.^[74][239]

However, during a virtual polemic withPoporanism (hosted bySburătorul in 1922), Fondane also questioned the originality andThraco-Roman origin ofRomanian folklore, as well as, through it, historical myths surrounding theLatin ethnogenesis: "Present-day Romania, of obscure origins, Thraco-Roman-Slavic-Barbarian, owes its existence and present-day European inclusion to a fecund error [...]:it is the idea of our Latin origin [Fondane's italics]."^[74][240] Likewise, the author put forth the thesis according to which traditionalists such asMihail Sadoveanu andGeorge Coșbuc invoked literary themes present not just in Romania's archaic tradition, but also inSlavic folklore.^[74][241] Fondane went on to draw a comparison between the idea ofJewish chosenness and that of RomanianLatinity, concluding that they both resulted in positive national goals (in the case of Romania and its inhabitants, that of "becoming part of Europe").^[74][242] Paul Cernat found his perspective "more reasonable" than that of hisContimporanul colleagues, who speculated about creating a modernity on folkloric roots.^[243]

Scholar Constantin Pricop interprets Fondane's overall perspective as that of a "constructive" critic, citing a fragment ofImagini și cărți din Franța: "Let us hope the time will come when we may bring our personal contribution into Europe. [...] Until such time, let's keep a check on the continuous assimilation of foreign culture [...]; let's therefore return tocultural criticism."^[74] Commenting at length on the probable motivations of Fondane's discourse, Cernat suggests that, like many of his avant-garde colleagues, Fondane experienced a "peripheral complex", mergingBovarysme and frustrated ambition.^[244] According to Cernat, the poet surpassed this moment after experiencing success in France, and his decision to havePriveliști printed at home was intended as a special tribute to Romania and its language.^[245] There is however a pronounced difference between Fondane's French and Romanian work, as discussed by critics and by Fondane himself.^{[74][93][170][196][246]} The elements of continuity are highlighted in Crăciun's account: "French literature andculture signified for Fundoianu a process of clarification and self-definition, but not a change of identity."^[196]

Several of Fondane's exegetes have discussed the links between his apparent traditionalism and the classical themes of eithersecular Jewish culture orJudaism, with a focus on hisHasidic roots. According toSwedish researcherTom Sandqvist (who discusses the Jewish background of many Romanian avant-garde authors and artists), the Hasidic andKabbalah connection is enhanced by both thepantheistic vision ofTăgăduința lui Petru and the "Ein Sof-like emptiness" suggested inPriveliști.^[247] Paul Cernat too argued that the traditionalist elements in Fondane's work reflected Hasidism as it was experienced inGalicia orBukovina, as well as the direct influence ofIacob Ashel Groper.^[248] According to George Călinescu's analysis (originally stated in 1941), Fondane's origin within the rural minority of Romanian Jews (and not the urban Jewish mainstream) was of special psychological interest: "The poet is a Jew from Moldavia, where Jews have almost pastoral professions, but are nevertheless prevented by a tradition of market agglomerations from fully enjoying the sincerity of rustic life."^[249] The fond memory of Judaic practice is notably intertwined with thePriveliști pastorals:

Fondane expanded on his interest in the Jewish heritage in his early prose and drama. The various pre-1923 articles, including his obituary pieces forElias Schwartzfeld andAvram Steuerman-Rodion, speak at length aboutJewish ethics (which Fondane described as unique andidealistic),assimilation andJewish nationalism.^[5][51] They also offer his answer toantisemitism, including his case, relying on proof of Jewishexogamy, against all theories about a distinctSemitic race.^[5] In other such pieces, he comments at length on Groper's Yiddishist literature and corrects opinions expressed on the same topic by their common friendGala Galaction.^[15] As he explains in this context, Groper quelled his adolescent identity crisis, helping him find a core Judaism, more "vital" to him than the political scope of Zionism.^[15] During these dialogues, Fondane recalled, he first discovered his interest in philosophy: he played the "Sophist", paradoxical and abstract, in front of the "sentimental" Groper.^[15] Thisantithesis also inspired the core essay inIudaism și elenism, where Fondane writes at length about the hostile dialogue betweenJewish philosophy, in search of fundamental truths, andGreek thought, with its ultimate value of beauty.^[51]

Tăgăduința lui Petru, believed by Mircea Martin to be a sample of Fondane's debt toAndré Gide,^[250] is the first of his works to take inspiration from the Bible (in this case, looking beyond theTalmud).^[94] Also Biblical in subject,Monologul lui Baltazar has been interpreted by Crohmălniceanu as a negative comment onnihilism and theÜbermensch theory, notions embodied by the protagonistBelshazzar, legendary ruler ofBabylon during theJewish captivity.^[33] Fondane's progressive focus on Jewish Biblical sources mirrored the Christian interests of his mentor Arghezi. Like Arghezi, Fondane wrote a series ofPsalms—although, according to Martin, his tone was "too cadenced and solemn for one to expect a confrontation or a touching confession".^[208] However, Martin notes, the Jewish author either adopted or anticipated (depending on the reliability of his manuscripts' dating) Arghezi's poetry of exhortation and curses, in which ugliness, baseness and destitution speak directly to divinity.^[251] These sentiments are found in Fondane'sPsalmul leprosului, which the same critic identifies as "the series' masterpiece":

Throughout and beyond his participation in theSurrealist milieus (an affiliation illustrated primarily by his filmmaker and popularizer activities, rather than by his literary creation),^[253] Benjamin Fondane remained anexistentialist, primarily followingLev Shestov's views on thehuman condition. This came as a critique of thescientific method andrationalism as human explanations of the world, notably outlined in his ownFaux traité d'esthétique.^{[184][229][254]} Probably developed independently from Shestovist thought, his overall objection toward abstract projects has been likened by essayist Gina Sebastian Alcalay to the later stances ofAndré Glucksmann orEdgar Morin.^[51] These attitudes shaped his assessments of Surrealism. In one ofIntegral chronicles, Fondane himself explained that the movement, described as superior to Dada's "joyous suicide", had created a "new continent" with its rediscovery of dreams.^[255] Poet and critic Armelle Chitrit notes that, in part, Fondane's later dissidence was also motivated on an existentialist level, since Surrealism "had stopped asking questions"; instead, she notes, Fondane "believed neither in reason nor in any system based on it. It is folly, he wrote, to perpetuate the attempt to make man and history cohabitable. One of [S]hestov's rare disciples, he sets only the powers of life against those of chaos."^[174] As Fondane wrote toClaude Sernet,Rimbaud le voyou was in part at attempt at preventing the other Surrealists from confiscating Rimbaud's mythical status.^[256] According to Romanian-born writerLucian Raicu, its "somber" tone and allusive language are also early clues that Fondane had a nightmarish vision of the political and intellectual climate.^[126] His Shestovist interpretation, opposing existence to ideas, was contested by intellectual figureRaymond Queneau: himself a former Surrealist, Queneau suggested that Fondane was relying on blind faith, having a distorted perspective on science, literature and the human intellect.^[257] Furthermore, he noted that, under the influence ofLucien Lévy-Bruhl, Fondane described reality exclusively inprimitivist terms, as the realm of savagery andsuperstition.^[258]

Fondane's objection to thecommunist flirtations of the main Surrealist wing had roots in his earlier discourse: before leaving Romania, Fondane had criticizedsocialism as a modern myth, symptomatic of a generalizeddesecration,^[259] suggesting thatLeninist andLabor Zionist projects were economically unsound.^[51] Much admired byEmil Cioran for his rejection of all modern ideology,^[170] the poet argued that a critical distance imposed itself between artists and social structures, and, although he too reacted against "bourgeois" culture, concluded that communism carried a greater risk for the independent mind.^{[90][93][112][143][260]} In particular, he objected to theMarxist theory onbase and superstructure: although his planned address for the Writers' Congress spoke ofMarxian economics as being justified by reality, it also argued that economic relationships could not be used to explain all historical developments.^[143] His critique of theSoviet Union as an equally "bourgeois" society also came with the argument that Futurism, not Surrealism, could transform into art the communist version ofvoluntarism.^{[90][112][261]}

Fondane found himself opposed to the general trend of intellectual partisanship, and took pride in defining himself as a politically independent skeptic.^[93] Around 1936, he reacted strongly againstJulien Benda's rationalist political essays, with their overall critique of intellectual passions, describing them as revived and "excruciatingly boring" versions ofpositivism, but ignoring their primary, anti-totalitarian, agenda.^[262] However,La Conscience malheureuse (with essays on Shestov,Edmund Husserl,Friedrich Nietzsche andSøren Kierkegaard)^[101] was noted as Fondane's own contribution to the debate surroundingPopular Front activities and the rise offascism: titled after a concept inHegelian philosophy, which originally referred to the thinking process generating its own divisions, it referred to the possibility of thinkers to interact with the larger world, beyondsubjectivity.^[144]

Rallying himself with the main trends ofJewish existentialism, the poet remained critical of other existentialist schools, such as those ofMartin Heidegger andJean-Paul Sartre, believing them to be overly reliant ondialectics, and therefore on rational thought;^[263] likewise, citing Kierkegaard as his reference point, Fondane criticizedJean Wahl for not discussing existential philosophy as an act of faith.^[264] His dislike for secular existentialism was also outlined in a text he authored shortly before his 1944 arrest, where he spoke of the Bible as being, "whether or not it wants to", the original reference for all existential philosophy.^[265] Geneviève Tissier-Fondane later recalled that her husband was "profoundly Jewish" to his death, but also that he would not abide by any formal regulation within theHalakha tradition.^[188] This approach also implied a measure ofecumenism:Jacques Maritain, who cultivated his relationship with Fondane across the religious and philosophical divides, described his friend as "a disciple of Shestov but one inhabited by theGospel";^[266] Fondane himself explained to Maritain that Shestov and himself were aiming for a new Judaic philosophy that would be equally indebted to the Christianity of Kierkegaard,Martin Luther andTertullian.^[49] He was critical of Maritain's worldview, but remained a passionate reader of his work; in contrast, Geneviève attested that the Maritains' beliefs shaped her own, leasing her back into the Church.^[78]

The spiritual crisis experienced in France was the probable reason why Fondane refused to write poems between 1923 and 1927.^[267] As he stated in various contexts, he mistrusted the innate ability of words to convey the tragedy of existence, describing poetry as the best tool for rendering a universal "wordless scream",^[268] an "ultimate reality",^[269] or an eternal expression of things ephemeral.^[229] In his essays, he suggested that the invention of art, like the invention of theory and rhetoric, had deprived poets of their existential function;^[184][229] beyond letting themselves be guided by their art, he argued, writers needed to confirm that the principles of life, negative as well as positive, exist.^[270] He saw poets as waging an unequal battle with both scientific perspectives andmoralism, urging them to place their unique faith "in the mysterious virtue of poetry, in the existential virtue that poetry upholds".^[270]Rimbaud le voyou was in part a study of how, during his self-exile toHarar, Rimbaud had not merely abandoned poetry for the sake of adventure, but rather transformed his lifestyle into a poetry of incertitude and personal ambition.^[90][271] As Fondane explained in hisBaudelaire et l'expérience du gouffre, a poet and thinker could also evidence the abyss he faced, and alleviate his ownanxiety, through the use of irony: "Laugh in the face of tragedy, or disappear!"^[268]

According to Cernat, his articles forIntegral show Fondane as an ally of the "anti-political" and lyrical side of Surrealism, a poet placing his trust in "the negative-soteriological, liberating function of poetry".^[106] The impact of existentialist philosophy was even traced to the "cine-poems" by Martin Stanton (who called the pieces "amazing").^[272] In contrast to the Surrealists, Fondane did not believe in a need to circulate poems as universal messages, but rather saw them as the basis for a very personal relationship with the reader: "This is not a time for print. Poetry is seeking its friends, not an audience. [...] Poetry will be for the few—or it will not be at all."^[273] Chitrit, who parallels Fondane's definitions with the similar views of Romanian poet and Holocaust survivorPaul Celan, concludes: "This is probably the closest that we can come to seeing contemporary poetry."^[273] Fondane's other literary works also evidence the impact of his philosophical preoccupations. WithLe Féstin de Balthazar, the writer modified his earlierMonologul by adopting Shestivist themes (introducingallegorical characters who discussAristotelianism,capitalism and revolution) and by introducing some elements from theburlesque.^[274] Originally conceived in 1918 and completed in 1933,Philoctète reworkedSophocles'play of the same title, interpreting it through the style of Gide's dramas.^[33]

Ulysse was anepic poem infree verse, the first such work in Fondane's career, and testing a format later adopted inTitanic andL'Exode.^[275] Although quite similar to Voronca's own work, which also usedHomer'sOdyssey as the pretext for a comment onsocial alienation, it included an additional allegory of Jewishness (according to criticPetre Răileanu, Voronca had stripped his own text of Jewish symbolism, in the hope of not entering a competition with Fondane).^[276] Fondane's 1933 text echoes his earlierintertextual Homeric references (present in poems he wrote back in 1914), but, to their adventurousescapism, it opposes theIthaca metaphor—an ideal of stability in the assumption of one's destiny.^[277]Claude Sernet referred toUlysse as "painful and sober, a cry of anxiety, of revolt and resignation, a fraternal and noble song to mankind".^[278] The poem is also Fondane's comment on theWandering Jew story (the mythical figure is rescaled into an urbanUlysses),^[72][277] and, according to cultural historianAndrei Oișteanu, reinterprets the Christian prejudice about Jews being eternal "witnesses" ofChrist's Passion.^[279] Together, such motifs intimated the writer's own experiences, leading various commentators to conclude that he too was "the Jewish Ulysses".^[49][141] Italian academic Gisèle Vanhese, who connects this lyrical discourse with Fondane's "experience of the abyss" concept, notes that ocean waters are the vehicles ofnomadism inUlysse, while, inTitanic, the same environment serves as a metaphor of dying.^[277]

In Cioran's account, Benjamin Fondane lived his final years permanently aware "of a misfortune that was about to happen", and built a "complicity with the unavoidable".^[170] The same is noted byGerman Romanian poet and Cioran exegeteDieter Schlesak, who suggests: "Fondane was a man who wished to bear the absolute uncertainty of the outside; that which exists is an intermittent, not continuous, reality. But [true misfortune] is the boredom of faint unliving, [...] of things implied, these being the ones [Fondane] hated."^[184] Fondane's visions about history and the role of poetry were notably outlined inL'Exode, a portion of which is dedicated to the powerlessness of Jews in front of prejudice. According to Oișteanu, this text, where the narrative voice speaks of sufferings and defects common in all humans, was probably inspired by the famous monologue inWilliam Shakespeare'sThe Merchant of Venice.^[280] Another part, called "astonishingly prophetic" and "cynical apocalyptic" by Chitrit,^[281] reads:

Similar themes were being explored by theSuper Flumina Babylonis cycle, described by Sernet as "a terrible foreshadowing of events into which peoples and continents were about to sink, into which the author himself was to be dragged without the possibility of return."^[166] Writing about the entirety of Fondane's French poetry (Le Mal des fantômes), poet and language theoristHenri Meschonnic argued that the Romanian author was unique in depicting "the revolt and the flavor of life mixed into the sense of death".^[94][141]

After her husband's death (of which she was for long ignorant) and the end of the war, Geneviève Tissier-Fondane, aided by the Maritains, moved intoKolbsheim Castle, tutoring the children of Antoinette and Alexander Grunelius.^[283] A devout Catholic, she eventually retreated from public life, becoming a nun in theCongregation of Notre-Dame de Sion (dedicated to Catholic missionary work among the Jews).^[78][137] Relocating to theMontagne Sainte-Geneviève, she died, after a long battle withcancer, in March 1954.^[78][284] Fondane was also survived by his mother Adela, who died in June 1953 at age 94, and sister Rodica (d. 1967).^[285]

The writer was the subject of several visual portrayals by noted artists, some of whom were his personal friends. During his collaboration withIntegral andunu,Victor Brauner andJules Perahim both drew his vignette portraits (the former as part of a series titledfilm unu).^[286] He is the subject of a 1930 sketch byConstantin Brâncuși, a 1931 Surrealist painting by Brauner (who also painted one of Adela Schwartzfeld),^[287] and an artistic photograph byMan Ray.^[141] The 1934 edition ofPsalmul leprosului featured Fondane's portrait in the hand of graphic artistSigmund Maur (the original version of which was dated to 1921).^[288] A posthumous image of the poet in military attire was drawn by Romanian-born artistEugen Drăguțescu.^[287] Benjamin Fondane was also commemorated with a mention on thePanthéon plaque, among theMorts pour la France^[289] (reportedly, his name was added upon a request from Cioran).^[170] There is a similar landmark in Iași'sEternitatea cemetery, set up by theWriters' Union of Romania near his family grave.^[290]

The poet-philosopher left behind a large manuscript collection, a personal library and a set of works due for publishing. His book collection was split into individual documentary funds, some located in France and others in Romania.^[291] In February 1930, Benjamin Fondane explained that he did not consider revisiting his land of birth until such time as his earlier volumes would be printed, indicating that these included (in addition toPriveliști):Ferestre spre Europa,Imagini și scriitori români ("Images and Romanian Writers"),Caietele unui inactual ("The Notebooks of an Outdated Man"),Probleme vesele ("Merry Problems"),Dialoguri ("Dialogues") and an introduction to the work of art criticWalter Pater.^[292] Among Fondane's other Romanian works, unpublished at the time of his death, were theprose poemHerța ("Hertsa"),Note dintr-un confesional and many other prose fragments and poems, all preserved in Daniel's manuscript collection.^[293] According to Paul Daniel, part of the poet's book collection in Romania was left in the care of literary criticLucian Boz, who sold it upon his departure forAustralia.^[136] In France, thecopyright to Fondane's work was passed on in the late 20th century to scholarMichel Carassou,^{[93][173][294][295]} who was personally involved in several publication projects.^[90]

In France, the caretaker of documentary enterprises regarding Fondane was for long Sernet (Voronca's brother-in-law), who released part ofSuper Flumina Babylonis and other previously unknown texts (published in various issues ofCahiers du Sud and other journals), while supervising a new edition ofL'Honneur des poètes, where Fondane was properly credited.^[296] In 1945, philosopherJean Grenier edited the first-ever version ofLe Lundi existentiel.^[94] A Fondane reader (comprisingL'Exode) was being planned around 1946, and supposed to be published byLes Éditions de Minuit, with contributions from poetsJean Lescure^[141] andPaul Éluard.^[297]Baudelaire et l'expérience du gouffre was eventually published byÉditions Seghers in 1947, under the supervision ofJean Cassou (second edition 1972; third edition 1973).^[298] Sernet was also the author of the poemÀ Benjamain Fondane, déporté ("To Benjamin Fondane, Upon His Deportation"), reportedly dated June 3, 1944.^[299] Recollections of Fondane's activity and his friendship withVictoria Ocampo are also found in Ocampo's seriesTestimonios ("Testimonies").^[94]

With support fromCulture MinisterAndré Malraux, Sernet also published a 1965 bound version ofL'Exode andSuper Flumina..., reconstructed from the fragmentary manuscripts.^[300] Also on Sernet's initiative, Le Chant du Monderecord label and comedian Ève Griliquez released anLP album of public recitations from his work.^[171] Other collections of his written work were published in later years, including hisÉcrits pour le cinéma ("Writings for the Cinema", 1984),^[78][301]Le Féstin de Balthazar (1985),^[302]Le Lundi existentiel (1989),^[303] andLe Mal des fantômes (1996).^{[78][94][196][277][304]} His interviews with Shestov, left by the poet in Ocampo's care,^[94] were collected in 1982, asRencontres avec Léon Chestov ("Meetings with Lev Shestov").^[305] Fondane's notes onDada, as well as other documents, saw print in 1996, asLe voyageur n'a pas fini de voyager ("The Traveler Isn't Done Traveling").^[306] The following year, Fondane scholar Monique Jutrin discovered and published his manuscript speech for the 1935 Congress,L'Écrivain devant la révolution.^[93] Another previously unknown text, the screenplay sketchUne journée d'ivresse ("A Day of Drunkenness"), was included by editors Carassou andPetre Răileanu in a critical edition of 1999.^[307]

In theWestern world (including theRomanian diaspora), there were a few authors whose work was influenced directly by Fondane's, among them Voronca^[308] andDavid Gascoyne. Gascoyne, the author of "I.M. Benjamin Fondane" poem and recollection pieces on their friendship, spoke of the Romanian as a mentor, with a "decisive and lasting influence" on his own writings.^[90] France is home to a Benjamin Fondane Studies Society, which organizes an annual workshop inPeyresq.^{[143][294][295]} Since 1994, it publishes the academic reviewCahiers Benjamin Fondane, which has recovered and published much of Fondane's correspondence^[90][188] and political texts.^[51] In 2006, following a Fondane Society request, a square on Paris' Rue Rollin was renamed in honor of the Romanian-born writer.^[143][309] Three years later, on the 65th commemoration of Fondane's killing, theMémorial de la Shoah museum hosted a special exhibit dedicated his life and literary work.^{[94][141][310]} InIsrael, a fragment from hisL'Exode is engraved in English andHebrew versions on the entrance ofYad Vashem memorial.^[173]

By the late 1970s, Fondane's Romanian work was attracting researchers and authors ofmonographs from various other countries, in particular theUnited States (John Kenneth Hyde, Eric Freedman etc.) andCommunist Czechoslovakia (Libuše Valentová).^[311] InWest Germany, Fondane's poetic and philosophical contributions were in focus by 1986, when exiled poetDieter Schlesak published translated samples inAkzente journal.^[170][184] Preceded by Gascoyne's French-to-English translation attempts from Fondane,^[90] American film editor Julian Semilian's contribution as a translator from Romanian is credited with having played an important part in introducing theEnglish-speaking world to the writings of Fondane and various other Romanian modernists.^[312] The first-ever volume of Hebrew translations from Fondane's verse saw print in 2003, with support fromTel Aviv University.^[313] Other international echoes include the publication of Odile Serre's Romanian-to-French translations from his early poems.^[196][314]

Recognition of Fondane's overall contribution was however rare, as noted in 1989 by Martin Stanton: "[Fondane is] surely the most underestimated intellectual of the 1930s".^[272] Writing some nine years later, Chitrit also argued: "His works [...] are as important as they are unknown."^[174] Cioran, who in 1986 dedicated a portion of hisExercises in Admiration collection to his deceased friend, mentioned thatBaudelaire et l'expérience du gouffre, made memorable by its study of boredom as a literary subject, had since found numerous readers.^[90][315] Cioran kept a fond memory of his friend, and recalled not being able to pass on Rue Rollin without experiencing "terrible pain".^[170] Awareness of Fondane's philosophy was nevertheless judged unsatisfactory by scholarMoshe Idel. Speaking in 2007, he suggested that Fondane the philosopher remained less familiar toJewish studies academics in Israel than his various counterparts inGermanic Europe.^[316]

Argentinian directorEdgardo Cozarinsky, who was inspired in his youth by Fondane's introduction of avant-garde films (preserved in the Argentine Film Archives), staged and narrated a dramatized version of his biography, performed at theVilla Ocampo.^[94] Fondane scholar Olivier Salazar-Ferrer also authored a theatrical adaptation ofL'Exode (premiered by France'sThéâtre de La Mouvance company in 2008).^[317]

In his native country, Benjamin Fondane was present in thememoirs of several authors. One special case is Arghezi, who, despite his disciple's admiration, left a sarcastic and intentionally demoralizing portrayal of Fondane in his 1930 volumePoarta Neagră.^[90][318] A year after the poet's death at Auschwitz, Arghezi returned with a sympathetic obituary, printed inRevista Fundațiilor Regale.^[54][57] Fondane was also the subject of a Surrealist poem in prose, or "short-circuit", byStephan Roll, where he was referred to as "aDon Juan of the brain's lineage from God".^[319] A very hostile depiction of Fondane and other Jewish writers, noted for its antisemitic undertones, was present in the 1942 memoirs of writerVictor Eftimiu.^[320] A reflection of the late 1940scommunization of Romania, Sașa Pană's recollection pieceDe la B. Fundoianu la Benjamin Fondane ("From B. Fundoianu to Benjamin Fondane"), published byOrizont review, reinterpreted some of the poet's activities, and avant-garde history in general, from a partisan Marxist vantage point.^[321] Later memoirs mentioning the writer include a piece byAdrian Maniu in theCluj-based magazineSteaua (December 1963) and a new tribute by Pană inLuceafărul (October 1964).^[322] Pană's recollections were later turned into a larger narrative, the 1973 autobiographical novelNăscut în 02 ("Born in '02").^[323] Fondane also features prominently inClaudia Millian'sCartea mea de aduceri-aminte ("My Book of Recollections"), published the same year as Pană's volume.^[324] Also in 1973, the former Surrealist campaignerGeo Bogza dedicated Fondane an eponymous prose poem, centered on an existential contradiction: "To be born in Moldavia, in sweet, gentle Moldavia... and to end up in the furnaces at Auschwitz."^[173][188] Among the younger Romanian poets, who debuted during communism,Nichita Stănescu was influenced byPriveliști in some of his own earliest works,^[325] as wasAndrei Codrescu.^[326]

Posthumous Romanian editions of Fondane's works included the selectionPoezii ("Poems"), edited by the former Surrealist authorVirgil Teodorescu (Editura pentru Literatură, 1965), and Daniel's new version ofPriveliști (Cartea Românească, 1974),^[327] followed in 1978 by the Martin and Daniel selection, and in 1980 by Teodorescu and Martin'sImagini și cărți ("Images and Books", grouping Fondane's French literary studies, as translated bySorin Mărculescu).^[229][328] Translated byRomulus Vulpescu,Le poète en patrouille was featured inManuscriptum review (1974).^[163] During communism, various Romanian scholars who dedicated significant portions of their work to Fondane studies; in addition to Martin,Ovid Crohmălniceanu andDumitru Micu, they include:Paul Cornea,Nicolae Manolescu,Dan Mănucă,Marin Mincu,Dan Petrescu,Mihail Petroveanu andIon Pop.^[329] In the 1980s,modern classical composerDoru Popovici completed thecantataIn memoriam Beniamin Fundoianu (lyrics by Victor Bârlădeanu).^[330]

Writing in 1978, Martin noted that the focus of such recoveries was on Fondane's poetry, while Fondane the thinker and "informed commentator", "one of the most evolved critical voices in 1920sRomanian culture", remained unfamiliar to Romanians.^[250] The limits on Fondane's posthumous circulation were partly dictated by the policies ofCommunist Romania. In 1975, thecensorship apparatus (who followednational communist ideas about restricting references to Judaism) removed references to Fondane's ethnic and religious background from a reprint of Arghezi's 1945 text.^[54] In 1980, a version of hisMântuirea series,Iudaism și elenism, was purged fromImagini și cărți, on orders from the same institution.^[54] Martin's 1984 monograph,Introducere în opera lui B. Fundoianu ("An Introduction to B. Fundoianu's Work"), was saluted as "penetrating" by his colleagueGheorghe Crăciun.^[196] The same study is primarily noted by Paul Cernat as a "problem-oriented" text about the "complexes" of Romanian culture, and therefore an implicit reaction against the national communism promoted underNicolae Ceaușescu.^[234]

The hidden parts of Benjamin Fondane's contribution became accessible only after theanti-communist uprising of 1989. In 1999, the Jewish community publishers,Editura Hasefer, issuedIudaism și elenism (with scholarsLeon Volovici and Remus Zăstroiu as editors).^{[5][15][51][331]} The same year, theFederation of Jewish Communities of Romania published an anthology of his texts,Strigăt întru eternitate ("A Shout unto Eternity"),^{[57][93][332]} andEditura Echinox aconcordance dictionary of his poetry (one of several such projects initiated by linguistMarian Papahagi).^[333] In 2004, Mircea Martin and Ion Pop also collected Fondane's political essays asScriitorul în fața revoluției (titled after the Romanian version ofL'Écrivain devant la révolution).^{[93][143][173][332]} Writing in 2001, Crăciun assessed that the poet was still "non-integrated" into his native Romanian culture, which mostly perceived him as estranged, and his work in the vernacular as traditionalist.^[86][196]

Eight years later,comparatist Irina Georgescu assessed that interest in the more unknown aspects of Fondane's work had been rekindled by public conferences and new monographs (among which she cites the contributions of scholars Mariana Boca, Nedeea Burcă and Ana-Maria Tomescu).^[57]Le Féstin de Balthazar was performed in its Romanian version (Ospățul lui Baltazar), directed byAlexandru Dabija for theNottara Theater company.^[334] The 65th commemoration of Fondane's death was marked locally with several events, including the premiere of Andreea Tănăsescu'sExil în pământul uitării ("Exile to the Land of Oblivion"), acontemporary ballet andperformance art show loosely inspired by his poetry.^[310] In 2006, theRomanian Cultural Institute set up the Benjamin Fondane International Award forFrancophone literature in countries outside France.^[317] In 2016,Cătălin Mihuleac published a biographical short story (and eulogy),Ultima țigară a lui Fondane ("Fondane's Last Cigarette").^[335]

Fondane's literary posterity was also touched by an extended controversy, notably involving Mircea Martin and philosopherMihai Șora. The scandal was ignited after October 2007, when Șora and poet Luiza Palanciuc set up theRestitutio Benjamin Fondane translation program, with support fromEditura Limes andObservator Cultural magazine.^{[173][294][295]} Martin contested this initiative, arguing that he had earlier publicized his intent of editing a Romanian-language Fondane reader, and claiming legal precedence oncopyrights.^{[173][294][295]} A parallel conflict ensued between Editura Limes andObservator Cultural, after which theRestitutio program split into separate projects.^[294]

• Something is still present and isn't, of what's gone. A bilingual anthology of avant-garde and avant-garde inspired Rumanian poetry, (translated by Victor Pambuccian), Aracne editrice, Rome, 2018.

• Media related toBenjamin Fondane at Wikimedia Commons
•  FrenchWikiquote has quotations related to:Benjamin Fondane
• Benjamin Fondane atIMDb
• "Hot Black Ink – Modernist Idiosyncrasies", English translations from and critical appraisals of Fondane and other Romanian modernists, in theRomanian Cultural Institute'sPlural Magazine, Nr. 19/2003
• "eyes wide open" ("paupières mûres") and "horizontal bar" ("barre fixe"), English translation of Fondane'scinépoems atSCRIPTjr.nl
• Guide to the Benjamin Fondane Papers, at theBeinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
• Association Benjamin Fondane site(in French)
• Benjamin Fondane Studies Society site(in French)
• Mémorial de la Shoah exhibition(in French)
• Biography at Éditions Verdier(in French)
• Restitutio Benjamin FondaneArchived 2012-03-20 at theWayback Machine (posthumous texts in theObservator Cultural archive)(in Romanian)

• 1898 births
• 1944 deaths
• 20th-century biographers
• 20th-century French essayists
• 20th-century French dramatists and playwrights
• 20th-century French historians
• 20th-century French philosophers
• 20th-century French poets
• 20th-century Romanian dramatists and playwrights
• 20th-century Romanian historians
• 20th-century Romanian poets
• 20th-century French short story writers
• 20th-century French translators
• Adevărul writers
• Alexandru Ioan Cuza University alumni
• Contimporanul writers
• Drancy internment camp prisoners
• Existentialists
• Expressionist dramatists and playwrights
• Expressionist poets
• French anti-communists
• French art critics
• 20th-century French biographers
• French columnists
• French film critics
• French historians of philosophy
• French literary critics
• French literary historians
• French male dramatists and playwrights
• French male poets
• French male short story writers
• French military personnel killed in World War II
• French people who died in Auschwitz concentration camp
• French prisoners of war in World War II
• French theatre critics
• French–Romanian translators
• German-language writers
• German–Romanian translators
• Jewish existentialists
• Jewish military personnel
• Jewish poets
• Jews in the French resistance
• Jewish Romanian writers
• Jewish philosophers
• Male biographers
• French male essayists
• Moldavian Jews
• Naturalized citizens of France
• Writers from Iași
• People killed by gas chamber by Nazi Germany
• Resistance members who died in Nazi concentration camps
• Romanian anti-communists
• Romanian art critics
• Romanian biographers
• Romanian book and manuscript collectors
• Romanian columnists
• Romanian essayists
• Romanian emigrants to France
• Romanian film critics
• Romanian film directors
• Romanian folklorists
• Romanian historians of philosophy
• Romanian Jews who died in the Holocaust
• Romanian librarians
• Romanian literary critics
• Romanian literary historians
• Romanian male poets
• Romanian male short story writers
• Romanian participants in the French Resistance
• Romanian screenwriters
• Romanian short story writers
• Romanian surrealist writers
• Romanian theatre critics
• Romanian theatre managers and producers
• Romanian translators
• Romanian travel writers
• Romanian writers in French
• Romanian World War I poets
• Romanian–French translators
• Romanian-language writers
• Sonneteers
• Surrealist poets
• Symbolist poets
• World War II poets
• World War II prisoners of war held by Germany
• Yiddish–Romanian translators
• 20th-century Romanian memoirists
• 20th-century Romanian philosophers
• 20th-century Romanian male writers
• Romanian people who died in Auschwitz concentration camp
• 20th-century French male writers
• 20th-century French screenwriters
• 20th-century French memoirists

• Articles containing Romanian-language text
• Articles with Romanian-language sources (ro)
• Webarchive template wayback links
• Articles with French-language sources (fr)
• Webarchive template archiveis links
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Pages with French IPA
• Pages with Romanian IPA
• Commons category link from Wikidata