Noted historian, literary critic, theoretician Paul Cornea passes away at 94

Literary historian and critic Paul Cornea passed away on Sunday at 94 years old, the National Museum of the Romanian Literature (MNLR) announces in a release sent to AGERPRES.

Paul Cornea was born on 3 November 1923 in Bucharest. He graduated in Letters and Philosophy (1948), and in 1949 he began his didactical career at the Faculty of Letters with the University of Bucharest where he got his PhD in Philology (1971).

He is one of the most important exegete of the literary phenomenon, the author of numerous works in fields such as the theory and history of literature, literary critic,comparative literature, a specialist in the Romanian pre-Romanticism and Romanticism periods. He initiates and heads (since 1967) the series of Literary documents and manuscripts.

Among his work there are: Studies of modern Romanian literature (1962), From Alexandrescu to Eminescu (1966), The origins of Romanian romanticism (1972, reedited in 2008), The concept of literary history in the Romanian culture (1978), Th rule of the game. Literature's collective slope (1980), Itinerary among the classics (1984), Introduction in the lecture's theory (1988) (translated in Italian, 1993), The near and the far (1990),The signs of time (1995), Interpretation and rationality (2006). More recent in 2013, his volume What was - how it was. Paul Cornea talking with Daniel Cristea-Enache, has been edited and published.

A member of the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA), and since 1985 he was part of the coordination committee, since 1991 a part of the executive committee, and between 1994 and 1997 he used to be this association's vice president. Ever since its foundation, in 1997, Paul Cornea was the chairman of the Comparative Literature Association of Romania. He participated in several congresses of the ICLA (in Bordeaux, Montreal, Budapest, Innsbruck, New York, Paris, Munich, Edmonton and Leiden), as he was elected president of the select commission for the organisation of the Pretoria congress (2000). He was awarded "Palmes Academique", in the rank of Officier (1997). He was part of the Board of Directors of the Romanian Cultural Institute (2009-2012).AGERPRES(RO - author: Daniel Popescu, editor: Florin Marin; EN - author, editor: Maria Voican)