Obiectul artei și problema reprezentării romilor în literatură

Abstract

In the first part of this essay I propose a synthesis on how art (and the discourse that accompanies it, including literary theory) has modified its “object” over the centuries. If for the classical theories of art and even for some produced in romantic period the object of art is the man-in-general, the theories of the 19th century (I will privilege those active on the territory of Romania) progressively particularize the object of art. This becomes either the “citizen” of a nation (in the case of Romanian literature, the object of literary art should have been the national hero or the “Romanian” in general), either the majority class (the peasantry), or the class considered the most active or favored by evolution or by the historical moment (the bourgeoisie in the first part of 20th century, workers from the moment Romania entered the zone of Soviet influence, after the Second World War), or groups or social entities not previously represented in art/ literature. In a second part of the essay, I focus on the case illustrated by the problem of the representation of Roma in literature (particularly in Romanian literature) and its correlates.