Agatha Bacovia (born Agatha Grigorescu; March 8, 1895 – October 12, 1981) was a

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

n poet.

Biography

Born in

Mizil Mizil () is a town in Prahova County, Muntenia, Romania. Located in the southeastern part of the county, it lies along the road between the cities of Ploiești and Buzău, and to the northeast of the national capital, Bucharest. Its position led i ...

, her parents were Șerban Grigorescu and his wife Maria (''née'' Anastasiu). Her mother died shortly after giving birth, and her father when she was an adolescent. At age 21, she met fellow poet

George Bacovia George Bacovia (; the pen name of Gheorghe Vasiliu ; – 22 May 1957) was a Romanian symbolist poet. While he initially belonged to the local Symbolist movement, launched as a poet by Alexandru Macedonski with the poem and poetry collection ( ...

, fourteen years her senior, while walking on

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

Calea Victoriei CALEA may refer to: *Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, an act by the US Congress to facilitate wiretapping of U.S. domestic telephone and Internet traffic *Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, a private accredit ...

. The couple married twelve years later, in June 1928. Agatha functioned as both secretary and nurse to her sickly husband, supporting him with her teacher's salary. Monica Andronescu
"George și Agatha Bacovia"
in ''

Adevărul ''Adevărul'' (; meaning "The Truth", formerly spelled ''Adevĕrul'') is a Romanian daily newspaper, based in Bucharest. Founded in Iași, in 1871, and reestablished in 1888, in Bucharest, it was the main left-wing press venue to be published dur ...

'', May 24, 2015 She attended the literature and philosophy faculty of the

University of Bucharest The University of Bucharest ( ro, Universitatea din București), commonly known after its abbreviation UB in Romania, is a public university founded in its current form on by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princel ...

, graduating in 1927. Her first published work appeared in ''Scena'' magazine in 1918; her first poetry book was the 1923 ''Armonii crepusculare''. She contributed to ''Viața nouă'', ''Revista scriitoarelor și scriitorilor români'', ''Orizonturi noi'', ''Ateneu'', ''Steaua'' and ''

România Literară ''România Literară'' is a cultural and literary magazine from Romania. In its original edition, it was founded on 1 January 1855 by Vasile Alecsandri and published in Iași until 3 December 1855, when it was suppressed. The new series appeared on ...

'', sometimes signing as Agatha Gr. and Agata Grozea. Her verses were delicately

symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...

, of a temperate tonality of her husband's manner. Her books included poetry: ''Muguri cenușii'' (1926), ''Pe culmi de gând'' (1934), ''Lumină'' (1965), ''Cu tine noapte'' (1969), ''Versuri'' (1970), ''Efluvii'' (1977) and ''Șoaptele iubirii'' (1979); poems and prose: ''Terase albe. Colocviu cu poetul'' (1938); and memoirs: ''Bacovia. Viața poetului'' (1962; second edition: ''Bacovia. Poezie sau destin'', 1972), (1971) and ''Poezie sau destin'', III ''George Bacovia. Ultimii săi ani'' (1981). She headed a literary circle named after her husband, as well as a memorial museum dedicated to him.Aurel Sasu (ed.), ''Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române'', vol. I, p. 691-92. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45, 2004.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bacovia, Agatha 1895 births 1981 deaths People from Mizil University of Bucharest alumni Romanian memoirists Romanian schoolteachers Symbolist poets 20th-century Romanian poets Romanian women poets 20th-century Romanian women writers Women memoirists 20th-century memoirists