Iuliu Cezar Săvescu (September 22, 1866 – March 9, 1903) 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. Born in

Brăila Brăila (, also , ) is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County. The ''Sud-Est'' Regional Development Agency is located in Brăila. According to the 2011 Romanian census there were 180,302 pe ...

to the civil servant Eulampiu Săvescu and his wife Fania, he attended primary school and the first years of high school in his native city. He then continued his studies at

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 ...

's Saint Sava High School, where his teacher Bonifaciu Florescu introduced him to

Alexandru Macedonski Alexandru Macedonski (; also rendered as Al. A. Macedonski, Macedonschi or Macedonsky; 14 March 1854 – 24 November 1920) was a Romanian poet, novelist, dramatist and literary critic, known especially for having promoted French Symbolism in h ...

's circle. Thanks to the latter's efforts, he secured a post as proofreader at ''

Monitorul Oficial ''Monitorul Oficial al României'' is the official gazette of Romania, in which all the promulgated bills, presidential decrees, governmental A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, general ...

''. He led an increasingly dissolute Bohemian lifestyle. It is not known if and when he completed high school; according to some sources, he may have audited classes at 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 ...

's literature faculty, without graduating. It is also unknown when he made his debut; this may have taken place in 1888 in ''Peleșul'' magazine, with the poem "Pe când cerul vieței mele". He was an editor at ''Duminica'' magazine in 1890, and also published in ''Liga literară'' (among other writings, he submitted translations of

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...

), ''Literatorul'', ''Convorbiri literare'', ''Tribuna familiei'', ''Ilustrațiunea română'', ''Fântâna Blanduziei'', ''Revista orientală'', ''Foaia pentru toți'', ''

Românul ''Românul'' (, meaning "The Romanian"; originally spelled ''Romanulu'' or ''Românulŭ'', also known as ''Romînul'', ''Concordia'', ''Libertatea'' and ''Consciinti'a Nationala''), was a political and literary newspaper published in Bucharest, Ro ...

'' and ''Liberalul''. A

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 ...

, he collected part of his verses into a modest little book, self-published in a tiny print run, the 1901 ''Poezii''. In 1926, Nicolae Davidescu prefaced and published ''Poezii. Volum unic''. The latter also included part of Săvescu's poetic output in the 1943 anthology ''Din poezia noastră parnasiană'', which revived him in critical attention. He also wrote a few fantasy prose works, as well as short essays and articles. He translated

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

, a fragment of

Dante Alighieri Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...

's ''Inferno'',

Giosuè Carducci Giosuè Alessandro Giuseppe Carducci (; 27 July 1835 – 16 February 1907) was an Italian poet, writer, literary critic and teacher. He was very noticeably influential, and was regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy. In 1906, h ...

and Poe (including "

The Raven "The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a distraught lover who is paid a myste ...

"). He was familiar with classic Albanian literature, and translated

Giuseppe Schirò Giuseppe Schirò ( Arbërisht: Zef Skiroi; 10 August 1865 – 17 February 1927)Elsie, ''Albanian literature'',pp. 60–64/ref> was an Arbëresh neo-classical poet, linguist, publicist and folklorist from Sicily. His literary work marked the tran ...

's prose poem ''Mili e Haidhia''. In ''Liga literară'' in 1895, he published an unfinished free translation of

Sophocles Sophocles (; grc, Σοφοκλῆς, , Sophoklễs; 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. is one of three ancient Greek tragedians, at least one of whose plays has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or co ...

' ''

Antigone In Greek mythology, Antigone ( ; Ancient Greek: Ἀντιγόνη) is the daughter of Oedipus and either his mother Jocasta or, in another variation of the myth, Euryganeia. She is a sister of Polynices, Eteocles, and Ismene.Roman, L., & Roma ...

''.Aurel Sasu (ed.), ''Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române'', vol. II, p. 536. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45, 2004.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Savescu, Iuliu Cezar 1866 births 1903 deaths People from Brăila Romanian poets Symbolist poets Romanian essayists Romanian translators Romanian magazine editors 19th-century poets 19th-century translators Translators of Edgar Allan Poe 19th-century essayists