Vasile Păun (; February 9, 1850 – March 1, 1908) was a

Wallachia Wallachia or Walachia (; ro, Țara Românească, lit=The Romanian Land' or 'The Romanian Country, ; archaic: ', Romanian Cyrillic alphabet: ) is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and so ...

n, later

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, theorist and literary critic.

Biography

Born in

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 ...

, he attended gymnasium (

Gheorghe Lazăr Gheorghe Lazăr (5 June 1779 – 17 September 1823), born and died in Avrig, Sibiu County, was a Transylvanian, later Romanian scholar, the founder of the first Romanian language school in Bucharest, 1817. Biography A Habsburg Empire subject, ...

) and high school ( Saint Sava) in his native city. He briefly worked as a government clerk, then graduated from the literature and philosophy faculty of the University of Bucharest. In 1877, he began teaching Romanian and Latin at Cantemir Vodă Gymnasium, becoming its director in 1878. In 1879, he was hired to teach at Saint Sava. Named "principal preceptor" to Prince Ferdinand, heir to the

Romanian throne The King of Romania (Romanian: ''Regele României'') or King of the Romanians (Romanian: ''Regele Românilor''), was the title of the monarch of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when the Romanian Workers' Party proclaimed the Romanian ...

, Păun spent a number of years with the prince in Germany, where he took the occasion to further his own studies. From 1890, he was a professor at Gheorghe Lazăr High School, where he served as director from 1892 to 1903.

Literary work

He made his literary debut in 1868 with ''Umbra lui Mihai'', a poem in three cantos that appeared in Grigore H. Grandea's ''Albina Pindului'', to which he continued to contribute, sometimes under the pen names Basiliu Dimitrescu and Vasile Demetrescu. Together with Anghel Demetrescu, another prestigious schoolteacher, he belonged to Orientul, a literary society organized around Grandea, and through which he became acquainted with

Mihai Eminescu Mihai Eminescu (; born Mihail Eminovici; 15 January 1850 – 15 June 1889) was a Romanian Romantic poet from Moldavia, novelist, and journalist, generally regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active membe ...

. By 1870, the latter was appealing to

Iacob Negruzzi Iacob C. Negruzzi (December 31, 1842 – January 6, 1932) was a Moldavian, later Romanian poet and prose writer. Born in Iași, he was the son of Constantin Negruzzi and his wife Maria (''née'' Gane). Living in Berlin between 1853 and 1863, he at ...

on behalf of his "discouraged friend" Păun, whose poems Negruzzi had declined to publish in ''

Convorbiri Literare ''Convorbiri Literare'' ( Romanian: ''Literary Talks'') is a Romanian literary magazine published in Romania. It is among the most important journals of the nineteenth-century Romania. History and profile ''Convorbiri Literare'' was founded by ...

''. Other magazines to which he submitted poems, as well as prose, criticism and literary reviews include ''Traian'', ''Columna lui Traian'', ''Foaia Societății "Românismul"'', ''Foaia Societății "Renașterea"'', ''Povestitorul'', ''

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 ...

'' and ''Românul literar''. His first published book was the 1877 ''Odă la resbel''.

Other interests

After 1890, Păun's interests shifted away from poetry and toward criticism, as well as literary and art theory. He published the biographical sketch ''Ferdinand de Hohenzolern'' (1889); ''Catastrofa Nibelungilor'', a "literary critical analysis" (1896); ''Ficțiune, imagine și comparațiune. Studiu comparativ de literatură poetică'' (1896); ''Sihastrul. Poveste poetică'' (1896) and ''Înrudirea poeziei cu celelalte arte frumoase (muzica, pictura, plastica și arhitectura)'' (1898). He wrote for ''Vatra'' and for ''Literatură și artă română'', edited by his friend

N. Petrașcu Nicolae Petrovici (; December 5, 1859 – May 24, 1944), known as Nicolae Petrașcu () and commonly rendered as N. Petrașcu or Pĕtrașcu,Garabet Ibrăileanu, "Edițiile poeziilor lui Eminescu (continuare)", in ''Viața Românească'', Nr. 3/1928, ...

. From 1897 to 1899, he was editor-in-chief of ''Revista societății "Tinerimea română"'', and co-edited ''Apărarea națională'', where he sometimes signed as Davus or Pavo Zorilă. Until the year of his death, he wrote a weekly review column, "Note și reflexiuni", in ''Secolul''.Aurel Sasu (ed.), ''Dicționarul biografic al literaturii române'', vol. II, p. 318. Pitești: Editura Paralela 45, 2004.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paun, Vasile 1850 births 1908 deaths 19th-century male writers 19th-century poets Heads of schools in Romania Literary theorists Male biographers People from the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia Romanian poets Romanian biographers Romanian columnists Romanian expatriates in Germany Romanian literary critics Romanian literary theorists Romanian magazine editors Romanian male poets Romanian schoolteachers Saint Sava National College alumni University of Bucharest alumni Writers from Bucharest