Eugène IonescoIonesco was born on November 26th, 1909. Some people say that he was born in 1912, but this was due to his own self-admiration. He was born in Slatina, Romania to a Romanian mother and father. Ionesco was baptized into the Orthodox Christian faith as a infant.
He spent most of his childhood in France in which Ionesco claimed had "an experience that affected his perception to the world". He found that the world was repetitive, in decay, and filled with corruption. One important series of his work was the Berènger Cycle (which people claimed was semi-autobiographical). Ionesco expresses how a lack in originality leads to depression, beauty in a pessimistic structure, and inevitability of death. Ionesco returned to Romania in 1925 when his parents divorced. There he went to college at Saint Nava National College, then University of Bucharest for French Literature. He became a French Teacher after he earned his Master's. He married in 1936 with Rodica Burileanu and had one daughter. They moved to France in 1938 but due to WWII, moved back to Romania in 1939. Changing his mind, he moved back to France in 1942. Ionesco was inducted into the French Academy in 1970 and won many awards including a honorary doctoral degree from NYU. He died on March 28th, 1994 and is buried in Paris. In 2009 he was inducted into the Romanian Academy posthumously. |
Literary Works |
In 1928 Ionesco had his debut as a poet in Bilete de papagal (parrot-notes), which appeared daily and was famous for its tiny format.
In 1948 Ionesco started writing the play that was later to be entitled the Bald Prima Donna, and which was performed for the first time on May 11, 1950. Over the following years, many of his works were published in Cahiers du Collège de Pataphysique. In 1965 Frenzy for Two was performed, and La Décade Ionesco took place from August 3-13 1978. This is a timeline of his theatrical works:
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The Berènger Cycle |
Rhinoceros is the second play in Ionesco's "Berènger Cycle". The first is The Killer (1959), then Rhinoceros (1959), Exit the King (1962), and A Stroll in the Air (1963).
The Killer (1959): "Berenger discovers an ideal "radiant city". The elation Berenger feels in the city of light is cut short by the discovery that the city is host to a killer who drowns his victims in a pool after luring them there by offering to show them a "picture of the colonel". Berenger leaves the radiant city after Dany, a woman he falls in love with instantly and believes that he is engaged to, is murdered, and he spends much of the play tracking down the killer." In this play, Berènger finds beauty and tries to find a destination in something intangible. Exit the King (1962): "In Exit the King, he is the solipsistic and belligerent King Berenger the First who was apparently at one point able to command nature and force others to obey his will. According to his first wife he is over four hundred years old. He is informed early in the play that he is dying, and the kingdom is likewise crumbling around him. He has lost the power to control his surroundings and is slowly losing his physical capabilities as well. Through much of the play, he is in denial of his death and refuses to give up power. Berenger’s first wife, Marguerite, along with the Doctor, tries to make Berenger face the reality of his impending death." In this part of his life, Ionesco was writing about how inevitable death was. A Stroll in the Air (1963): "Berenger discovers one day he has the miraculous gift of freeing himself from the law of gravity. How the English react to this oddity also reveals Ionesco's feelings about that insular people with whom he has been fascinated since his earliest plays." |