The crisis of meaning in modernity
Between Mihai Gheorghiu’s hermeneutics and the poetic expression of contemporary traumas
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22433930 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Simona TRIFU (0000-0001-9340-4669, Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2026-12-31 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cogent Arts and Humanities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2331-1983 • E-ISSN: 2331-1983 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/23311983.2026.2696090 |
| OpenAlex | W7168280728 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 15 |
This article examines the crisis of meaning in late modernity through Mihai Gheorghiu’s dual work as a hermeneutic interpreter of Mircea Eliade and as a poet writing under the pseudonym Mihail Aslan. Building on related studies in hermeneutics, trauma theory, cultural trauma, and late-modern subjectivity, the article situates Gheorghiu’s work in dialogue with Gadamer and Ricoeur’s theories of interpretation, Eliade’s understanding of myth and the sacred, Caruth and LaCapra’s accounts of traumatic fragmentation, Alexander’s concept of cultural trauma, and Giddens’s theory of ontological insecurity. These studies provide the framework for understanding how modernity and postmodernity destabilize inherited symbolic orders. The article argues that Gheorghiu’s hermeneutic engagement with Eliade seeks to reconstruct meaning through myth, sacred symbolism, and historical interpretation. By contrast, his poetry in Late, Rejected Geometries reveals the limits of such reconstruction, expressing trauma, fragmentation, and existential insecurity. The transition from modernity to postmodernity and post-communist ‘post-freedom’ is therefore understood not as the disappearance of meaning, but as its relocation into affective, embodied, and provisional forms. The study concludes that Gheorghiu’s work marks a shift from hermeneutic restoration to poetic containment.
Existentialism · Hermeneutics · Modernity · Mythology · Poetry · Postmodernism · Postmodernity · Balkans: History, Politics, Society · Comparative and World Literature · Hermeneutics and Narrative Identity
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| Highly cited | No |
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