Theodoros or Notes on the Forgotten Beauty and the Gift of Life. A Plea for World Literature

The present study aims to showcase Cărtărescu’s latest novel, Theodoros (2022), setting it in the larger context of world literature testified by its overarching and daring theme placed throughout the pages of a minutely and accurately documented historiographic and literary text. The secondary goal of the analysis is to highlight the concept of late-career novel applied to Theodoros (2022) in addition to some terminological clarifications regarding the literary genre most congenial to the book and its significance in the development of the writer’s literary career as well as its relation to the preceding texts. The self-reflexive dimension is also subject to analysis in the present study in order to endorse our approach to the status of the author. Last, but not least, a section of the present study is devoted to the analysis of major literary symbols permeating the book from cover to cover.