Studia Humanitatis No. II (II) / 2016
LETTER III. Archaic Patterns of Conflict (II)
Nae Georgescu The study analyses the sources and poetic technique in Eminescu’s ‘Letter III’, examining how the Herodotean motifs of Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes, as filtered through Jordanes and Aeschylus, structure Mircea’s address to Bayezid as an apotropaic formula, whilst key terms such as ‘towering’, ‘tree’, ‘earth’ and ‘water’ are stylistically adapted to turn the invader’s symbols against him.