The Adventure Novel – Devaluation and Revaluation of the Adventure: Gallants of the Old Court

Résumé

The article aims to illustrate that the entire work of Mateiu I. Caragiale, particularly his only novel, Gallants of the Old Court, recuperates as a horizon of possibility the adventure novel in an embryonic-synthetic, concentrated form, with its progression remaining in a state of suspension. Within the novel lies an inscription of the adventure novel through various established formulas, alongside an implicit reflection on the interplay between the adventure genre and the novel, regarding the trajectory and the selection enacted by the author in the matters of existence, as well as history. Thus, the literary contribution of Mateiu I. Caragiale facilitates a perspective on the adventure novel as an inexhaustible resource and its transcending towards a higher level where the adventure attains an ontological-identity dimension of epistemological significance, as posited by Giorgio Agamben for our consideration.