IOAN MARIŞ, Ştefan Augustin Doinaş - the orphic psalmist
Ştefan Augustin Doinaş (1922 -2002) stands out in the Romanian poetry as an Orphic creator concerned
about the need to build a corpus of theoretical texts that will argue the lyrical register of the
poet.

Poesis, as language initiative (Poetry, Dichtung), becomes, in the Psalms, God: In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” (John 1: 1). Doinaş subscribes
to this biblical adagio in the cycle of Psalms. In some of the Psalms, the lyrical ego is questioning
the Divinity in a dialogue that sometimes becomes a monologue, making him resemble the great
German lyric poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
The psalmist feels desolate, burnt by the fi re of his love for God, Whom he wants to be a shadow
coming out to meet his shadow. Piety sometimes replaces doubt, so we may say that the poet feels
lonely without God and the message of the Psalms could be expressed by the troubling sentence
“Lord, help thou mine unbelief”.
KEYWORDS: Ştefan Augustin Doinaş, romanian poetry, Psalms, Divinity, dialogue, faith, doubt

IOAN MARIŞ