Discovered and praised by Alexandru Macedonski and Ion Minulescu, he combined his presence in radical Symbolist circles with stints on more culturally conservative ones, crossing between the extremes of Romanian literature.

[1][2] Through his paternal grandmother, Alexandru Teodor descended from the prestigious Ghica family, and, according to literary historian George Călinescu, was always overly preoccupied with his origins and his illegitimacy.

[2] He began frequenting the literary club formed at Macedonski's Rafael Street townhouse, where he also introduced two young poets and boarding school mates, Mihail Cruceanu and Eugeniu Sperantia.

"[9] Other regulars included Mircea Demetriade, Al. Gherghel, Șerban Bascovici, Donar Munteanu,[10] and critic V. V. Haneș, who was impressed by Stamatiad's self-confidence, which "even seemed a bit too much for his age.

"[22] Another reading is provided by literary historian Paul Cernat, who sees Stamatiad's participation in traditionalism as indicative of "an split identity within the 'conservative' side of local Symbolism.

"[23] At the other end of the political spectrum, Stamatiad also cultivated a friendship with the socialist poet-publicist Vasile Demetrius, who featured his poetry in the review Viața Socială.

[20] Stamatiad persevered and worked with dramatist Constantin Râuleț on the play Femei ciudate ("Strange Women"), published in Convorbiri Critice in November 1910, and as a volume in 1911.

[35] Stamatiad's visit took place in the midst of political crisis: the territorial National Romanian Party of Transylvania had split into two wings, of which the conservative one, well-represented in Arad, made efforts to appease the Hungarian administration.

Remembered for its promotion of Art Nouveau aesthetics,[38] it featured reviews of Din trâmbițe de aur by Densusianu, Dragomirescu, and Chendi, as well as articles or poems by Bascovici, Dimitrie Anghel, Alfred Hefter-Hidalgo, I. M. Rașcu, and Barbu Solacolu.

[33] As Macedonski's right hand, and as a regular of coffeehouses and bars such as Kübler and Casa Capșa, Stamatiad became a legendary figure in bohemian circles, involved in cultural disputes as well as brawls.

"[41] According to Macedonski's novelist friend, I. Peltz, he was a spectacular presence on their circle: contentious, even "furious" and "terrorizing", lacking literary value, but forcing his pupils to read his work in class.

[44] Still active in the literary circles, and writing for the nationalist review România,[45] he became involved in the cultural scene of neighboring Bessarabia, supporting her union with Romania after January 1918.

[46] In March, as the Moldavian Democratic Republic effected this union, Stamatiad was also a SSR delegate to the Chișinău celebrations, where he met composer George Enescu.

[4] After planning, together with Ion Pillat, a never-completed anthology of international Symbolism,[53] Stamatiad returned to the literary scene of Greater Romania in 1918, with the plaquette Mărgăritare negre ("Black Pearls"), illustrated by Iosif Iser.

[57] In 1921, the textbook publishing company, Casa Școalelor, issued a volume of his short stories, or "parables", as Cetatea cu porțile închise ("The Inaccessible Citadel").

[26] He followed up with a Cartea Românească selection from Oscar Wilde (which featured Stamatiad's version of The Ballad of Reading Gaol), and then with a 1923 reissue of Maeterlinck's "Cycle-of-Death".

[61] He was intensely involved in the literary life of the old and new Romanian provinces, from Transylvania to Northern Dobruja, allowing his poems to be hosted by numerous (if short-lived) regional magazines.

[62] It also hosted pieces by, among other, the Arad modernists Aron Cotruș (young Transylvania's "most talented poet", according to Stamatiad)[62] and Perpessicius, and the traditionalist Gheorghe Bogdan-Duică.

[4] Stamatiad's full Khayyám translations were published as a volume in 1932, at Cartea Românească, followed, the next year, by an anthology of Li Bai's poems,[26] 36 of which had been hosted by Convorbiri Literare in its October 1932 issue.

The literary magazine Viața Românească gave them a sarcastic reception, calling his reading an "Orphic" feast of "flutes and trumpets", and implied that Stamatiad should not have ever been allowed airtime.

[4] Stamatiad was awarded the National Poetry Prize in 1938,[2] and had "definitive editions" of Cetatea cu porțile închise and Pe drumul Damascului republished by Casa Școalelor.

[72] In 1939, Stamatiad produced his own version of the Chinese poets' anthology, The Jade Flute;[26] it brought together disparate pieces that had seen print in Mihail Sadoveanu's Însemnări Ieșene review during 1935 and 1936.

He called Stamatiad a "valuable" Wilde translator, but also "the unique specimen left around from a vanished type of bohemian Bucharest knighthood", with "a dated mustache and four-in-hand necktie".

[77] The start of World War II brought the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Transylvania's transfer to Hungary, as well as Romania's fascist alliance with the Axis Powers.

"[78] In 1941, Ion Antonescu's regime clamped down on the Nestor circle; Stamatiad's colleague Șerban Cioculescu, who was also a member of the National Peasants' Party, narrowly escaped deportation for his involvement in such activities.

Grigurcu also recalls that the aged poet, his personal hero, had trouble breathing and speaking, and could not honor his request for information: "Stamatiad was by then a ghostly character, a lyrical hidalgo of yore, returning among us in his unappealing, suffering, stage, his shoulder still held stiff with pride, with a Poesque Raven quothing a barely audible Nevermore.

[4] Călinescu describes two sources for Stamatiad's own brand of Symbolism: on one hand, the "grandiloquent" form of Oscar Wilde, Dimitrie Anghel, Ștefan Petică, and a young Ion Pillat; on the other, the "euphoric" aesthetics cultivated by Macedonski's circle.

Beyond its copper gates, and its agate stairs, There's icons everyone, and one throughout the place, A gentle fire shimmers, in the thousand candles, A swelling vibe of odors will cradle and besot you.

[100] Călinescu writes that Stamatiad's work comprises mentionable "psalms": although lacking "deep mysticism", such poems may unintentionally remind one of Paul Claudel and Charles Péguy.

[102] The fantasy prose poetry of Cetatea cu porțile închise is heavily indebted to Oscar Wilde's "gracious infatuation", but, Călinescu argues, is generally humorless.