Briefly a collaborator of Junimea society, then of its dissident wings, Lecca never joined the fledgling Symbolist movement, and spent his later life in relative isolation from all literary circles.

Lecca's poetry, recognized as formally accomplished in its context, won him literary awards from the Romanian Academy, but was discarded by later critics as uninspired and ultimately insignificant.

[26] Following this, Lecca, an occasional literary columnist at Adevărul,[27] became was one of the main contributors to Ioan Slavici's Vatra from 1894 and, from 1899, to Aurel Popovici's daily, Minerva,[28] his work also appearing in N. Petrașcu and D. C. Ascanio's Literatură și Artă Română.

[32] Like the following installments (Cinci poeme, 1897; Secunda, 1898; Sexta, 1901; Octava, 1904; A noua, 1904), it showed strong influences from French writers, in particular François Coppée and other Symbolists.

[37] However, journalist Mihail Mora defended Lecca against accusations that he had no poetic soul, suggesting that his lyrical "objectivity" and precision were studied, and alternated with "sentimental outbursts.

"[25] As critic and theatrologist Rodica Florea writes, Lecca did have an "exotic nuance" and a preference for the standards of Symbolist verse, but altogether "exterior, lacking in significance".

His poetry stood out for its "physiological detail" and "interminable sadism", with Lecca "gratuitously insisting [...] on sketching out hideous, terrifying or pitiful portraits", on "stenches", "cancer", "pus and fetid dressings".

[39] Lecca was appreciated by critics in his 1890s context, winning the Romanian Academy's V. Adamachi Prize in 1898,[5][25] and a Bene Merenti medal, conferred by King Carol I, in 1899.

[45] During such séances, attended by the poet, Hasdeu was inspired to build his folly castle in Câmpina,[46] where he later displayed a group photograph of Lecca, Rosetti and Ovid Densusianu.

[51] He was also interested in translating foreign drama, and printed in Convorbiri Literare his version of William Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew,[52] followed by Victor Hugo's Hernani, which was used by the National Theater in the 1898 repertoire.

[59] In the same magazine, Dumitru Evolceanu published in 1896 an essay which gave appreciation to Lecca as a poet, but his verdicts were ridiculed by fellow Junimist Duiliu Zamfirescu.

[60] Eventually, Lecca remained with the ideologically incompatible Literatură și Artă Română, as its "playwright par excellence", then with its partial successor, Revista Idealistă.

[65] According to literary historian Mircea Popa, the series contains little of artistic value, featuring characters with unclear psychological states and plots not always sufficiently endowed with motive.

[5] His actor friend Livescu nevertheless recalled that they enjoyed success at the National Theater, in particular Quarta, which starred Aristide Demetriade and "included no banalities or filler".

[66] Upon rediscovering the play in 1933, critic Barbu Lăzăreanu upheld Lecca as the "master of incisiveness"—Quarta's second act is almost entirely constructed from quick exchanges around the poker table.

[72] Livescu also notes that Lecca's preferred method included "savaging our social forms and flagellating our lack of character [...] within a melancholy atmosphere, sometimes depressing, sometimes carried by discreet poetry".

[73] In 1902, he contributed such criticism in an unprecedented form, at a National Theater recital given by Romanescu and Constantin Nottara: he added to Heliade's classic poem, Zburătorul, lyrics of his own, with political hints.

[51] She notes that Lecca had not created either situations or types, but that, as a "fine connoisseur of the stage", he was able to dose conflict, and usually resolved it in tragedy; the social critique is "vehement, but lacks clarity.

"[81] As Faust-Mohr notes, "some theater reviewers and some in the public were disappointed by the resolution of [Quarta]: a father killing his son, who had been driven astray by gambling addiction.

[85] From 1903, he joined Livescu as a contributor to Revista Theatrelor, a magazine published for the community of stage actors and theatergoers,[86] later followed by similar contributions in Rampa and Scena.

[5] From 1905, his brother was marginally affiliated with the Romanian Symbolist movement, writing for Vieața Nouă,[87] whose editor, Ovid Densusianu, called Haralamb "the most artistic of the younger poets".

[5][105] Reprinted throughout the 1910s, these works earned accolades from Albert Honigman of Universul Literar, who believed that Lecca, an "intelligent poet", had "outstanding talent in translation arts";[106] Aderca found them "mediocre",[80] while literary historian Barbu Theodorescu noted their "multitude of errors" and their "hasty weakness".

[4] His other translation work, published independently, covered prose: in 1904, texts by Camille Flammarion; in 1908, Maurice Maeterlinck's Intelligence of Flowers, Guy de Maupassant's Une vie, Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis and Hermann Sudermann's Tale of the Idle Millstone; in 1909, book two of Gulliver's Travels.

[128] Under contract with Alexandru Davila, who managed a private company of actors, he acted in his versions of La Femme de Claude,[36] and Henri Bernstein's Le Détour.

A scandal ensued, when Mihail Sorbul of Seara noticed that Lecca had plagiarized from his recently deceased uncle, Caragiale, rehashing Năpasta with only minor changes of names and settings.

[44] He returned to the National Theater Bucharest, where Tertia was again performed that year,[139] while also working on staging and adapting Ilderim, by Carmen Sylva and Victor Eftimiu (premiered March 1916).

[142] While recovering at Podu Iloaiei in winter 1916, Lecca showed signs of a debilitating illness (sometimes described as a war injury),[143] confessing to Ludovic Dauș that he was slowly dying, but still hoping to find a miracle cure.

[150] Quinta, also at Regina Maria (with Bulandra and wife Lucia Sturdza), still enjoyed success and, critic Paul I. Prodan noted, would still be relevant "for as long as social laws remain the same.

[80] Also in the 1920s, an attempt to stage I.N.R.I failed, due to opposition from both the Romanian Orthodox Church (who found it blasphemous) and critics such as Garabet Ibrăileanu (who raised aesthetic objections).

"[153] In a 1942 column, writer Alexandru Kirițescu suggested that Ioana, one of Dauș's newer works for the stage, was needlesly prolonging Lecca's brand of "salon drama", a genre that "requires neither observational skill nor wit".