[5] Also a Iași native, Ion Rașcu was raised Romanian Orthodox, but later in life returned to the religion of his French forefathers, joining the Roman Catholic Church.
[6] As argued by literary historian Paul Cernat, this evidenced a "propensity toward 'alternative' spirituality and a tense relationship with the dominant Orthodox religion", also found among Symbolists who turned to Theosophy, heresy, or occult practices.
[11] As he himself recounted in later years, the monotonous atmosphere of the Moldavian fin de siècle, the sentiment that something was about to happen "in the world at large", made a mark on him: "Perhaps it is that we waited for the age to weight less on us, but to shake us more violently.
[15] Rașcu, the chief editor,[16] often signed his contributions with pseudonyms, introducing himself as M. Zopir, I.M.R., Ev., or just E.[17] He was seconded by Alfred Hefter-Hidalgo, who was the group's theoretician and staff critic.
[18] Heavily influenced by the Symbolist critic Ovid Densusianu,[19] Versuri și Proză was quite successful in attracting other Symbolist authors: Mihail Cruceanu, N. Davidescu, Benjamin Fondane, Al. T. Stamatiad, Ion Minulescu, Claudia Millian, Nicolae Budurescu, Eugeniu Sperantia, Tudor Arghezi, Adrian Maniu, Barbu Solacolu, Mihail Codreanu, Dragoș Protopopescu, Constantin T. Stoika, Perpessicius, Felix Aderca, Alexandru Vițianu, and (with early selections from his influential Plumb) George Bacovia.
[21] Rașcu popularized the work of French poets and novelists, beginning with his translations of Albert Samain's Polyphème and Marcel Schwob's La croisade des infants.
[22] Hefter-Hidalgo, whose Romanian Jewish ethnicity underlined the tolerant and non-traditional character of Versuri și Proză,[23] introduced the public to Remy de Gourmont, Stuart Merrill, Gustave Kahn, and the erotic works of Pierre Louÿs.
Among the rival literary columnists, August Scriban referred to Rașcu as "ruddy, long-haired and repulsive", while Gheorghe Bogdan-Duică dismissed Versuri și Proză as the "insolence of the impotent".
[16] After public readings from Rașcu and Codreanu's poetry, unknown authors resorted to putting out a parody of Versuri și Proză, with so-called "verse from the netherworld".
"[26] It even dedicated special issues to Poporanists such as Garabet Ibrăileanu, Mihail Sadoveanu, and Octav Băncilă,[27] and was thus more mainstream than two other Iași reviews (Eugen Relgis' Fronda, Isac Ludo's Absolutio).
Writing for Versuri și Proză in 1914, Hefter-Hidalgo ridiculed the more radical, post-Symbolist, movements, with reference to Futurism or Simultanism,[29] but explored the possibility of staging in Iași the Expressionist work of Frank Wedekind.
[5] After the outbreak of World War I, and during the two years of Romanian neutrality, Versuri și Proză affiliated with the pro-Entente and Francophile movement, finally obtaining its acceptance by the cultural mainstream.
[36] Gândirea magazine condoned his efforts in this respect, while also noting that Rașcu and his students made a habit of trekking through "the less visited parts" of Vrancea County, following in the footsteps of mountaineer Bucura Dumbravă.
"[2] Nevertheless, Rașcu was not happy teaching in Focșani: as Iordan writes, his sternness was not well received by his students, and, when his grading system was challenged by his superiors, he resigned from his position altogether.
[44] In France, Rașcu experienced not just Catholic fervor, but, according to his own account, a personal miracle: he claimed that a statue of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux smiled upon him in Ville-d'Avray.
[45] Returning to public life in 1930, Rașcu launched the magazine Îndreptar ("Rectifier") with assistance from his old Symbolist friends Cruceanu and Sperantia, and with additional help from Huzum and Mia Frollo.
[50] When switching focus to on politics, Rașcu outlines the tenets of Eminescu's distaste for the enforced secularism of the French Third Republic; however, he also renders (and deplores) the poet's adversity toward the establishment of a Bucharest Catholic See.
[42] Rașcu had by then moved to a teaching position at Mihai Viteazul National College, and, in 1938, put out a second Romanian literary textbook, Alte opere din literatura română.
[54] He returned to the spotlight in the late 1960s, when he helped researcher Mihail Straje document the pseudonymous work of himself and other Symbolists (such as Hefter-Hidalgo, Păstorel Teodoreanu, and Barbu Solacolu).
[2] As Călinescu suggests, I. M. Rașcu was a "constant" Symbolist, oriented toward a trademark "provincial", "Sunday" poetry, which mirrored his "melancholy seclusion" and "sacred bucolic joys".
"[58] However, as Lovinescu writes, such traits did not exempt Rașcu from exoticism and cosmopolitanism: along with Eugeniu Sperantia and Alexandru Gherghel, he "made skillful use" of the modernizing and "decorative" Romanian lexis favored by Densusianu at Vieața Nouă.
[59] According to Cernat, Rașcu's early poems mainly feature "Symbolist, Secessionist and Art Nouveau clichés";[21] in his Orașele dezamăgite, he merely adapted the scenery of Georges Rodenbach's Bruges-la-Morte to a Moldavian setting.
[45] Also according to Marino, Setea liniștei eterne was unwittingly amusing, "candid" and "prudish", particularly with its "misogynistic" commentary on the attire of female believers; however, Rașcu's "dreamy and monkish temperament cannot fail to impress us.