During this creative process, Eminescu distilled Romanian folklore, Romantic themes, and various staples of Indo-European myth, arriving from a versified fairy tale to a mythopoeia, a self-reflection on his condition as a genius, and an illustration of his philosophy of love.

The eponymous celestial being, also referred to as "Hyperion", is widely identified as Eminescu's alter ego; he combines elements of fallen angels, daimons, incubi, but is neither mischievous nor purposefully seductive.

Its translators into various languages include figures such as Günther Deicke, Zoltán Franyó, Mite Kremnitz, Leon Levițchi, Mate Maras, Corneliu M. Popescu, David Samoylov, Immanuel Weissglas, Todur Zanet, and Vilém Závada.

Luceafărul opens as a typical fairy tale, with a variation of "once upon a time" and a brief depiction of its female character, a "wondrous maiden", the only child of a royal couple—her name, Cătălina, will only be mentioned once, in the poem's 46th stanza.

Returning to Cătălina while she is awake, Hyperion proposes that they elope to his "coral castles" at the bottom of the sea; this horrifies the Princess, who expresses her refusal of a "lifeless" and "alien" prospect—although she still appears bedazzled by his "angel" looks.

— „O, ești frumos, cum numa-n vis Un demon se arată, Dară pe calea ce-ai deschis N-oi merge niciodată [...]” "You are as handsome as in sleep Can but a d[a]emon be; Yet never shall I take and keep The path you show to me."

Cătălina is not interested in acquiring immortality, but asks that he join the mortal realm, to be "reborn in sin"; Hyperion agrees, and to this end abandons his place on the firmament to seek out the Demiurge.

Dar nu mai cade ca-n trecut În mări din tot înaltul — „Ce-ți pasă ție, chip de lut, Dac-oi fi eu sau altul?

Perpessicius rates these as "standalone types" and, in 1938, opted to publish them as separate pieces in his companion to Eminescu's work,[3] with philologist Petru Creția calling them the "Luceafărul constellation".

[7] Eminescu made several discreet returns to his drafts, adding the central theme of the Hyperion as a misunderstood genius, and finally in April 1882 went public with Legenda Luceafĕrului ("Legend of the Morning Star").

[10] Maiorescu endorsed the work and promoted it with public readings in both Bucharest and Buftea, lasting into January 1883, and attended by Eminescu, Petre P. Carp, Alexandru B. Știrbei, and Ioan Slavici.

[11] First published in Almanachulŭ Societății Academice Socialŭ-Literare Romănia Jună, put out by the Romanian colony of Vienna in April 1883, it was taken up in August by the Junimist tribune, Convorbiri Literare.

[13] This puzzled later editors: in his own volume, Garabet Ibrăileanu kept the omission, but included the missing part as an appendix,[14] while D. R. Mazilu hesitated between the versions in his search for an "ideal" and "purified" Luceafărul.

"[18] The rhythmic sequencing has created a long-standing dilemma about the intended pronunciation of Hyperion: while common Romanian phonology favors Hypérion, the text suggests that Eminescu used Hyperión.

Their visitation of young girls at night also echoes more distant themes from Ancient Greek mythology, such as Zeus' seduction of Semele and Io, or the story of Cupid and Psyche—the latter was one of Eminescu's favorite references.

[4] Variations of the theme, and more direct echoes from Lord Byron (Heaven and Earth)[31] and Victor Hugo ("The Sylph"),[4] appear in various early poems by Eminescu, and in some portions of the "constellation".

"[35] While noting that Eminescu had a great interest in Lucifer as a literary trope, mythographer Ioan Petru Culianu asserts that the Morning Star is only incidentally related to the fallen angels myth, and more than anything a Romanian Hesperus.

The transition to this ultimate form was eased by lexical precedent: in Romanian, the Morning and Evening Stars are gendered male,[37] and "the biblical notion of Lucifer" was already being confounded in folklore with either celestial body.

"[50] The Schopenhauerian influence is nuanced by Caracostea, who notes that the four stanzas cut out by Maiorescu were this-worldly and optimistic: the Demiurge denies Hyperion sheer mortality, but offers to make him a leader of men; the implication is that such figures are superhuman.

[52] In her reading, Luceafărul is on a philosophical continuum with other Eminescian poetry; the metaphor of "time as death" first appears in relation to Hyperion's withdrawal, and is fully developed in the posthumous "Memento Mori: The Panorama of Vanities".

The maiden who happened to catch Hyperion's affection stands for the narrow fold, the human, historical, ontological conspiracy, downright puny when confronted with the nocturnal body's destiny".

[64] Brătescu-Voinești was partly backed by another source, Eminescu aficionado Alexandru Vlahuță, who reported his friend's "one-time fling, a curious episode, which inspired him to write the poem Luceafărul and which I cannot render here.

"[71] As he notes, Luceafărul was especially important as autofiction, encouraging "analogical reasoning" among its readers: "the text has produced exhilaration in academia and has stirred affection for the poet, a distortion sparked by the mystique of writings which bear the mark of destiny".

[87] During the interwar, the identification of poet and protagonist was also taken up by Lovinescu in his work as a biographical novelist: he intended to write a romanticized account, also titled Luceafărul, dealing mainly with the hero's childhood in Ipotești.

[88] Mircea Eliade rendered ample homage to Luceafărul, in his novel Miss Christina, but especially so in his short story Șarpele ("The Serpent"), which relies on intertextual allusion to the point of becoming its "hierophany".

[95] Young Romanian poets also took interest in the myth, with Ana Blandiana penning Octombrie, noiembrie, decembrie ("October, November, December"), which is in part a feminized version of Luceafărul.

[97] In his final book, published in 2000, philosopher Laurențiu Ulici argued that Hyperion had become recognized as one incarnation of the national psychology, in an oxymoronic blend: the other component was Caragiale's creation, the easy-going, cynical and prosaic Mitică.

[104] Luceafărul's first-ever translation was in January 1883, when Maiorescu's friend Mite Kremnitz rendered the draft poem into German,[105] with a new version produced ten years later by Edgar von Herz.

[117] In 1984, Cartea Românească put out a volume featuring Deicke and Popescu's versions, and renditions into seven other languages: French, by Mihail Bantaș; Spanish, by Omar Lara; Armenian, by H. Dj.

[116] Another English version, the work of Josef Johann Soltesz, was printed in 2004,[120] followed by Tomy Sigler's Hebrew (2008)[121] and Todur Zanet's Gagauz (2013),[122] then by Miroslava Metleaeva's new Russian and Güner Akmolla's Crimean Tatar (both 2015).