"Out of All the Masts" (also rendered as "From the Multitude of Masts", "Of the Masts" or "Of All the Ships"; , literally "Of the Hundreds of Masts") is an 1880 philosophical poem by Mihai Eminescu, Romania's national poet. Written in a condensed, four-stanza format, with a very tight rhyming sequence which makes it notoriously hard to translate, it is widely seen as a small masterpiece in Romanian literature. Its central metaphor, of sailing ships and migratory birds heading out into a naturally perilous journey, constitutes a reflection on entropy, which, over the last lines, builds up into a summary of ontological idealism; Eminescu urges his readers to identify entropy as a guiding law of existence, and to recognize their own thoughts as imperfect echoes from a superior level of reality. The kenning of "winds" and "waves" as stand-ins for generic fate is presumed to originate with similar usage in Romanian folklore, using "time" instead of "waves". Eminescu's reliance on maritime imagery, which was largely absent from Romanian poetry up to that point, may be an indirect record of his trips to Northern Dobruja in the late 1870s.
Eminescu allowed a selection of his poems to be published during his lifetime, but it did not include "Out of All the Masts"—which, in the handwritten version, had no exact title. He preserved the poem, as well as two early versions of it, in his private notebooks, which exegetes discovered and named after his death. The piece was first printed in 1902, and received with enthusiasm by Eminescu's disciple, Alexandru Vlahuță, by their former rival Alexandru Macedonski, as well as by literary critic Garabet Ibrăileanu; the latter fought to make it a standard of all Eminescu editions. The title and metaphor were revived in Communist Romania and Soviet Moldavia as a literary reference to aspiring youth. Its more or less faithful translations into international languages gave it a world fame; "Out of All the Masts" was pastiched by authors such as Alexandru Toma, Stella Leonardos, and Ion Hadârcă. It also inspired music by Doru Popovici, Anatol Vieru, and Aleksi Ahoniemi.
Outline The four-stanza, 16-line poem is introduced by its titular seafaring metaphor: —translation by Corneliu M. Popescu, in Popescu (1978), p. 196
The notion is repeated over the following stanza, which explains that migratory birds will not likely return from their voyages, and will be instead brought down by the same winds and waves. The final two stanzas change focus, encouraging the reader to follow the winds and the waves one their thoughts and ideals will have exhausted; the conclusive lines identify one's thinking with the rhythm provided by the sea and the air: —translation by Petre Grimm, in Mihai Eminescu, Poems and Prose of Mihai Eminescu, p. 53. Las Vegas: Histria Books, 2019.
Critical reception Language and philosophy Critics such as Traian Păunescu-Ulmu regard "Out of All the Masts" as anticipating later developments in "pure poetry", due to its "impeccable clarity"."Cronica. Eminescu și poezia pură", in Dreptatea, April 6, 1938, p. 2 Various authors have stated their admiration for "Out of All the Masts" in terms of its song-like qualities—himself a poet, Ștefan Iureș summarized its harmonies as "the famous lull" (faimoasa legănare);Ștefan Iureș, "Poezia lumii omagiază Luceafărul", in Scînteia, June 13, 1964, p. 3 novelist Mihail Sadoveanu declared himself fascinated by the poem's "internal melody", which, he proposed, was one of the elements showing Eminescu's sudden evolution into a master writer;Mihai Sadoveanu, "Eminescu", in Viața Românească, Vol. II, Issue 12, December 1949, pp. 4–5 comparatist Pompiliu Constantinescu argued that "Out of All the Masts", along with Stelele-n cer and other "tiny poems", shows a "musical Eminescu [...], an Eminescu of precious suggestion."Constantinescu & Vlad, p. 66 A part of the poem's charm in its Romanian original is explained by linguist Alexandru Rosetti as a combination of nasal and liquid consonants, capable of evoking a "melodious and melancholic flow" (melodioasă și melancolică scurgere).Alexandru Rosetti, "Valoarea expresivă a sunetelor vorbite", in Adevărul, July 13, 1930, p. 2 Literary historian Theodor Codreanu describes the piece as a "wonder in musical swaying [carried] only by a pure interplay of rhyme and paeon".Theodor Codreanu, "Poezia ca poveste", in Contemporanul, Vol. XXVIII, Issue 10, October 2017, p. 14 Critic Alex. Ștefănescu proposes that "Out of All the Masts" is "not simple, as it may seem, but essentialized", with "short lines and obligatory rhymes—versification criteria that seem impossible to abide by." The impression, according to Ștefănescu, is that "this perfect combination of words has long existed in the Romanian language", and Eminescu has "merely dug it up, like an archeologist taking out an amphora."Alex. Ștefănescu, "Eminescu, poem cu poem (Postumele). Dintre sute de catarge. Stelele-n cer", in România Literară, Issue 14/2018, p. 16
Ștefănescu sees the work's other main feature as being its interrogative nature, with a didactic purpose: "Interrogative sentences have this uncanny way of generating interest, since humans learn, from their very first years on Earth, that they have an obligation to answer questions posed to them." The overall method is in drawing attention to entropy as understood by the human mind: "the painful idea that any action is carried out with a large number of losses, and, moreover, that and action is uncertain [emphasis in the original]." Among the Eminescu scholars, Tudor Vianu highlighted the national poet's reliance on the second-person singular "whenever he wants to give voice to a generic self." This, Vianu notes, is the case with "Out of All the Masts" and its final stanza.Tudor Vianu, "Atitudinile și formele eului în lirica lui Eminescu", in Revista Fundațiilor Regale, Vol. VI, Issue 7, July 1939, p. 62 The same fragment is seen by scholar Gheorghe Ceaușescu as sampling one of Eminescu's characteristics, namely his take on the ontological reality of ideas. The particular note struck by "Out of All the Masts" is that the world's own "thought" may not be easily understood by the human intellect, though it can be perceived through the "moving elements of the cosmos".Gheorghe Ceaușescu, "'A gândi în basme'", in România Literară, Issue 34/2003, p. 18
The implicit message is theorized by linguist Dumitru Irimia: "Eminescu expresses [...] a belief that only the creative act ensures a being's rescue from the prison of ephemeral things, as well as the drama of disbelief in a reader's ability to capture the profound nature of that creative act".Dumitru Irimia, "Osia statornică — imagine eminesciană a identității naționale", in Limba Română, Vol. XVI, Issues 1–2, 2006, p. 18 Comparatist Elena Loghinovschi proposes that, here as well as in Luceafărul, Eminescu channeled the same sensibility as Russia's Fyodor Tyutchev; they both sense "the omnipresent echoes of the Spirit, those which unite the obscure or prophetic impulses of a human microcosm with the majestic breath of the macrocosm".Loghinovschi, p. 64 Eminescu exegete Ion Dumitrescu supports reading "Out of All the Masts" as a companion to another work, Glossă, which is explicitly and "profoundly" indebted to the pessimistic philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer (and also uses the imagery of waves).Fănuș Băileșteanu, "Glosse la glossă", in Steaua, Vol. XXIX, Issue 6, June 1978, p. 20 This presents as follows: —translation by Corneliu M. Popescu, in Popescu (1978), p. 108
Seascape imagery and folkloric source The anguishing tone present in "Out of All the Masts" is also tied by critics to its elements of localization—Eminescu depicts himself as standing on the shore, welcoming the looming tragedy with a sense of "calm disintegration". This marine nature of the poem is a topic for discussion, since it remains uncharacteristic of Romanian poetry; columnist Geo Bogza remarked that "Out of All the Masts" informs the Romanian soul "on fate and shipwrecks", being a poem so evocative that "old nations of seafarers would envy us."Geo Bogza, "Arcul de timp. Dintre sute de catarge", in România Literară, Issue 17/1989, p. 7 As noted by poet Veronica Porumbacu in her brief analysis of this and other literary seascapes, Eminescu had rarely visited seafaring areas, and never spent any time on the local Black Sea coast.Veronica Porumbacu, "Impresii. Prolog pentru altfel de Pontice", in Steaua, Vol. XV, Issues 5–6, May–June 1964, p. 120 Comparatist László Gáldi contrarily believes that Eminescu made numerous trips to maritime Northern Dobruja after its annexation in 1878, and that he became "obsessed" with the imagery of sea-waves—producing not just "Out of All the Masts", but also "One Wish Alone Have I".Gáldi, p. 361 Some exegetes read the sea in purely metaphorical terms, as a simile, with Magdalena Popescu noting that it stands for "an absurd social life, which renders creativity obsolete and moral rectitude useless".Magdalena Popescu, "Din lirica mării. Antologie", in Gazeta Literară, Vol. XI, Issue 44, October 1964, p. 7 According to Dumitrescu, the sea and its waves should be regarded as a metaphor for life itself.Alexandru Piru, "Metafora mării în poezia lui Eminescu", in România Literară, Issue 19/1972, p. 13
Gáldi argues that, beyond its philosophical worth, "Out of All the Masts" is a stylistic homage to Romanian folklore. As he notes, Eminescu may have picked up on very specific influences from the Mocani songs (doine) of Transylvania while out partying at Kiriazi Inn with Dumitru Constantinescu-Teleormăneanu and others.Gáldi, pp. 360–361 He identifies a lyrical motif shared between Eminescu's piece and one such folk creation, which reads:
According to Gáldi, the transition from folk lament to modern philosophy, with "time" replaced by "waves", is made obvious through intermediary versions of the poem.Gáldi, pp. 361–364 The earliest variants include mention of the poetic self, while in the final one Eminescu "expurgates any reference to his own person, addressing himself with a gnomic tone and with an absolute impartiality".Gheorghe Suciu, "Lupta cu 'împrejurările'", in Luceafărul, Vol. XXI, Issue 24, June 1978, p. 7 One such intermediary piece, found in Eminescu's unpublished notebooks, reads:
Publication history and cultural echoes National appraisal