Editing Mircea Eliade (section)

===Other writings===
Eliade reinterpreted the Greek mythological figure [[Iphigeneia]] in his eponymous 1941 play. Here, the maiden falls in love with [[Achilles]], and accepts to be sacrificed on the [[pyre]] as a means to ensure both her lover's happiness (as predicted by an [[oracle]]) and her father [[Agamemnon]]'s victory in the [[Trojan War]].<ref name="raifigenia">[[Radu Albala]], "Teatrul Naţional din București. ''Ifigenia'' de Mircea Eliade" ("National Theater Bucharest. ''Ifigenia'' by Mircea Eliade"), in ''[http://www.cimec.ro/Teatre/revista/1982/1982_feb.htm Teatru] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180911094714/http://www.cimec.ro/teatre/revista/1982/1982_feb.htm|date=September 11, 2018}}'', Vol. XXVII, Nr. 2, February 1982 – [http://www.cimec.ro/Teatre/revista/1982/Nr.2.anul.XXVII.februarie.1982/imagepages/16755.1982.02.pag040-pag041.html text facsimile] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081202062127/http://www.cimec.ro/Teatre/revista/1982/Nr.2.anul.XXVII.februarie.1982/imagepages/16755.1982.02.pag040-pag041.html|date=2008-12-02}} republished by the [http://www.cimec.ro/e_default.htm Institute for Cultural Memory] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100919180706/http://cimec.ro/e_default.htm|date=2010-09-19}}; retrieved January 19, 2008 {{in lang|ro}}</ref> Discussing the association Iphigenia's character makes between love and death, Romanian theater critic [[Radu Albala]] noted that it was a possible echo of ''[[Meşterul Manole]]'' legend, in which a builder of the [[Curtea de Argeş Cathedral|Curtea de Argeș Monastery]] has to sacrifice his wife in exchange for permission to complete work.<ref name="raifigenia"/> In contrast with early renditions of the myth by authors such as [[Euripides]] and [[Jean Racine]], Eliade's version ends with the sacrifice being carried out in full.<ref name="raifigenia"/>

In addition to his fiction, the exiled Eliade authored several volumes of memoirs and diaries and travel writings. They were published sporadically, and covered various stages of his life. One of the earliest such pieces was ''India'', grouping accounts of the travels he made through the [[Indian subcontinent]].<ref name="jgspania"/> Writing for the Spanish journal ''[[La Vanguardia]]'', commentator [[Sergio Vila-Sanjuán]] described the first volume of Eliade's ''Autobiography'' (covering the years 1907 to 1937) as "a great book", while noting that the other main volume was "more conventional and insincere."<ref name="vilasanjpaseo"/> In Vila-Sanjuán's view, the texts reveal Mircea Eliade himself as "a Dostoyevskyian character", as well as "an accomplished person, a [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethian]] figure".<ref name="vilasanjpaseo"/>

A work that drew particular interest was his ''Jurnal portughez'' ('Portuguese Diary'), completed during his stay in [[Lisbon]] and published only after its author's death. A portion of it dealing with his stay in Romania is believed to have been lost.<ref name="scnostal"/> The travels to Spain, partly recorded in ''Jurnal portughez'', also led to a separate volume, ''Jurnal cordobez'' ('Cordoban Diary'), which Eliade compiled from various independent notebooks.<ref name="jgspania"/> ''Jurnal portughez'' shows Eliade coping with clinical depression and political crisis, and has been described by [[Andrei Oișteanu]] as "an overwhelming [read], through the immense suffering it exhales."<ref name="aoopium"/> Literary historian [[Paul Cernat]] argued that part of the volume is "a masterpiece of its time", while concluding that some 700 pages were passable for the "among others" section of [[Bibliography of Mircea Eliade|Eliade's bibliography]].<ref name="pcommare"/> Noting that the book featured parts where Eliade spoke of himself in eulogistic terms, notably comparing himself favorably to Goethe and Romania's national poet [[Mihai Eminescu]], Cernat accused the writer of "egolatry", and deduced that Eliade was "ready to step over dead bodies for the sake of his spiritual 'mission' ".<ref name="pcommare"/> The same passages led philosopher and journalist [[Cătălin Avramescu]] to argue that Eliade's behavior was evidence of "[[wiktionary:megalomania|megalomania]]".<ref name="cavrcitim"/>

Eliade also wrote various essays of literary criticism. In his youth, alongside his study on [[Julius Evola]], he published essays which introduced the Romanian public to representatives of modern [[Spanish literature]] and philosophy, among them [[Adolfo Bonilla San Martín]], [[Miguel de Unamuno]], [[José Ortega y Gasset]], [[Eugenio d'Ors]], [[Vicente Blasco Ibáñez]] and [[Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo]].<ref name="jgspania"/> He also wrote an essay on the works of [[James Joyce]], connecting it with his own theories on the [[Eternal return (Eliade)|eternal return]] ("[Joyce's literature is] saturated with nostalgia for the myth of the eternal repetition"), and deeming Joyce himself an anti-[[Historicism|historicist]] "archaic" figure among the modernists.<ref>Eliade, in Robert Spoo, ''James Joyce and the Language of History: Dedalus's Nightmare'', [[Oxford University Press]], New York, Oxford, 1994, p. 158. {{ISBN|0-19-508749-6}}</ref> In the 1930s, Eliade edited the collected works of Romanian historian [[Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu]].<ref name="ihincep"/>

M. L. Ricketts discovered and translated into English a previously unpublished play written by Mircea Eliade in Paris 1946 ''Aventura Spirituală'' ('A Spiritual Adventure'). It was published first in ''[[Theory in Action]]'' – the journal of the [[Transformative Studies Institute]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://transformativestudies.org/publications/theory-in-action-the-journal-of-tsi/past-issues/volume-5-number-1-january-2012/|title=Volume 5, Number 1, January 2012 {{pipe}} Transformative Studies Institute|date=January 10, 2012 }}</ref> vol. 5 (2012): 2–58 -, and then in Italian (M. Eliade, ''Tutto il teatro'', Milano: Edizioni Bietti, 2016).