Maiorescu, Titu Liviu

Born Feb. 15, 1840, in Craiova; died July 2, 1917, in Bucharest. Rumanian critic and politician.

Maiorescu served as minister of education, of justice, and of foreign affairs and was also prime minister. His politics were conservative, and he was a follower of the monarchy. He advanced the slogan “art for art’s sake” and strove to subordinate literature and social thought to the interests of the bourgeoisie. At the same time his demands for purity of language and expressiveness of form helped to raise the artistic level of literature. Maiorescu’s literary criticism was published under the title Criticism (1874; the first and second volumes were republished in 1967).