CORNEA, PAUL

CORNEA, PAUL (Cohn; 1924– ), Romanian literary historian and theoretician. After a short period in politics as a young Communist intellectual, Cornea devoted himself to an academic career and became one of the most important historians of Romanian literature and a specialist in comparative literature of international reputation. He wrote such important studies of Romanian romanticism as Originile romantismului românesc ("The Origin of Romanian Romanticism," 1972) and Oamenii începutului de drum ("The Men at the Beginning of the Road," 1974. as well as theoretical studies such as Introducere în teoria lecturii ("Introduction to the Theory of Reading," 1988). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Mirodan, Dicţionar neconvenţional al scriitorilor evrei de limbă română, 1 (1986), 384–94; Dicţionar general al literaturii române, 2 (2004), 386–98. (Leon Volovici (2nd ed.)