had the two protagonists die in each other's arms. Another such play is 3 decemvrie ("December 3"), which partly retells Friedrich Ludwig Zacharias Werner's Der 24 Februar using Naturalist devices. By contrast, the homage-play Cuza-Vodă is mainly a Romantic piece, where Alexander John Cuza finds his political mission validated by legendary figures in Romanian history. In parallel, Macedonski was using poetry to carry out his polemics. In an 1884 epigram, he reacted against Alecsandri's Fântâna Blanduziei, but, in Vianu's definition, "his regular causticity seems to be restrained." The piece he had earlier written, presumably against Eminescu, scandalized the public by mocking the rival's mental ruin: According to Tudor Vianu, Macedonski was mostly motivated by his disappointment in Junimea, and in particular by Eminescu's response to his public persona. Vianu contends that, although Macedonski "never was familiar with the resigned and patient attitudes", he was "by no means an evil man." On one occasion, the poet defended himself against criticism, noting that the epigram had not been specifically addressed to Eminescu, but had been labeled as such by the press, and claiming to have authored it years before its Literatorul edition. However, the later piece Viața de apoi ("The Afterlife") still displays resentments he harbored toward Eminescu. By 1880–1884, particularly after the Eminescu scandal, Macedonski envisaged prioritizing French as his language of expression. According to Vianu, Macedonski had traversed "the lowest point" of his existence, and had been subject to "one of the most delicate mysteries of poetic creation." Among his pieces of the period is the French-language sonnet Pârle, il me dit alors ("Speak, He Then Said to Me"), where, Vianu notes, "one discovers the state of mind of a poet who decides to expatriate himself." Adoption of Symbolism According to Mihai Zamfir, at the end of his transition from the "mimetic and egocentric" verse to Symbolist poetry, Macedonski emerged a "remarkable, often extraordinary" author. In the early 20th century, fellow poet and critic N. Davidescu described Macedonski, Ion Minulescu and other Symbolists from Wallachia as distinct from their Moldavian counterparts in both style and themes. Endorsing the theory and practice of Symbolism for much of his life, Macedonski retrospectively claimed to have been one of its first exponents. His version of Symbolism, critic Paul Cernat notes, clashed with that advocated by many of his contemporaries in that it rejected merit to the Decadent movement, and represented the "decorative" aestheticist