The magazine was reportedly hated by the public, causing Macedonski, Stoenescu, Florescu, Urechia and educator Anghel Demetriescu to try to revive it as Revista Literară ("The Literary Review", published for a few months in 1885). The poet attempted to establish other magazines, all of them short-lived, and, in 1887, handed for print his Naturalist novella Dramă banală ("Banal Drama") while completing one of the most revered episodes in the Nights series, Noaptea de mai ("May Night"). Also in 1886, he worked on his other Naturalist novellas: Zi de august ("August Day"), Pe drum de poștă ("On the Stagecoach Trail"), Din carnetul unui dezertor ("From the Notebook of a Deserter"), Între cotețe ("Amidst Hen Houses") and the eponymous Nicu Dereanu. By 1888, he was again sympathetic toward Blaremberg, whose dissident National Liberal faction had formed an alliance with the Conservatives, editing Stindardul Țărei (later Straja Țărei) as his supporting journal. However, late in the same year, he returned to the liberal mainstream, being assigned a weekly column in Românul newspaper. Two years later, he attempted to relaunch Literatorul under the leadership of liberal figure Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, but the latter eventually settled for founding his own Revista Nouă. Around 1891, he saluted Junimeas own break with the Conservatives and its entry into politics at the Conservative-Constitutional Party, before offering an enthusiastic welcome to the 1892 Junimist agitation among university students. In 1894, he would speak in front of student crowds gathered at a political rally in University Square, and soon after made himself known for supporting the cause of ethnic Romanians and other underrepresented groups of Austria-Hungary. His literary thesis of the time was titled Poezia viitorului ("The Poetry of the Future"). It upheld Symbolist authors as the models to follow, while Macedonski personally began producing what he referred to as "instrumentalist" poems, composed around musical and onomatopoeic elements, and showing a preference for internal rhymes. Such an experimental approach was soon after parodied and ridiculed by Ion Luca Caragiale, who had by then affiliated and parted with Junimea, in his new Moftul Român magazine. The poet sought to reconcile with his rival, publicizing a claim that Caragiale was being unjustly ignored by the cultural establishment, but this attempt failed to mend relations between them, and the conflict escalated further. While, in 1893, Literatorul hosted fragments of Thalassa in its Romanian-language version, the author also launched a daily, Lumina ("The Light").