and composing poetry. Primarily a disciple of the proto-Symbolist Alexandru Macedonski, Demetriade also described himself as a student of the 1840s romantic poet Ion Heliade Rădulescu. According to his colleague and biographer N. Davidescu, Demetriade was also an avid reader of literary theory by Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and René Ghil, constantly at work refining and modernizing his own art. Davidescu sees Demetriade and most other Romanian Symbolists as in reality Parnassians; this verdict was partly shared by comparatist Adrian Marino. He also reads a "Parnassian note" and echoes from the "macabre poetry" of Maurice Rollinat in the work of Demetriade, Alexandru Obedenaru, and Alexandru Petroff. Demetriade's first published work consisted of poems that appeared in Macedonski's Literatorul, in 1880; his first book was the 1883 Fabule, followed in 1884 by the collection Versuri. These works fund an early reviewer in the traditionalist Ioan Russu-Șirianu, who saw Demetriade as a promising sonneteer, but rejected his experiments with meter. Demetriade's first work as a translator, from Préville's "thoughts on theater", also saw print in Literatorul. He later followed up with pure-poetry and vers libre renditions from Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Gérard de Nerval and Paul Verlaine. Demetriade, who sometimes used the pen names M. Demetriad and M. C. Dimitriade, soon became an animator of the literary world. He joined Macedonski's literary circle at Fialcovski Coffeehouse in Bucharest, before moving to Kübler and, later, to Imperial—this became the epicenter of the small but growing Symbolist scene. For much of the 1880s, he was also involved with the socialist movement, first as a writer for Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea's Emanciparea. In December 1884, Demetriade was a founding member of the Bucharest Social Studies Circle, with Alexandru G. Radovici and Constantin Mille, wherein he also represented a Masonic Lodge (named after Mircea Rosetti). With the National Theater troupe, including his sister and Constantin Nottara, Demetriade toured the Romanian-speaking regions of the Duchy of Bukovina, Austria-Hungary, during summer 1885. He gave readings of Romanian poetry and spoke to a cultural gathering in Czernowitz. In 1885–1886, his father having died in an accident on the outskirts of Bucharest, Demetriade gave recitals, from his own lyrical work, at Dacia Theater, Bucharest. In 1891, he made another return to the stage, again alongside Aristizza. Their version of Hamlet, with Demetriade as The Ghost, was notably staged at the Carltheater in Vienna. First plays Demetriade also cultivated close friendships with other more writers,