Poets

Veronica Micle (born Ana Câmpeanu) was an Imperial Austrian-born Romanian poet, whose work was influenced by Romanticism. She is best known for her love affair with the poet Mihai Eminescu, one of the most important Romanian writers.

Biography

Born in Năsăud, Micle was the second child of the shoemaker Ilie Câmpeanu and his wife Ana. She was born to him posthumously: Ilie died in 1849, taking two bullets to the chest while fighting under Avram Iancu against the Hungarian revolutionaries. Her mother went to Moldavia, settling in Târgu Neamţ in 1850 and in Iaşi in 1853. Ana went to primary school (during which she began using the name Veronica) and to the Iaşi Central School for Girls, which she graduated in June 1863. Her graduation exam proctor was the Rector of the University of Iaşi, Professor Ştefan Micle. They fell in love and on August 7, 1864, at the Bob Church, Cluj, she married Micle, thirty years her senior. She had two daughters: Virginia, a poet who married Eduard Gruber, and Valeria, an opera singer who used the name Hilda professionally.

In March 1872, in Vienna, she met Eminescu, beginning a relationship that would last for the rest of their lives. At first he would visit the literary salon that she hosted. Their friendship had become love sometime between 1875, when they started dedicating poems to each other, and 1878 (sources vary). Their romance went through several ups and downs—for ..