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Title: Hungarian literature
An historical and critical survey
Author: Emil Reich
Release date: January 27, 2025 [eBook #75227]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston, MA: L. C. Page and Company, 1898
Credits: Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUNGARIAN LITERATURE ***
HUNGARIAN LITERATURE
HUNGARIAN LITERATURE
_AN HISTORICAL & CRITICAL SURVEY_
BY
EMIL REICH
DOCTOR JURIS
AUTHOR OF “HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION,” “HISTORICAL ATLAS
OF MODERN HISTORY,” “GRÆCO-ROMAN
INSTITUTIONS,” ETC.
_WITH AN AUTHENTIC MAP OF HUNGARY_
Boston
L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
[INCORPORATED]
PUBLISHERS
PREFACE.
The present book is the first attempt in the English language at a
connected story of Hungarian literature. The remarkable success achieved
by a few Magyar novelists in English-speaking countries, together with
the growing recognition of the international importance of Hungary as a
state and a nation, seem to justify the assumption, that the Anglo-Saxon
peoples too, are not unwilling to learn more about the intellectual life
of the Magyars than can be found in the ordinary books of reference.
The main object of the author, himself a Hungarian, has been to impress
the reader with a vivid picture of the chief currents and the leading
personalities of Hungarian literature. Magyar literature is too vast a
topic to be fully treated within the very limited space of a small essay
like the present. By introducing the comparative method of historical
investigation and analysis, by means of which Hungarian works are
measured, contrasted to, or compared with works of English, French,
German, Italian or the ancient classical writers, the reader may obtain,
it is hoped, a more life-like idea of a literature hitherto unknown to
him.
No nation outside Hungary has facilities of studying Magyar literature
as great as those offered to the English public in the incomparable
library of the British Museum. Nearly every Magyar work of any importance
may be found there, and the catalogues of those works are, in the strict
sense of the word, correct. This latter circumstance is chiefly owing to
the labours of an English scholar, whose name no Hungarian can pronounce
without a feeling of reverential gratitude. Mr. E. D. Butler, of the
British Museum, the author of the only authentic and comprehensive, if
small, English work on Hungary (his article “_Hungary_” in the last
edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_) is, to our knowledge, the only
English student of Magyar language and literature who has thoroughly
grasped the philology and spirit of that language and the distinctive
qualities of Magyar writers. He will, we trust, pardon our patriotism for
shocking his excessive modesty by this public acknowledgment of his merit.
May this book contribute somewhat to increase the interest of the great
British nation in a nation much less numerous but in many ways akin.
The map of Hungary accompanying this book is, we venture to say, the
first map published outside Hungary based on the most careful comparison
of the original sources. The greatest pains have been taken to ensure
absolute accuracy of names of places and of county boundaries, according
to the most recent data.
EMIL REICH.
17, TAVISTOCK ROAD, W.
_June 15th, 1898_.
[Illustration: HUNGARY PROPER]
HUNGARIAN LITERATURE.
CHAPTER I.
Of the nations in the south-east of Europe, the Hungarians, or Magyars,
are probably the most renowned, and at the same time, the least known.
Although their extensive country has now been in their possession and
under their rule for over one thousand years, and albeit the historic
_rôle_ of the Hungarians, rather than that of Hungary, has been and is
one of no common magnitude, in that, without their secular and successful
fight against Osman ascendancy, Europe could scarcely have maintained
its civilization in the countries east of Munich: yet in spite of all
such claims to attention on the part of western nations, Hungary and the
Hungarians are still largely unknown in England, France and America.
In English-speaking countries no serious attempts have as yet been made
either to tell the stirring story of Hungary’s past, or to analyse the
rich possibilities of her future. Except single and singular features of
Magyar life or natural products, such as the famous “Hungarian” bands
of the Tsiganes or gypsies and their “weird” music; Hungarian flour
and Hungarian wine; and most of all the figure of Hungary’s greatest
political orator, Louis Kossúth; except these and a few more curiosities
relating to Hungary, the proud nations of the west of Europe do not, as
a rule, take notice of all the rest of the life of a nation of eighteen
million persons.
The festivities of the Hungarian millennium celebrated the year before
last, came to the western world as a surprise. Few Englishmen were
prepared to realize the fact that, at a time when their ancestors were
still under small princes of mixed blood, and, moreover, constantly
exposed to, and finally nearly absorbed by foreign conquerors, the
Hungarians had already reared a solid fabric of government on the site
on which for now over a thousand years they have withstood the armies,
the diplomacy and the alien immigration of the Turks, the Germans and the
Slavs. Unconquered by force or disaster, and not denationalized by either
the Germans or Slavs around them, the Hungarians have maintained almost
intact the language and music they brought with them from the Steppes of
Asia; and when in the ripeness of time a Magyar literature was beginning
to develop, it proceeded on lines neither German nor Slav, but thoroughly
Hungarian.
This literature is both in extent and quality, one of the most remarkable
of the lesser literatures of Europe. The number of writers of Magyar
works is no less than 5,000; and their works cover all the provinces of
poetry and of philosophic, historic or scientific inquiry into nature or
man. While accepting the standard of criticism adopted by the recognized
arbiters of literary greatness, we have no hesitation in saying that
Hungarian Literature has a number, if a limited one, of stars of the
first magnitude, and no inconsiderable number of lesser lights. This
fact acquires still greater importance from the consideration that the
bulk of Hungarian Literature properly speaking dates back little over a
hundred years; and that many, far too many Hungarians have, up to recent
times, left their native country and, writing their works in German
or French, added to the literature of nations other than their own.
Comparatively few, exceedingly few, Englishmen have enlisted among the
writers of nations outside the United Kingdom; very many, exceedingly
many Hungarians have, under stress of various circumstances, written in
Latin, German, French or English, and thereby reduced the bulk and often
the quality of Hungarian Literature proper. The number of works in Magyar
published from 1531 to 1711 is 1,793. During the same period 2,443
non-Magyar works were published in Hungary. The preceding two totals
were given in 1879 and 1885 respectively. Up to April, 1897, 404 more
works had been discovered, belonging mostly to the class of non-Magyar
books printed in Hungary down to 1711. When, however, we inquire into
the number of works written by Hungarians and published outside Hungary,
down to 1711, we learn that no less than about 5,000 works were written
and published by Hungarian authors, in 130 non-Hungarian towns, during
the period ending 1711.[1] At a time when all the western peoples had
long ceased to use Latin for all literary purposes, the idiom of Cicero
was still the chief vehicle of thought in Hungary. Nearly all through
the eighteenth, and during the first quarter of the present century, the
number of works written by Hungarians in Latin far outnumbered the works
written by them in Magyar. It was even so with German; and many a famous
German author was really a Hungarian; such as Ladislaus Pyrker, Nicolaus
Lenau, Klein (J. L.), the great historian of the drama, Charles Beck, the
poet, Fessler, the historian, etc.
In comparing Hungarian Literature with the literature of the Germans,
French or English, we cannot but recognize, for the reasons just
mentioned, that the splendour and comprehensiveness of the Literature of
those nations cannot be found in that of the Magyars. At the same time we
make bold to point out an advantage which Hungarian Literature has over
the literature of many another nation, if not in the past, certainly in
the future. This advantage is in the Hungarian language. The Magyars have
a language of their own. It is not a borrowed language; not one taken
from another nation, in whose use it had been for centuries.
The Americans, both in North and South America, although they are in
nearly everything else the counterparts of their European parent-nations,
have yet preserved the idioms of the latter. In politics, social
constitution, individual temper, and attitude of mind, the North and
South Americans are—a long stay in that continent has convinced us of
that—utterly different from either the English or the Spanish. The
Americans proper have indeed built up, or developed into a nation
of their own. For good or for bad, they have a distinct and novel
national personality. One thing excepted; that one thing, however, is
a vital element in the intellectual activity of a nation. We mean, of
course, Language. The Americans have moulded and coloured all the
old elements of their nationality into organs with a tone and hue of
their own. Language alone they have, with slight differences, taken
over and preserved in the very form and woof in which the English and
Spanish had left it in the old colonies. Hence there is between the
Americans, as a new nation, and their language, as an old and foreign
idiom, a discordance and discrepancy that no genius can entirely remove.
The words of a language are mostly gentry of olden descent. Between
them there are associations and tacit understandings ill-fitted for
an environment essentially different from their original cast. This
discrepancy has, there can be little doubt, exercised a baneful influence
on the literature of the American nations. It has baulked them of the
higher achievements, and neither in the literature of North America
nor in that of South America can we meet with literary masterworks of
the first rank. Between the poets and writers of those nations and the
languages they are using there is much of that antagonism which has
always been found to exist between the cleverest of Neo-Latin poets and
the language of Rome. Latin is a dead language; and all the intellectual
atmosphere and soil that nurtured and developed it have long since ceased
to stimulate. Accordingly, the Politiani and Sadoleti, the Sannazari
and Buchanani, and all others who in modern times have tried to revive
Latin literature have entirely failed. As with individuals so it is with
nations. The Belgians, or the Swiss in Europe are, like the Americans,
in the false position of having each a distinct nationality of their own
with languages not their own. This fundamental shortcoming has rendered
and will probably, in all times, render them incapable of reaching the
lofty summits of literature. Language is intimately allied to literature;
language is the mother, and thought the father of literary works. Any
lack of harmony in the parents must needs show in the offspring.
Now the Hungarians have not only a language of their own, but also
one the possibilities of which are far from being exhausted. For the
Hungarians therefore there is no danger of a false position, of an
initial vice in the growth of their literature; and moreover there
are immense vistas of literary exploits still in store for future
generations. The quarries and mines of the Latin and Teutonic languages
have, it may be apprehended, been worked so intensely as to leave scant
margins for new shafts. French has changed little in the last three
generations, and English and German little in the last two; while Italian
and Spanish have long reached the beautiful but stereotyped plasticity of
ripeness. Hungarian, on the other hand, is a young language. The number
of people using and moulding it has been considerably increased in the
last generation, and most of its gold-fields and diamond-layers have
not yet been touched by the prospector’s axe. There is thus an immense
future still open for Hungarian Literature, and this prospective, but
certain fact ought never to be lost sight of in a fair appreciation of
the literary efforts of the Hungarians.
Literature being a nation in words, as history is a nation in deeds, it
would be impossible to grasp the drift, or value the achievements of
Hungarian Literature without some knowledge of the Magyar nation in the
past and in the present. It may be therefore advisable to premise a few
remarks on Hungary and her history before entering on a narrative of
Hungarian Literature.
CHAPTER II.
Hungary, in extent larger than the United Kingdom, is, geographically
speaking, one large basin, watered by one large river and its affluents,
and bounded by one imposing range of mountains. The river is called
the Danube, the mountains are the Carpathian offshoots of the Alps.
This geographical unity makes Hungary almost predestined to be the seat
of one nation. The natural unity calls for, it may be presumed, the
national. Yet the very richness of the soil, diversified as it is by
the vegetable and mineral wealth of huge mountains, and the cereal and
animal exuberance of vast plains has, in all times, attracted numerous
tribes from eastern Europe and western and central Asia to the country
of the “blue” Danube, and the “blonde” Theiss. Some of these invaders
succeeded for a time in establishing a kind of dominion over parts of
Hungary. Thus the Huns in the fifth, the Gepidae in the fifth and sixth,
the Avars in the seventh and eighth, numerous Slav tribes in the eighth
and ninth centuries were successively lords of the plains and some
mountainous parts of Hungary. Not one of these peoples, however, could
either maintain themselves as rulers, or quite disappear as dwellers.
Already in the ninth century we find Hungary inhabited by more than
fifteen different nations or portions of nations, offering then the
same gorgeous medley of Humanity that is still so characteristic of the
country. Where the above nations failed, the Magyars signally succeeded.
They and they alone of all the numerous, if not perhaps innumerable
nations that had tried to rear a lasting polity on the columns of the
Carpathians, and behind the moats of the Danube; the Hungarians alone,
we say, succeeded in establishing themselves as the permanent rulers
of the Slav and Turanian peoples of Hungary, and as the members of a
state endowed with abiding forces of order within and power without.
From 996 to 1301 A.D., they took their dukes and kings from the family
of the Árpáds, under whom they had entered (some 100,000 men, women,
and children) the country. Saint Stephen (the first canonized king)
consolidated their constitution. Without attempting to overrate the value
of constitutions either grown or made, and, while laying due stress on
that _geometria situs_, or providential strategy in the location of
nations which has perhaps wrought the major part of History, it is
tolerably certain, that the constitution of Hungary, as developed under
the Árpád dynasty, and as still surviving in some of its essential
elements, has had a most beneficial influence on the public life of the
Magyars. Like that of England, it combines the excellency of the Latin
system of centralization, with the advantages of the Germanic custom of
local autonomy.
Already in the early middle ages, Hungary was divided into counties
endowed with selfgovernment. At the same time there was a centre of
government and legislation in the national assembly or diet, where king
and subjects met to discuss the affairs affecting the peace or wars of
the entire state. In 1222, or seven years after Magna Charta was signed
at Runnymede, the Hungarians forced their King John, whose name was
Andrew II., to sign the Golden Bull, which, like the English Charter,
was to be the text of the country’s constitution, all subsequent laws
being in the nature of commentaries on that text. The elements of the
Hungarian and English constitution being nearly alike, the domestic
histories of the two nations bear, up to the sixteenth century, striking
resemblance to one another. We learn of wars of the “barons” against the
king, such as those under Henry III. and Henry IV. in England; we read
of the constant struggles of the “commons” (in Hungary consisting of the
lower nobility, that is, of knights as distinguished from burgesses),
for broader recognition of their parliamentary rights; of rebellions,
like that of Wat the Tyler, of the peasants against their oppressors, the
landed gentry; and of fierce dynastic struggles, like the Wars of the
Roses. But while these historic parallels may be found in many another
country of mediæval Europe with its remarkable homogeneity of structure,
the distinctive parallelism between England and Hungary is in the
tenacity with which the ruling people of both countries have carried over
their autonomous institutions from the times before the Reformation to
the sixteenth and the following centuries, or to the period of Absolutism
sweeping over Europe ever since Luther had raised his voice for religious
liberty.
All nations of Europe had constitutions more or less similar to that
of England during the Middle Ages; for there was after all a very
considerable amount of Liberty extant in mediæval institutions. But at
the threshold of the sixteenth century, when new worlds were discovered
by the genius and daring of the Portuguese and the Italians, the better
part of the old world, that is, its Liberty, was completely lost, and
sovereigns became absolute and peoples slaves. Three nations alone
amongst the larger states remained unaffected by the plague of absolutism
then spreading over Europe; they alone preserving intact the great
principles of local autonomy, central parliaments, and limited power of
the Crown. These were the English, the Poles and the Hungarians. In these
three countries alone there was practically no dead past as against a
presumptuous present. The nation’s past was still living in the shape of
actual realities, and the growth of the constitution was, in spite of
all sudden ruptures and breaks, continuous and organic. What the Stuarts
were to England, the Habsburgs were to Hungary during the seventeenth
century. Hence in both countries we notice continual rebellions and wars,
both parliamentary and other. The Stuarts, however, were little aided by
foreign powers in their attempts at crushing the autonomous rights of the
English nation. On the contrary, one of the greatest statesmen of modern
times, William of Orange, came, and with him several great powers of
Europe, to the rescue of the people of England; and thus the end of the
seventeenth century was also the termination of Absolutism in England.
In Hungary it was the grave of Liberty. The Hungarian Stuarts, or the
then Habsburgs, far from being deserted by the other Great Powers of
Europe, were most efficiently abetted by them. This happened of course
in a way apparently quite alien to any desire to destroy the liberties
of Hungary. Vienna, the capital of the Habsburgs, was, in 1683, besieged
by the hitherto fairly invincible Turks, and Austria was menaced with
utter ruin. The war being, on the face of it, a crusade, the Christian
powers, and, chiefly, fat and gallant John Sobieski, King of Poland,
came to the succour of Leopold of Austria. The Turk was beaten, and not
only out of Austria, but also out of Hungary, where he had been holding
two-thirds of the counties for over one hundred and fifty years. Hungary
was almost entirely liberated from her Mahometan oppressor, and, such
is the illogicality of History, for the very same reason nearly lost
her autonomous existence. For the evil of foreign saviours now told on
the Magyars. Had they driven back the Turk by their own efforts, the
result would have been an unprecedented electrization and stimulation
of all the forces of the nation. The Greeks after Salamis; the Romans
after Zama; the English after Trafalgar had won not only a victory over
an enemy, but an immeasurably increased vitality fraught with novel
energies. The Hungarians after the capture of Buda and the Battle of
Zenta, both achieved by Austria’s foreign allies and foreign generals,
had defeated the Turks indeed; but their own ends too. Never was Hungary
in a lower state of national stagnation than shortly after the peace of
Carlovitz (1699), which put a formal end to Turkish rule in most of the
Hungarian counties. Prince Francis Rákóczy II., who started the last
of the Great Rebellions of the Magyars previous to 1848, and after the
above peace, found no Holland rich in capital, no Brandenburg ready to
hand with well-trained regiments, no Austria willing to avert side-blows
from enemies, to help him in the manner in which the asthmatic Prince
of Orange was helped against James II. and his powerful abettor. And
when Rákóczy too had expended his forces in vain, Hungary fell into
a decrepitude but too natural in a nation whose foreign foe had been
conquered by its domestic oppressor.
The political bankruptcy of the Hungarians by the beginning of the
eighteenth century is of such importance for the study of the history of
their literature, that we cannot but attempt to search for some of the
reasons and causes of this national disaster. The principal cause was, it
would seem, the lack of that very class of citizens which had in England
so potently contributed to the ultimate victory of popular freedom—the
middle class. Hungary never recognized, nor tolerated the complicated
maze of semi-public and semi-private institutions collectively called
Feudalism. Whatever the merits or demerits of that mediæval fabric may or
may not have been, it is certain that the rise of the _bourgeois_ class
is owing directly, and still more indirectly to the action and re-action
of Feudalism. The parallelism between England Poland, and Hungary pointed
out above, must now be supplemented by the statement, that England alone
of these three commonwealths had, through the invasion and conquests of
the French Normans, received a large infusion of feudal institutions,
and that therefore England alone was to create that powerful class of
burgesses and yeomen, which was entirely lacking in both Poland and
Hungary. Without such a class of “mean” citizens no modern nation has
been able to consolidate its polity; and Hungary in the seventeenth
century, being totally devoid of such a class, was in the long run bound
to be wrecked by such a deficiency. We shall see how heavily the absence
of a middle class told on the growth of Hungarian Literature.
During the eighteenth century and up to 1815, the great and scarcely
interrupted wars of the Habsburgs enlisted all the powers of Hungary. In
1741 the Magyars, and they alone, saved Austria from what seemed to be
inevitable dismemberment. From that date onward to the campaign of 1788
the History of Hungary is but a chapter in that of Austria. Towards
that latter date the wave of Nationalism started in France had reached
Hungary. Like the Belgians and the Czechs (Bohemians), the Hungarians too
began to revolt from the anti-nationalist and _egalitarian_ autocracy
of Emperor Joseph II., one of the characteristic geniuses of the last
century, who was exceedingly enlightened on everything else but his own
business. The old Magyar institutions, and weightiest amongst them, the
Magyar language was, by the Hungarian diet, alas! not by the Hungarian
people, decreed to be the public language of the country. Resistance
to Joseph’s “reforms” became so serious, as to prevail upon the dying
monarch to revoke them, 1790; and under his successor, Leopold II.,
1790-1792, who was of a less aggressive temper, Hungarian nationality
seemed to approach its revival. This was, however, not to be.
The French Revolution, although essentially a nationalist movement,
forwarded in Europe outside France, for nearly two generations after
its rise, none but the cause of the monarchs. The Hungarians, who
gave Austria many of her best generals, and fought in nearly all the
battles of the Revolutionary Wars from 1792 to 1815, were in the end
shorn of all their hopes and expectations by the successful fop who
directed Austria’s policy from 1809 to 1848. Prince Metternich had not
the faintest conception of the rights or wants of the Hungarians; and
having brought to fall, as he thought he did, the French Revolution and
its personification, Napoleon Buonaparte, he could not but think that
a small nation, as the Hungarians, would speedily and lastingly yield
to high-handed police regulations, to gagging the public conscience,
and to unmanning the press. The year 1848 witnessed the final victory
of the French Revolution all over Europe. Hungary, foremost amongst
the countries where oppressed nations were demolishing the bulwarks of
tyranny, freed herself from the yoke of Austrian ministers. The Austrian
armies were driven out of Hungary; the Habsburgs were declared to have
forfeited the crown of St. Stephen; and but for the help of Russia, the
Austrian monarchs would have been deprived of more than one half of their
empire. When a now nameless Hungarian general surrendered to the Russians
at Világos (1849), Hungary was bodily incorporated with the Austrian
Empire, and Czech and Austrian officials were sent down to germanize
and denationalize Hungary. In 1860 the reaction set in. The nation,
offering a passive resistance of a most formidable character, brought the
Vienna Cabinet to its senses; and when, at Königsgrätz (July, 1866), the
Prussians had routed the armies of Austria, Hungary’s greatest political
sage, Francis Deák, aided by the Austrian minister, Count Beust,
restored the ancient Magyar autonomy and independence. Ever since (1867)
Hungary’s relation to Austria has been that of confederation for purposes
of foreign policy, and absolute independence for the work of domestic
rule. The Emperor of Austria is at the same time the King of Hungary;
and thus the two halves of the Empire are united by a personal link. Law
and its administration; Parliament and municipal government; commerce
and trade; in short, all that goes to form the life of a separate nation
is, in Hungary, of as independent a character as it is in Austria. A
Hungarian must, like any other foreigner, be formally naturalized in
order that he may be considered an Austrian citizen, and _vice versâ_.
CHAPTER III.
The preceding short survey of the history of Hungary may now be followed
by a brief sketch of the character and temper of the Hungarians. The
Magyar proper, and all the numerous individuals in Hungary who have
become completely assimilated to and by the Magyar element, bear in
character much similarity to the Poles on the one hand, and to the
Spanish on the other. They are rhapsodic and enthusiastic; excellent
orators and improvisators; and most sensitive as to their personal
dignity and social respect. As their music so their character is written
in passionate rhythms, moving from broad and majestic _largo_ to quick
and highly accentuated _presto_. Yet Hungarians, unlike Poles and
Spaniards, do not let their rhapsodic impetus run away with them, and
they have shown on all great occasions of their history, much coolness
and firmness of judgment. Nor do they exaggerate their sense of dignity
into bloated _grandezza_. They are rather humorous than witty; yet in
a country replete with so many idioms and peoples, there may be found
curious borderlands of pun, wit, and humour. Passionately fond of music
and dancing, to both of which the Hungarians have given a peculiar
artistic development of their own, the Magyars have seldom manifested
remarkable talent for architecture. Painting and sculpture have found
many an able devotee in Hungary.
But it is in music that most artists of Hungary have excelled. Hungary
is saturated with music. No student of Magyar literature can afford to
neglect the study of Magyar music. The parallelism between the growth
of Hungarian music and Hungarian Literature is not so complete, as that
between German music and German literature. Yet nothing will furnish
us an ampler commentary on Magyar lyrics or epic poetry, than that
magnificent music which has inspired heroes on the battlefield, lovers
in their closets, Bach and Beethoven in their studies alike. It is
intense music of torrential and meteoric beauties, and a bewildering
bass. Strange to say, Bach’s preludes _à la fantasia_ come nearest in
character to the original Hungarian music, as played in the wayside inns
of the immense _puszta_, or Plain of Hungary. In Hungary, all musical
performances at social gatherings are entrusted to the gypsies, who
undoubtedly added much outward ornament and characteristic _fioriture_
to the melodies and harmonies of the Hungarian people; yet the body and
soul of that music are thoroughly Hungarian. Music in Hungary is the
vocal and instrumental folk-lore of the people; and no lyrical poet
of the Magyars could help writing without having in view the musical
adaptation of his poem. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that
the continual indulgence in music has had its serious drawbacks. In a
measure, music is the opium of Hungary. It fosters but too much that
bent for dreamy idleness, which is the chief failing in the Hungarian
character. Much has been done in recent times to inspirit the slumbering
energies of the nation not only in the high walks of public life, but
also in the lowly avenues of industrial, commercial, and other less
picturesque activity. Still more remains to be done.
The lack of a middle class, or _bourgeois_ proper, has retarded the
growth of literature no less than that of political independence. Within
recent times there were only two classes of Hungarians in Hungary,
nobles and peasants. The floating and unassimilated portion of the
population between these two classes remained either quite alien to
Hungarian aspirations, or it attempted to imitate the nobles, of course
chiefly in their less commendable qualities. The undeniable indolence
of the small nobleman, or country-squire; his aversion to town-life;
his abhorrence of trades and crafts; all these and similar shortcomings
inherent in a caste of nobles had a baneful influence on their numerous
imitators. Literature is, as a rule, an urban growth. The urban element
in Hungary, however—was till the end of the last century of very
subordinate importance. The frequent social gatherings of the Hungarian
country gentlemen and their numerous imitators were indeed full of
spirited talk and engaging conversation. In what might be called the
_Parlature_ of a nation, or the aggregate of their private discussions,
dialogues, speeches, etc., the Hungarians are and always have been very
rich. Many a brilliant essay or novelette has been talked in Hungarian
drawing-rooms and dining-halls, which in other countries would have
made the fortune of a writer. In fact, there is little exaggeration in
advancing the statement that the literature of a nation is the complement
of its _parlature_; and where the latter is inordinately developed, the
former is necessarily of a less exuberant growth. This “law,” if so it
may be called, operated with much force in a country where it is far
easier to find listeners than readers. It also accounts for much that
is characteristic of Hungarian prose. Like French literature, Hungarian
poetry or prose applies more to the ear than to the eye, and accordingly
suffers very much from translation. That rich _parlature_ in Hungary
has, however, another and still more serious drawback. Up to 1870, in
round numbers, there was in many parts of Hungary, more especially in
the north-west and north, a custom of using, in common conversation, two
or three idioms, almost at a time. Sentences were commenced in Latin,
continued in Hungarian, and wound up in German, or Slovak. The constant
use of several idioms, as it has rendered Hungarians peculiarly apt for
the acquisition of foreign languages, so it has made them more than apt
to read and assimilate foreign literatures. This again made many a less
enterprising mind hesitate, and likewise many a feeble mind but too prone
to imitate, especially the German writers, both in style and subject. The
originality of Hungarian authors was thus at times much impaired. In the
course of the present work we shall meet with several cases. At present
we must hasten to speak of the most potent of the factors of Hungarian
Literature; of the Hungarian language.
CHAPTER IV.
The Hungarian language is totally different in vocabulary and grammar
from the Teutonic, Latin, Slav, or Celtic languages. Between Russian
and German, or between Russian and English there is much affinity,
both groups of languages belonging to the Aryan, or Indo-German class
of idioms. Between Hungarian and German, or Hungarian and Slav, there
is no affinity whatever. The Hungarians have indeed inserted some
Slav and German mortar into crevices left open by an occasional decay
of the Hungarian material; but the structure and functions of the
Magyar language are totally alien to either Slav or German idioms.
It is an agglutinative language, the root of words being almost
invariably formed by their first syllables, unto which all affixes
and pronouns are soldered according to a fairly regular process of
word and case-formation. In Aryan languages the root is, as it were,
subterranean, and frequently hard to lay bare. In Hungarian the root is
always transparent. The vowels have a distinct musical value, and do not
resemble the musically indeterminable vowels or diphthongs of English
or German. Consonants are never unduly accumulated, as in Bohemian;
and strong accents on one syllable of a word are unknown. Generally,
the first syllable of the word has a heavier stress on it. Hungarian
is rich both in its actual vocabulary, especially for outward things
and phenomena, more especially still for acoustic phenomena; and in its
prospective word-treasury. In few languages can new words, expressing
shades and phases of meanings, be coined with greater ease. This facility
applies to abstract terms as well as to material ones. It is probably
not too much to say, that for purposes of Metaphysics or Psychology
few languages offer so ample a repository and laboratory for terms as
does the Magyar language. Although far from being as adapted for rhyme
as English or German, yet Hungarian has many and sonorous rhymes. On
the other hand, it crystallizes with readiness into all the metres of
Greek or Latin poetry. A peculiarity of Hungarian (and Finnish) are the
diminutives of endearment and affection.
The origin of the Hungarian language has been, and still is, a matter of
great discussion between the students of philology. It is certain that
Hungarian is not an Aryan, but an Ugor (Ugrian) language, belonging to
a vast group of languages spoken in parts of China, in Siberia, Central
Asia, Russia, and Turkey. We here adjoin the genealogy of the Hungarian
language as given by Professor Simonyi, of Budapest, who is considered
one of the greatest living authorities on the history and grammar of the
Magyar language. He says that Hungarian, together with Vogul, Ostiak,
Siryenian, Votiak, Lapp, Finnish, Mordvin, and Cseremiss (spoken in
the north and north-east of Russia) form the Ugrian language-group.
This group is closely akin to four other groups, viz., the Samojed; the
Turkish or Tartar; the Mongolian; and the Tungusian, or Mandchu groups.
These five large groups are called the Altaic languages, and are all
derived from an original Altaic idiom. Their mutual relations are shown
in the following diagram taken from Professor Simonyi’s work:
Archaic Altaic
|
+-----------------+-----------------+
| |
Northern Branch Southern Branch
| |
+------+----------+ +-------+---------+
| | | |
Archaic Samojedic Archaic Ugrian Turkish and Mongolian Tungusian
|
+----------+-----+-------------------+
| | |
Southern Ugrian Lapp Northern Ugrian
| |
+------------+------------+ +-----------+---------+-------+
| | | | | | |
Finnish Mordvinian Cseremissian Siryenian _Hungarian_ Vogul Ostiak
Esthonian Votiak
It will be seen that Hungarian is in near relation to Finnish and also
to Lapp, as had been recognized already by the Jesuit John Sajnovics
(1770), and proved by the great traveller, Anton Reguly. It is,
however, also related to Turkish; and this explains why the leading
neo-philologists of Hungary (Budenz, Paul Hunfalvy, and Arminius Vámbéry)
are, the two former in favour of a Finnish, the latter in favour of a
Turkish origin and kinship of both the Hungarians and their language.
Amongst the numerous students of that vexed question, no one has done
more to excite the admiration of his compatriots and foreigners, and the
applause of scholars, than Alexander Csoma de Kőrős, who sacrificed his
life in the monasteries of Thibet in the noble attempt at discovering,
by the laborious acquisition of Central-Asiatic languages, the origin
of the Magyars. We confess that we entertain but scant sympathy for the
belief in races and racial persistency. Wherever the Hungarians may have
come from, and whether or no every one living Hungarian can trace his
descent to one of the clans invading Hungary at the close of the ninth
century is, in our opinion, immaterial. As a matter of fact, very few
Magyar noblemen can trace their family beyond the year of the battle of
Mohács (1526). It is quite different with the language of the Hungarians.
Its origin and character are, on the whole, pretty clear, and from the
knowledge of its relations to kindred idioms, many a valuable conclusion
may be drawn regarding the rise and nature of Hungarian Literature in the
past and in the present. The greatest patriot of Hungary, Count Stephen
Széchenyi, has tersely expressed the immense influence of language on
the nation in the words: “Language carries the nation away with it.” Our
whole view of Hungarian Literature would be different if for instance the
opinion of erudite Matthew Bél (Belius) as to the Hebrew origin of the
Hungarian language had proved to be true. It would likewise essentially
alter our conception of Magyar literary works if the opinion of
Podhorszky as to the close relation between Hungarian and Chinese would
not have been found untenable. But the physical origin of the Hungarians
themselves is, at best, only an idle inquiry into insufficient records of
the past.
CHAPTER V.
896-1520.
The history of Hungarian Literature is divided into four distinct
periods. The first comprises the time from the advent of the Magyars in
Hungary to the Reformation (896-1520); the second, from the Reformation
to the peace of Szathmár, or the termination and failure of Hungary’s
revolt from Austria (1520-1711); the third, from 1711 to 1772, or the
period of stagnation; and finally from 1772 to our own days, or the
period of the full development.
896-1520. The first period is exceedingly poor in written remains of
literature. In fact, the first and thus the oldest literary relic of
the Hungarian language is a short “Funeral Sermon” (_Halotti Beszéd_),
dating from the first third of the thirteenth century; and for 200 years
after that date, we meet, with the exception of a Hungarian glossary of
the year 1400, recently discovered at Schlaegl, in Upper Austria, with
no example of a Hungarian literary work of even slight extent. From the
middle of the fifteenth century we possess a fragment, called after
the town where it was discovered, by Dr. Julius Zacher in 1862, the
“_Königsberg_ (in Prussia) _Fragment_.” Thus, the number of extant, or
hitherto discovered Hungarian works of even slight literary merit is,
down to 1450 A.D., an almost negligible quantity. Mr. Szilády in his
“Collection of Ancient Hungarian Poets” (_Régi Magyar Költők Tára_) has
indeed communicated six and fifty mediæval Hungarian church-poems and
other fragments; but of that number scarcely a dozen are original poems,
the rest being mere translations of the then current church-poetry. The
philologist may no doubt find much to glean from even this scant harvest
of Hungarian Literature in the first period. For literature proper, it
is of no account whatever. Yet it would be unfair to leave this period
without even a passing mention of its oral literature, or epic and
legendary stories, of which there must have been no small quantity in
those agitated times.
The Hungarian naïve epic is lost. A glance at the habits of the Finns
will, however, suffice to satisfy the inquirer that the Hungarians, like
their cousins in Russia, must have cultivated the art of recitation and
oral handing down of the glorious deeds of their ancestors, to no small
extent. We now know that the immense epic of the Finns, the _Kalevala_,
has been transmitted from generation to generation by bards who had
treasured up in their memories the endless _runot_ recording the deeds
of Lemminkäinen, Väinämöinen, and Jlmarinen. The Hungarians, too, had
their bards, called _igrigeczek_, or _hegedősök_ (violinists); and at
the manors of the nobles or the courts of the kings, old heroic songs
were recited about Attila, King of the Huns; his brother, Bleda; the
fearful battle on the Catalaunian fields (Chalons-sur-Marne, 451 A.D.);
the building of the castle of Buda; the siege of Aquileia; and the last
fatal wedding of the terrible Hun. These Hun epics were widely known and
recited in mediæval Hungary, as witnessed by the chronicles of those
times. The people firmly believed themselves to be the successors of
Attila’s hordes, and this belief, although absolutely discountenanced by
modern historians, is still lingering in the spinning-halls of Hungarian
villages, and in lecture halls in England and America.
The circle of those oral epics comprised also the Magyar heroes proper.
There were stories about Álmos, father of Árpád, the conqueror of
Hungary; others about the “Seven Magyars” (_Hét Magyar_); the conquest
of Transylvania by doughty Tuhutum, one of Árpád’s generals; the flight
of King Zalán, defeated by Árpád; the exploits of valiant Botond, Lehel
(the Hungarian Roland), Bölscü, and other paladins of Árpád’s times, etc.
In the fragments from Priscus, the Byzantine rhetorician and historian;
in the chronicles of Ekkehard, the monk of St. Gallen; and in the
“Anonymus,” or one of the chief, but hitherto, fatherless chronicles of
Hungary, the above and some more heroic stories and epical records may be
found.
In addition to the heroic epic, the Hungarians, like all the rest of the
Christian nations of the west, had a considerable tradition of legends
and lives of saints. Fortunately for Hungary, it had become, by the end
of the tenth century of our era, both the hierarchical and political
interest of one of the most learned and most statesmanlike of the popes,
Sylvester II., to detach Hungary completely from the Eastern, or Greek
Church; and to adopt it, by sending a royal crown to Stephen, duke of the
Hungarians, into the world of Roman Catholicism. Had Hungary joined the
Eastern Church, it could never have withstood the ambition and supremacy
of the German Emperors, aided by the Popes of Rome. Having, however,
adopted the Roman, or progressive form of Christianity, Hungary was
endowed with occidental or richer seedlings of civilization. St. Mary
was made the patroness of Hungary; and all through the Middle Ages, she
was adored and glorified in legends and songs. Some of these Hungarian
legends about the Virgin Mary we still possess; likewise, the life of St.
Margit, the daughter of King Béla IV.; the famous story of Josaphat and
Barlaam, one of the most popular of mediæval Christian legends, taken
originally from Indian (Buddhistic) sources; the life of St. Catherine of
Alexandria, etc. The most characteristically Hungarian of these legends
is, as to its subject, the life of St. Margit. As to its literary merits,
it is, alas! a dry chronicle without any charm of form or diction at all.
Nor did the Hungarians, as far as we know, succeed in throwing one or
another of their crusading heroes into strong epic relief. The crusaders,
in spite of their marvellous deeds, lent themselves far more to good
chronicling than to epics. Their inherent poetic vice of being, or trying
to be, saints rather than heroes rendered them unfit for real epics.
CHAPTER VI.
1520-1711.
1520-1711. The Reformation made rapid headway in Hungary. From the very
beginning, Protestantism in Hungary had a political element, in that its
rise was coeval with the accession of the Catholic Austrian dynasty so
unwelcome to many Hungarians. Theological and political opposition thus
gave a more than ordinary impetus to the study of all the questions and
problems agitated during the Reformation. The most prominent result of
that movement was a revival of the national feeling; and coupled with
that, a regeneration of Hungarian Literature. The vast intellectual
revolution of the fifteenth century, commonly called the Renascence,
had, of course, left its traces in Hungary too. One of the most popular
of Magyar Kings, Matthew Corvinus (1458-1490), invited a number of
Italian scholars and artists to Hungary, such as Anton Bonfini, of Ascoli
(1427-1503), Marzio Galeotto, of Narni, in Umbria (1427(?)-1497), Peter
Ranzanus, of Palermo; Thaddeus Ugoletus, of Parma; Bartholinus Fontius;
Felix of Ragusa; etc.
These scholars and artists, ably assisted by the Hungarian John Cesinge,
or Janus Pannonius (1432-1472), and chiefly by the generous and refined
king himself, brought some new leaven into the stagnant intellectual
life of Hungary. In addition to the university founded by King Lewis the
Great, at Pécs (1367), a new university was founded at Pozsony, where
the Danube enters Hungary; the king’s famous library (the _Corvina_)
became the delight of scholars; and a printing press was established
at Buda (1473). The king’s victorious campaigns against the Hussites
(see Jósika’s novel, “_The Bohemians in Hungary_”), the Turks and the
Austrians, gave rise to numerous poems and songs composed by unknown
poets; and his age, called the Age of the Hunyadis, the king being a
Hunyadi, bade fair to be one of great intellectual brilliancy too.
However Matthew’s premature death and the ensuing political troubles put
an end to such prospects. It was left for the passions roused by the
Reformation to kindle the fire which the torch of the Renascence had been
unable to light. In all the countries where the deep influence of the
Renascence preceded that of the Reformation, the intellectual capital of
the country was not impaired, even when its political was. In Hungary,
the Renascence left too slender traces to guard the nation from falling
into lawless writing about the topics of the day, regardless of the
rules and classical measure so deeply impressed by the Renascence on the
more fortunate nations of Italy, Spain, France and England. Hence the
immense mental and emotional stir imparted by the Reformation was not
sufficient to raise up great writers in Hungary. In fact, Hungary was,
on a smaller scale, in a mental condition exactly similar to that of
Germany. There too the Renascence had scarcely begun to do its beneficial
work, when the Reformation swept everything before it. The consequence
was the same. Luther himself, although one of the geniuses of language;
Fischart, a very demon of language; and Hutten, the great champion of
thought and liberty, together with numerous minor lights, were, in spite
of efforts without number, debarred from creating a great German national
literature. It was only much later, when the Renascence had done its work
in Germany too, that the Germans, following in the wake of the Greeks,
Romans, French, English, Spanish and Italians, were able to create a
great national literature of their own. The same remark holds good for
Hungary too.
Protestantism in Hungary assumed all the aspects it had taken in
Germany and Switzerland. There were Lutherans proper, and Calvinists;
Anabaptists and Unitarians. The Geneva of Hungary was the town of the
“_cives_,” Debreczen, east of the middle Theiss, in a large plain.
Melius, or Peter Juhász (1536-1572) was the “pope” of the Magyar
Calvinists; as Matthew Biró de Déva, 1500(?)-1545, was that of the
Lutherans. Both preached in Hungarian and published a number of doctrinal
and controversial writings in Hungarian; and both were followed by
many a writer whose enthusiasm was the better part of his ability. The
Bible, portions of which had been translated into Hungarian before the
Reformation, was now published in Magyar in its entirety. This most
excellent translation, executed chiefly by Caspar Károlyi, was printed at
Vizsoly, in the county of Abauj.
The number of Hungarian poets writing in Hungarian during the sixteenth
century is more than one hundred; most of them being Protestants. In the
first years of the Reformation, their works were mostly of a religious
character, such as psalms and prayers. Amongst these we may mention the
religious poems of Andreas Batizi, Matthew Biró, and Gál Huszár. The
constant wars with the Turks or infidels added a peculiar intensity to
the religious passions of the time; and accordingly the first Hungarian
drama, “The Marriage of Priests” (_A papok házassága_), published
in Cracow (then belonging to Poland) in 1550, and written by Michael
Sztárai, was in reality an exposition of Protestantism in the form of a
drama. “Moralities,” and mordant satires against priests and the Catholic
Church generally, were frequent. Didactic poetry, so closely allied with
the moralizing spirit of early Protestantism, was ably represented by
Gabriel Pesti, whose translation of Æsop’s “Fables” appeared in 1536
(in Vienna); and by Caspar Heltai, who likewise translated fables from
ancient authors, 1566.
From the second half of the sixteenth century we possess a great number
of rhymed stories, taken from the Bible, from foreign novels or from
Hungarian history. One of the most famous of the authors of such stories
was Sebastian Tinódy, whose “_Chronicle_,” or poetical narrative of
contemporary events appeared in Kolozsvár, in Transylvania, in 1554.
As a poetical work it is scarcely of any value, with the exception of
the music accompanying it. As a faithful picture of the Hungary of that
time it will continue to be valuable to the patriot and historian. The
language is heavy; the form is unshapely. In some respects superior to
Tinódy were Stephen Temesváry and Matthew Nagy de Bánka; the latter
being the bard of the great John Hunyadi. One, Albert Gergei, of whose
personal circumstances nothing is known, composed, chiefly from Italian
sources, the story of a young prince fighting innumerable foes and
surmounting difficulties of all sorts in search of the fairy whom he,
in the end, does not fail to win. This story (“_Argirius Királyfi_”)
has ever since the sixteenth century been the most popular chap-book
amongst the lower classes in Hungary. Its _naïveté_ and good epic tone
render it agreeable even to a more cultured taste. Another poet of the
second half of the sixteenth century, Peter İlosvai, composed, probably
from the floating folk-poetry of his age, a poetical narrative of the
life of Nicolas Toldy, one of the most popular heroes of the Magyars,
who lived in the fourteenth century, under King Lewis the Great, and was
of Herculean strength. His feats are sung in İlosvai’s poem (published
at Debreczen in 1574) in an effective, if rough, manner. A number of
Magyar novels may also be found; but nearly all were translations from
German or Latin novels of the time. The sixteenth century produced even
a few Magyar works of historic and philologic character. John Erdősi,
or Sylvester, wrote the first grammar of the Magyar language (1539);
Gabriel Pesti gave, in 1538, a short dictionary of the Magyar language;
John Decsi de Baranya published in 1588 a collection of about 5,000
Magyar proverbs; Stephen Székely de Bencéd and Caspar Heltai published
“World-Chronicles,” in 1559 and 1575 respectively. Very many memoirs and
journals of that time are still unpublished.
We must now mention the greatest of all the Hungarian poets of the
sixteenth century, whose name we have so far left unnoticed because, by
one of the strange freaks of life, the manuscripts of his lyrical poems,
on which rests his great fame among Magyar poets, were first discovered
only twenty-four years ago (in 1874), and some of them even after that
date, and were therefore never largely known to the contemporaries of
their author. This poet is Baron Valentin Balassi (1551-1594). He came
from a magnate family, and so great were the gifts with which nature
had endowed him, that men praised him as a model of heroism, and women
worshipped him as the embodiment of chivalrous charm. In the troubles
of his time, both political and social, he took more than one part; and
he may be considered as at once the Knight Errant and the Parsifal of
Hungary in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Highly cultivated
and sensitive as he was, he could not but respond to the religious
impulses of his time, and so became the author of many a religious poem.
On his wanderings, which took him not only over the whole of his own
country, but even as far as North Germany and probably also to England,
he saw all forms and aspects of life. His lyric sentiments he embodied
in the so-called “Flower Songs” (“_Virág-énekek_”), which are full of
that _verve_ and sweetness so characteristic of the best lyric poets
of Hungary. He also introduced a new form of lyric stanza—the Balassi
Stanza—which consists of nine short lines, the end-rhymes of which are
the same in the third, sixth, and ninth lines, while the remaining three
couples, have each their own rhymes.
CHAPTER VII.
1520-1711.
During the seventeenth century Hungary was oppressed by two evils of
apparently antagonistic character; either of which, however, was to have
the same fatal effect on Hungarian Literature. On the one hand, nearly
two-thirds of Hungary proper, as apart from Transylvania, was under
Turkish rule; on the other, the Habsburgs, then at their apogee, waged a
relentless war against the liberties and independence of the Hungarians
both in non-Turkish Hungary and in Transylvania. In the latter country,
the Bocskays, Bethlens, and Rákóczys had in succession contrived to
establish a Hungarian principate which, although acknowledging Turkish
ascendancy, yet retained many of the rights of sovereignty. These two
sets of circumstances were in themselves hurtful to the development
of anything relating to Hungarian nationality, and most of all to
Hungarian Literature. The counties under Turkish rule could not, by the
very nature of the oppression under which they smarted, produce any
literary movement at all. The counties under Austrian rule were held in
bondage both political and intellectual, which stifled all attempts at a
national literature. The sages have as yet not been able to prove, that
a republican government must of necessity be beneficial to the material
and political welfare of a nation. As to the intellectual progress
of a nation, on the other hand, Liberty is generally taken to be an
indispensable condition. Literature is possible only where there is at
least a republic of minds. The Austrian government took good precautions
to render the rise of such a republic in Hungary an impossibility. All
the higher and middle schools in Austrian Hungary were, during the
seventeenth century, in the hands of the Jesuits. The order of Jesus
has not, as is well known, prevented a very great number of its members
and pupils from rising to eminence in Theology and in Science. It could
not, owing to its cosmopolitan and anti-national constitution, further
movements of national literature. Quite apart from the debatable nature
of its moral and political teachings, it retarded or stopped all such
movements by employing in its schools the Latin language as the vehicle
of instruction. At Nagyszombat (in 1635); at Kassa (in 1657); at Buda (in
1687), the Jesuits founded, or taught in, universities, where lectures
on all branches of knowledge were delivered in the mongrel language of
the mediæval Scholastics, which has always had a baneful influence both
on knowledge and its students. In the Protestant schools, the number of
which exceeded seven hundred and fifty, the same radically false system
was observed. The consequence was, that the vast majority of Hungarians
had never received a living knowledge of either the history of Man or of
Nature, and could accordingly turn their dead intellectual capital to no
account. The only Hungarians whose mental acquirements had sufficient
vitality to serve as stimulants to literary production of a higher type
were such as could read Italian or French, that is, works, written in
one, and thus fertilizing another living language. Such exceptional
individuals could then be found only amongst the wealthy classes, or
in other words, amongst the magnates. Thus it happened that all great
literary work in Hungarian produced during the seventeenth century was
done by the great noblemen, and by them alone. Hungary may therefore
afford a fair test for the curious problem, whether from an aristocracy
of birth can be recruited that aristocracy of genius the work of which
forms a nation’s great literature. In Hungary, the aristocracy of birth
proved, on the whole, unequal to such a task. The Hungarian magnates of
the seventeenth century did much creditable work in _belles-lettres_, and
some also in graver departments of literature. Yet, they were unable to
originate more than a temporary and inferior reform; and, moreover, they
did, as we shall see, serious harm to the literary life of the nation at
large, in that they were not able to engage its interests in the growth
of its literature.
Of these magnates, the eloquent Cardinal Primate of Hungary, Peter
Pázmány (1570-1637), Archbishop of Esztergom, claims our attention
first. In his thirteenth year he became a convert to Catholicism,
and later a Jesuit; and so intense was his zeal for the Church of
Rome, that most of his active life was spent in a propaganda, by
writings even more than by words, for his church, and with a constant
literary warfare with the non-Catholics of Hungary. He is said to have
converted no less than thirty of the noblest families of his country
to the Catholic persuasion. At his time, perhaps the greatest number
of Protestants were in Transylvania, whose princes were warm-hearted
protectors of the Reformation; and since they cultivated the Hungarian
language in preference to any other, Pázmány thought it wise to use
the same idiom in his controversial writings. Pázmány’s theological
armoury is taken chiefly from the controversial works of his French
colleague and contemporary, the famous Jesuit Bellarmin. In his style,
however, he shows considerable originality. He prefers the strong, racy
expressions, proverbs and similes of the common people. His is a direct
and vigorous, rather than an artistic style. The strange contrast between
his popular vocabulary and the scholastic fence of his thoughts lends a
peculiar flavour to his _Hodegus_ or “_Kalauz_” (1613), and his sermons
(“_Prédikácziók_,” 1636). Among his numerous Protestant opponents were:
Peter Alvinczi, of Kassa; and George Komáromi Csipkés, of Debreczen;
the latter translated the whole Bible into Hungarian. As a sad contrast
to the splendid career of the convert Pázmány, we may mention here the
life-long sufferings and wanderings of the loyal Protestant Albert Molnár
de Szencz (1574-1634), who was persecuted wherever he came, in Germany,
Austria, Hungary or Transylvania; and who, one of the true epigones of
the Conrad Gesners and Sylburgs, published, in the midst of poverty
and misery, Hungarian dictionaries; a valuable Hungarian translation
of the Psalms (1607, after French models), which is in use to the
present day; a Hungarian Grammar (1610); and a Hungarian translation of
Calvin’s _Institutio_. Finally, the gorgeous picture of the Cardinal
cannot be set off to more advantage, than by a slight mention of the
fanatic and obscure _Sabbatarians_ (“_Szombatosok_”), in the background,
whose religious poetry is no uninteresting evidence of the Hungarian
theological literature of that time.
Amongst the numerous _protégés_ and pupils of the victorious archbishop
we find also Count Michael Zrinyi (1618-1664), a descendant of the famous
Zrinyi, who, in 1566, defied single-handed the invasion of Sultan Soliman
the Splendid, by offering him, with a handful of men, unconquerable
resistance in the Castle of Szigeth, some twenty miles west of Pécs.
Count Michael was one of the best educated men of his time, and equally
great as a patriot, poet and general. The sad state of Hungary could
not but affect deeply a man, whose historic _rôle_ seemed to be clearly
indicated by the glorious heroism of his ancestor. Having travelled
abroad, especially in Italy, where Tasso’s religious epic _Gerusalemme
liberata_ was read then more than ever after, he conceived the idea of
stirring up a vast crusade against the Turks, by singing the deeds of
his great-grandfather in an epic at once political and religious. This
epic is commonly called the “Zrinyiad” (“_Zrinyiász_”), and consists
of fifteen cantos, written in rugged and rough style. It reveals much
power of description and religious enthusiasm; but it is lacking in
form and moderation; nor can the portraits of its heroes be called
plastic by any means. It is, from the artistic standpoint, spoiled by
the deficiency above mentioned; the central hero is too perfect to
be lastingly interesting. Old Zrinyi is capital matter for ballads;
for an epic he is too faultless. On the other hand, the “Zrinyiad” is
one of the most effective of patriotic epics. Like the epic works of
Klopstock in Germany, or “_Ossian_” in England, it had at the time of its
appearance a great national value, apart from its literary merits. In
telling the Hungarian nation in tones of sacred anger, that the Turkish
oppression was due to the depravity of the Magyars, in exhorting them in
vigorous modes to rally and shake off the yoke of the infidels, Zrinyi
added an internal lustre to his work which even now, after more than
two centuries, has not lost much of its splendour. Like the daring and
glorious deed of his ancestor, his poem is more of a patriotic than an
historic event. It were only gross exaggeration to count the “Zrinyiad”
amongst the world’s great epics. The poet might well belie history in
letting his ancestor personally kill the great Sultan. It would be
dishonest to add to the glory of the poet by ignoring the truth of the
literary canon.
As to the other magnates who wrote poetical works in Hungarian during
the seventeenth century, it will be sufficient to say, that their poems
were meant chiefly for the gratification of their authors; and although
some of them were printed in book form, yet the bulk was left in the
well-deserved obscurity of family archives. The most noteworthy of these
poets were: John Rimay de Rima (1564-1631), an imitator of Balassi; Peter
Beniczky de Benicze (1606(?)-1664); Count Stephen Kohári (1649-1731);
Baroness Catherine Sidonia Petrőczi; Count Peter Zichy; Count Valentin
Balassi, the second poet of that name (1626(?)-1684); and Baron Ladislas
Listhy (1630-1660(?)), whose epic, “The Disaster of Mohács” (“_Mohács
veszedelme_”), betokens a remarkable talent for versification.
So exclusive was the influence of the magnates on the literature of that
time, that the one remarkable poet of the seventeenth century who was
no magnate himself, although a nobleman, selected as the subject of his
epic poem a romantic event from the life of one of the leading magnates.
Count Francis Wesselényi besieged, in 1644, the Castle of Murány,
defended by the beautiful widow, Mary Szécsi. In the end he won both
the heart of the heroic beauty and the castle. This famous event forms
the burden of one of the most popular of Hungarian poetical narratives,
briefly called, “The Venus of Murány” (“_Murányi Vénus_”, 1664), written
by Stephen Gyöngyössi. Its language is musical, and the narrative tone
very felicitous. The poet has evidently made a close study of Ovid,
and frequently reaches the light touch and charm of the Roman; he even
adds an element of romance, which has endeared his work to more than six
generations of Hungarian readers. The metre is Alexandrine.
CHAPTER VIII.
1520-1711.
Amidst the din and excitement of the endless wars in Hungary, both civil
and foreign, during the seventeenth century, the agitated mind of the
common people vented itself in numerous ditties, skits and lampoons,
which, after the name of one of the national parties, have been called
_Kurucz-poetry_. It consists almost exclusively of largely unprinted
little poems, mostly political, and depicts the agonies and torments
of the patriots. Some of them are good and true in tone, and even
powerful in the expression of hatred and satire. The one ever-memorable
folk-poem of that time, however, was not written in words. The profound
passions aroused by the last great revolution under the romantic Francis
Rákóczy II., towards the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of
the eighteenth century, were incarnated in inimitable fashion in the
“_Rákóczy march_,” the most fanaticising of all war-marches. Whoever
actually composed it (tradition ascribes it to a Hungarian gipsy-woman by
the name of Panna Czinka), that march spells a whole period of Hungarian
history, just as Milton’s _Paradise Lost_ spells a whole period of
English life. The Magyar nation was at the end of the seventeenth century
far too unpractised in literary architecture to rear its pangs and
longings into a dome of words. It was, however, then as now sufficiently
imbued with the power of musical creation, to embody its woes in the
fiery rhythms of the most heroic of martial songs.
CHAPTER IX.
1520-1711.
During the period in question very little was done for historic and
scientific studies. John Cséri de Apáca (1625-1660), an enthusiastic
student and patriot, published a small Hungarian “_Encyclopedia_”
(1655), in which the elements of knowledge, both philologic, natural and
mathematical are given in a simple and clear manner. Francis Páriz-Pápai
published a much used dictionary of the Hungarian and Latin languages
(1708). The nine books of the chronicle of John Szalárdi, who died 1666
(“_Siralmas Krónika_”), form the first attempt at historiography in the
Hungarian language. Some of the leading men of that age left memoirs; and
grammarians were also not wanting. The great philosophic wave, sweeping
over Europe in the seventeenth century (Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza,
Leibniz, Pierre Bayle), left scarcely any traces in Hungarian Literature,
except in Cséri’s Encyclopedia, where Cartesianism is not quite absent.
CHAPTER X.
1711-1772.
1711-1772. The period bounded by the years 1711-1772 is one of decline.
During these years, which comprise the reigns of Emperor Charles VI.,
and most of that of Austria’s greatest ruler, Maria Theresa (1740-1780),
there was practically very little Magyar literature; and the little
was bad. Hungarians of that period wrote, as a rule, in Latin; and the
subjects they selected were those of laborious erudition; philology;
descriptive natural science; annalistic history; historic theology. This
decline in national literature was only another phase of the decline
of the Magyar idiom. For, both in Transylvania, which was now again,
as formerly, united with Hungary, and in Hungary proper, the Hungarian
language ceased to be used in the schools, at the county-sessions,
in the law-courts, and in polite society. In all these centres of
intellectual intercourse, Latin, German or French were used instead
of the sonorous language of Árpád. In Catholic and Protestant schools
alike instruction was given in bad Latin. At the county-sessions; in
the national parliament; and in the law-courts, Latin alone was used;
while the higher classes of society were talking either in German or in
French. For the latter fact, there is a simple explanation at hand. When,
in 1711, Hungary was at last “pacified,” it had become evident to the
most patriotic of the leading families, that further armed resistance
to the Habsburgs being impossible, the only chances of promotion for
their children were at the court of Vienna. This involved the adoption
of Viennese manners, and Viennese mediums of conversation; that is,
of French and German. No sooner was that done by the aristocratic
families of Hungary, than the abnormal state of the then national
literature revealed all its latent barrenness. As has been seen in the
preceding chapters, all the great Hungarian writers from 1600 to 1711
were recruited from the class of the magnates. When, now, after 1711,
the magnates flocked to Vienna, there to undergo a thorough process of
Germanization, or rather Austrianization, there was no class of writers
left in Hungary to take their place. Hence the sudden dearth of great
writers, and the astounding decline of Hungarian Literature. To this
must be added the fact, that German literature which was naturally
destined to have a considerable influence on Hungarian writers, both
from geographical contiguity, and on account of the general knowledge
of German in the then Hungary; that German literature, we say, was not
beginning to reach its classical period before the sixties of that
century, and could therefore stimulate Hungarian Literature but very
little. It is much more difficult to account for the exclusive use
of Latin in the schools and in parliamentary debates. Had the use of
Latin in the schools been accompanied by the study of Greek and Greek
literature it would probably have wrought very much less mischief.
Unfortunately for Hungarian Literature, the study of Greek was almost
entirely neglected in the last century. _Graeca non leguntur._ The
immense power of æsthetic education inherent in Greek classical
works could thus not benefit the Hungarians. Nay, it may be said in
strict truth, that for Hungarians, naturally inclined as they are to
grandiloquence and redundancy, both of words and thought, the study of
Latin literature, untempered by that of Greek, was in many ways harmful.
Many Latin poets and prose-writers lack that simplicity and moderation,
which mark off Hellenic authors from all but the very best writers of
all ages. The exclusive study of Latin was therefore doubly harmful to
the Hungarians: first, in that it made them neglect their own language;
and secondly, in that it supplanted the study of Greek literature.
The exclusive use of Latin in all the schools and colleges of Hungary
during the last century was, however, part of that general obscurantism
weighing on all the educational institutions of the Habsburg empire.
Both Charles VI. and Maria Theresa left the instruction of youths in
the hands of monks and priests. Previous to the abolition of the order
of the Jesuits (1773) that order had no less than thirty “_gymnasia_,”
or higher colleges in Hungary. After its abolition, these colleges were
placed in the hands of other orders, such as the Præmonstratencians, the
Benedictines, Paulists and Franciscans. As in Austria, so in Hungary, the
regular clergy, more still than the secular, attempted to shut off their
pupils from the new light rising in France, England and Germany, and for
that purpose the habitual use of scholastic Latin was one of the most
efficient means. At the Protestant schools, of which the most famous were
at Debreczen, at Sárospatak, and at Pozsony, in Hungary proper; and at
Nagy Enyed, Kolosvár, Marosvásárhely, and at Udvarhely, in Transylvania,
instruction was likewise given in Latin. Nor can it be seriously
maintained that the Protestant teachers were more prone to let in the new
light than were the Catholic.
CHAPTER XI.
1711-1772.
In poetry proper, it is for the present period customary, but scarcely
necessary, to mention the Jesuit Francis Faludi (1704-1779), who has
put some wise saws and moral platitudes into light verse; and Baron
Ladislas Amadé (1703-1764), whose not unmelodious lyrics were sufficient
to give the successful courtier a mild reputation as an interesting
poet. In dramatic poetry there is nothing worth mentioning. The Jesuits
occasionally had their pupils play a patriotic or religious drama made
_ad hoc_, and good _pro tunc_. Of prose-writers there is one, and one
only, whose “Letters” written from Turkey, where he was in exile, have
abiding literary value. This was Clement Mikes (1690-1761), who was
brought up by Prince Rákóczy, to whom he proved constant under all
circumstances, and for this reason Mikes still belongs to the generation
of Hungarian nobles who cultivated their language with the pride of
true patriots. The “Letters” are not only full of historic interest,
especially with regard to the interior condition of the then still
mighty Turkish empire, but also as specimens of pure, idiomatic and
well-balanced Hungarian prose.
The remarkable works in History, Theology or Science of that period were,
as noticed, written in Latin. Of learned works written in Hungarian the
two best were by men who had spent their youth in the preceding century,
and were thus less afflicted with the gangrene of the decadence of the
period from 1711 to 1772; Michael Cserei (1668-1756), and Peter Apor
(1676-1752), both of very great nobility. Cserei wrote a “_Transylvanian
History_” (“_Erdélyi Historia_”), in which the events from 1661 to 1711
are told in a lively, naïve and pleasing style. Apor is the author of a
remarkable work on the history of the manners, customs, and institutions
of ancient Transylvania. It is entitled “_Metamorphosis Transylvaniae_,”
and its object is to show, by contrast, how low the country had sunk
from its former glory. His satire is not infrequently both scathing and
well-expressed.
The bent for erudite laboriousness gave rise to several works on the
history of Hungarian Literature. The still-life of the small town of
Bártfa in the county of Sáros must have hung heavily on the hands of
David Czwittinger, one of the lawyers of that town, who published, in
1711, a dry list of Hungarian writers, in alphabetical order. He was
distanced by the indefatigable and patriotic Peter Bod (1712-1769), who
had, like so many Protestants, spent several years at Dutch universities,
where he amassed much polyhistoric knowledge and a good library. There,
no doubt, he also acquired the taste for literary history, and in his
“Hungarian Athenæum” (“_Magyar Athénás_”, 1766) he collected much
material bearing on the lives and works of no less than six hundred
Hungarian authors. In Law or Philosophy there appeared, during this
period, no work in Hungarian claiming our attention.
CHAPTER XII.
1772-1825.
1772-1825. After a period of decadence, lasting for over sixty years,
Hungarian Literature was again brought to a state of revival and
progress, which has gone on almost uninterruptedly to the present day.
This revival is part of an immense revolution which swept over most
countries of continental Europe in the second half of the last century.
The most conspicuous and best known event of this Modern Renascence is
the series of terrific upheavals and wars commonly called the French
Revolution. It is, however, quite evident that the French Revolution
was only the politic aspect of a vast movement, which in many countries
outside France assumed the garb of intellectual revolutions. Thus the
mental achievements that, in their totality, are called the “classical
period” of German literature (1750-1805) are in the domain of Thought
and Sentiment, a revolution no less colossal and far-reaching than were
the ever-memorable proceedings of the French _assemblées_, or the bloody
epics of the Revolutionary campaigns. Both were gigantic onslaughts
against the _Ancien Régime_ in institutions, manners, thought and
sentiment. Accordingly, the course of both revolutions was—making due
allowance for externals—essentially the same. As the French Revolution
landed in, or rather was brought to its final consummation in the titanic
and all-embracing personality of Napoleon, so German literature met its
final trysting-place and culmination in the orchestral mind of Goethe.
The minor nations of Europe were seized by the same Revolution, if in a
manner considerably less intense. The very aggressiveness of the French
Revolution, its encroachments on the territories of Italy, Switzerland,
Germany and Austria, prevented those minor nations from enacting their
Revolution at once in its intellectual and political aspects. While
fighting the French, they were all engaged in following them on the lines
of the Revolution, first (1790-1830) for intellectual freedom; and then,
after the defeat of the French armies (1830-1848), for the very political
ideals that the French had been the first to proclaim. For, this was the
immense advantage of the French over the other nations on the continent:
they had brought their intellectual revolution through men like Turgot,
d’Alembert, Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, etc., to maturity, before they
started for their crusade of politic liberty; whereas the other nations
were a generation or two behind-hand, and still in the throes of their
intellectual renascence.
This is not the place for a laborious inquiry into the causes of that
immense Revolution which has, towards the end of the last, and in the
first five decades of the present century, completely altered the face of
European civilization. It is nevertheless necessary to give some account
of such causes as were instrumental in ripening the intellectual aspect
of that Revolution in Hungary. Among the leading causes was a structural
change in the population of Hungary on the one hand, and the reaction
against the provocative and anti-national measures of the Habsburgs on
the other.
Up to the sixties of the last century, the population of Hungary
consisted practically of (1) a rural population, comprising both
magnates, noblemen and peasants; and (2) a small urban population,
comprising largely foreign or Germanized craftsmen and tradespeople.
Under such circumstances, literature, which is pre-eminently an urban
growth, could not develop. For, not only was the urban population
too small and too much immersed in material pursuits, but the only
intellectual class, viz., the aristocracy, was living in the country,
that is, in an atmosphere unfavourable to continuous literary efforts. By
the end of the sixties, however, the structural change, above indicated,
took place. Owing to a series of measures issued by Maria Theresa and
Joseph II., the rural population of Hungary was liberated from its most
odious fetters. Bondage, and a sort of serfdom (_jobbágyság_), with all
its concomitant evils were almost abolished. Numerous rural families
left their obscure abodes, repaired to the towns, and urban life, for
the first time in Hungarian history, was raised above the low level on
which it had been vegetating for centuries. With the increase of urban
population came an increase of wealth and comfort; a greater activity
in commerce, both mercantile and social. Many a gifted Hungarian, who
would have previously spent his days in the obscurity of his county, now
willingly lived in one of the rising towns. With an accelerated speed
of work came a more rapid appreciation of talent, and a greater number
of authors. The influx of the rural population to the town facilitated
that mutual action and reaction between Nature and Man, which, in one
form or other, is the main spring of literature. In England, too, the
great period of Shakespeare was preceded by a similar structural change
in the population. The dissolution of the monasteries and the numerous
enclosures of commons, depriving as they did, hundreds of thousands of
rural people of their means of livelihood, drove them into the towns,
which rapidly ozonified that atmosphere of great intellectual stir,
without which no great writers are possible. In Germany, too, the period
of Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe was preceded by a new influx of the
rural population into the towns devastated by the thirty years’ war. Nor
can it be doubted that Italy, in possession of highly-organized and rich
towns long before any other mediæval nation, took, for this very reason,
the lead in all literary matters.
This broad fact of Hungarian history (totally neglected by the historians
of Hungary, probably because of its very broadness), must therefore be
considered as the prime mover in the revival of Hungarian Literature.
It created that mysterious propelling power which in times of progress
everybody feels and nobody can account for. It was the latent and
constant stimulus to renewed mental labour, and to keener delight in
it. Like great rivers it was swelled by smaller affluents of causes.
Thus that great structural change in nearly all parts of Hungary was
accompanied by two structural changes in limited layers of Hungarian
society. Maria Theresa, probably with a view of carrying Austrianization
into the very hearts of the Hungarian nobles had, in 1760, established
the famous Hungarian Guard in Vienna. Each county in Hungary was to send
up a few young noblemen to Vienna, where they were clad in sumptuous
style, and treated with all the seductive arts of a refined court. Thus
a considerable number of Hungarian noblemen were given an opportunity
for that higher education and refinement, which in former times had
been the privilege of the select few. Vienna was in many ways a centre
of Franco-German civilization, and the young Magyar noblemen derived,
from a lengthy stay in the Austrian capital, a benefit similar to that
for which English gentlemen flocked to Paris in the thirteenth and
seventeenth century. This then, constituted one of the minor changes in
the intellectual development of one class of Hungarians. There was also
another change. Joseph II., in dissolving over a third of the existing
monasteries, and a great number of monastic orders too, set free a
number of educated men, who would have otherwise led a sterile life in
the lonely cells of their monasteries. They now began to devote their
unexpected leisure to pursuits of a different kind; and some amongst them
became workers in the field of literature. Thus a new source of literary
production was opened up.
To these structural changes in the population of Hungary, that is, to the
home and internal cause of a potential revival, now came the external
agency of those anti-national measures against Hungarian institutions,
which Maria Theresa, with fine womanly tact, had used in a tentative
manner, but which were applied by Joseph II. in the most reckless and
irritating fashion. Joseph had one ideal: the homogeneous Austrian
state. Like all ideals it was unrealisable. It was worse than that:
it was suicidal. The Austrian empire has its very _raison d’être_ in
the heterogeneity of its constituent parts. To level down the Austrian
“lands” to one and the same pattern, is to deprive them of all vitality.
They live by contrast to one another. Unable to be quite independent each
by itself, they would, if unconnected by some common tie, only serve to
aggrandize either Prussia, Russia or Italy, and so upset the balance
of Europe in a fatal manner. United by the dynastic tie, they form an
imposing, if incongruous whole, the component parts still retaining very
much of a strong individuality. Any attempt at forcing them into blank
uniformity must needs be answered by a still stronger attempt on their
part to rend the dynastic tie asunder. The various provinces have, since
1648, and with respect to Hungary, since 1711, made no civil war on one
another. Not one of them had, as had Prussia in Germany since Frederick
II.’s time, or England since Cromwell’s time, the supremacy over the
rest. Their sole union and bond was in their common dynasty. To try to
reduce them to one and the same level, as Joseph II. did, was both the
worst dynastic and national policy imaginable. The Austrian provinces,
then or now, if reduced to complete uniformity, will first of all
abolish the dynasty—as superfluous. In the _egalitarian_ ordinances of
Joseph II. there was so much that was subversive of the very pillars and
coping-stones of the whole Austrian edifice, that the Hungarians, as well
as all the other nationalities under his rule (Belgians, Czechs, Poles,
etc.), forthwith rose in a body in defence of their privileges, charters,
rights; in fact, of their existence severally and collectively. The
Emperor wanted to abolish the Hungarian language, Hungarian institutions,
Hungarian society. At once the Hungarians, who had then almost entirely
neglected their language, learned to regard it as the chief palladium
of their nationality. Hungarian periodicals were started; such as the
“_Magyar Múzsa_” (since 1787); “_Magyar Múzeum_” (since 1788, in Kassa);
“_Mindenes Gyűjtemény_” (since 1789); “_Orpheus_” (since 1790, edited
by Kazinczy); “_Urania_” (since 1794, edited by Kármán), etc. Hungarian
actors were encouraged; Hungarian literary societies were started, the
oldest being that founded by John Kis, at Sopron, in 1790. These efforts
were immeasurably increased in efficiency by the publication of very
numerous Magyar works in nearly all _genres_ of literature, and in styles
and “schools” of great divergency. The members of the Guard naturally
proceeded on French lines, taking the great French writers, and chiefly
Voltaire, as their model. The foremost members of the new urban element,
which also included many an unfrocked monk, coming as they did from the
country where the Magyar language and folk-poetry had never died out, and
where the national pulse beat strongest, proceeded on national lines.
The older country-gentry, and numerous released monks, conversant above
all with Latin literature, proclaimed the classical metres and forms as
the only safeguard and aim of literature; while another section of the
new urban element followed in the wake of the Germans, whose classical
writers were just then at the height of their fame. This great divergence
of schools was in itself proof of the definite revival of Hungarian
Literature. In the spiritual republic, no less than in the political,
parties are of the very essence of vigorous life. By the end of the
last century there could have no longer been any doubt about the strong
vitality of Hungarian Literature.
CHAPTER XIII.
1772-1825.
The first of these “schools” to publish serious works with the intention
of reforming the literature of Hungary, were the members of the Hungarian
Guard at Vienna, and chiefly George Bessenyei (1747-1811).[2] In 1772 he
published a tragedy, entitled “Agis” (“_Agis tragédiája_”) in which he
attempted to give, within the strict rules of the Franco-Aristotelean
tri-unity of time, place and action, a model for his contemporaries. In
point of language, _Agis_ is not without some merits; as a dramatic work
it has long been regarded as a failure. Bessenyei was more successful in
his comedies (“Philosophus,” etc.), in which he even contrived to create
a type, _Pontyi_, representing the narrow-minded, ultra-conservative
country-squire of his time. His style is held to be much better
still in his prose works containing philosophical essays after the
rationalistic fashion of his epoch. Amongst the numerous colleagues
and literary followers of Bessenyei were: Abraham Barcsai (1742-1806),
Alexander Báróczi (1735-1809), who excelled chiefly in translations
from the French; Ladislas Baranyi, Joseph Naláczi, Bessenyei’s own
brother, Alexander, who tried his hand at Milton’s “_Paradise Lost_,”
etc. To the Bessenyei circle (“_Bessenyei György társasága_”) belonged
also Paul Ányos (1756-1784), in whose mournful and sentimental poems
there are many traces of genuine poetry. Nor must Joseph Péczeli be
forgotten (1750-1792), who through his numerous translations from French
and English works (Edward Young’s “Night Thoughts”) and his “Fables”
(“_Mesék_”) deserved highly of Hungarian Literature.
The next in time and merit was the school of the Classicists, or more
properly speaking, Latinists. The first four remarkable members of that
school were all unfrocked priests. Baróti David Szabó (1739-1819), and
Joseph Rajnis (Reinisch) were ex-Jesuits; Nicolas Révai (1750-1807)
was a Piarist, and Benedictus Virág (1752(?)-1830) an ex-Paulist. The
circumstances of their mental development above indicated led them
naturally to an imitation of the Latin poets; and Virág in Hungary,
like Ramler in Germany, or Cowley in England, was held to be one of
the numerous “Horaces,” in whom the nascent literatures of Europe
were happily so rich. In ripe mellowness of formal beauty and musical
ring Virág cannot, we are afraid, be said to have seriously challenged
the laurels of the friend of Augustus. His _Works_ (_Poétai Munkák_,
1799) are, on the other hand, inspired by a noble glow of patriotism,
which might have added some lustre to the poems even of Flaccus. Virág
translated Horace into Hungarian, as Baróti had done with the _Aeneid_.
The poetical works of the other two ex-priests were of an inferior kind.
To the above two schools now was added the third; the national or
genuinely Magyar school. The two former laid special stress on purity and
perfection of form, both external and internal. In fact, the classicists
came near sacrificing everything else to correctness of form. In this
they were partly justified, partly supported by the peculiar adaptability
of the Hungarian language to the most complicated of classic metres.
Hexameters or alcaics are just as natural to Hungarian, as they are to
Greek and Latin; and infinitely more so than to any other Indo-German
language of Europe. The classicists, and especially the greatest of them,
Berzsenyi—see below—were able to handle the most national and intimate
subjects in the most foreign of verse-forms, and with perfect ease too.
This seemed to go far in convincing many writers, that classical forms
were the only ones to adopt, and classical models the only ones to
follow. The prosodic wealth of the Hungarian language is, however, not
exhausted by its classic metres by far. From time immemorial Hungarian
poetry was wedded to Hungarian music, and the latter, with its pointed
rhythms and sudden irruptions of cadences, was quite unfitted for the
stately calm of antique metres. In German classical music, classical
metres, such as the hexameter or the alcaic may be, and have been
employed. In Hungarian music they are out of place altogether. Here,
then, was the inner justification of the “Magyar” school. Its members
strongly and rightly felt, that in the cult of antique prosody the
classicists had overstepped the bounds; that Hungarian poetry needed
forms and moulds other than those of Virgil or Horace; and that the short
cross-rhymed stanza was to Hungarian Literature, what the violin and the
“_czimbalom_” (dulcimer) were to Hungarian music. It is impossible to
play Hungarian music on the organ.
Of the Magyar school was Ádám Horváth (1760-1820), who in addition
to an epic called “_Hunnias_” (1787), in which he tried to sing the
exploits of John Hunyadi after the battle of Varna (1444), published a
number of simple poems in the style of the folk-poetry of the Hungarian
peasants. By refining the prosody of that _genre_ he introduced it
into the literary world. The most successful of the Magyarists was
Count Joseph Gvadányi (1725-1801), whose “A Village Notary’s Travel to
Buda” (“_Egy falusi nótárius budai utazása_,” 1790), was a felicitous
attempt to expose, in the form of a novel in verse, the utter decadence
and denationalization of the town-people and the gentry of the middle
of the last century. The “notary” has survived as a type. Gvadányi’s
other novels are on the same lines, all of them being animated by a
resolute patriotism. He was followed by Andreas Dugonics (1740-1818),
an ex-Piarist, whose “_Etelka_” a novel (1788) became very popular,
chiefly owing to its strongly accentuated patriotism and anti-Austrian
feeling, and also to the racy, popular language he used. He also compiled
a valuable collection of Hungarian proverbs and apophthegms (“_Magyar
példabeszédek és jeles mondások_”). The number of writers belonging to
the Magyar school in the two last decades of the eighteenth century
is considerable. They all excel in patriotic verve, and much of the
anonymous work done at that time for the restoration of Hungarian
Literature is due to them. We cannot here give more than a list of a
few names. John Kónyi, Stephán Gáti, Francis Nagy, the first Hungarian
translator of the Iliad, and Joachim Szekér, who did much for the
bettering of female education in Hungary. Separate mention must be made
of a number of Magyarist poet-naturalists whose centre was the city
of Debreczen, and amongst whom were John Földi (1755-1801), who wrote
some remarkable works on Hungarian prosody in its relation to music;
and Michael Fazekas, whose “_Ludas Matyi_,” a chap-book written in the
interests of the peasants, has long been one of the most popular comic
stories. Nor were the usual excrescences of the juvenile epoch of a
new language wanting. A limited class of now obscure writers (Gregory
Édes, John Varjas, etc.), abused the great flexibility of the Hungarian
language in verse-forms and metres of the most absurd kind. They were the
caricaturists of the rapidly growing Magyar idiom.
CHAPTER XIV.
1772-1825.
The formation of different schools of literature was of great benefit
to the growth and advance of Hungarian poetry and prose. Many a
minor talent could and did, by clinging to and being supported by a
“school,” steady his work. After the lapse of some time, however, the
exclusiveness of “schools” would have done great harm to the higher
development of Hungarian Literature. By 1795 more than schools and
literary guilds was needed. The nation wanted powerful individualities
who were, so to speak, schools themselves. Fortunately for the cause
of the Hungarian intellect, such men did arise in time. The first of
them was Francis Verseghy (1757-1822). An ex-Piarist, and involved in
the conspiracy of Martinovics: he had gone through the experiences of
a priest, a politician and a state-prisoner. His poetical works, which
are very numerous, manifest a tender, yet strong mind, much ease of
form, and a power of satire. He translated the _Marseillaise_ into
Hungarian. He is at his best in short poems. What raises him above most
of his predecessors is his considerable independence as a poet. He
clings slavishly to no school, and succeeds in combining some of the
excellencies of all. In genius he was far excelled by tempestuous John
Bacsányi (1763-1845), who espoused the cause of the French Revolution,
did some work for Napoleon, and was in 1814 taken back to Austria, where
he died an exile. He brought Ossian’s poems to Hungary; and in his fierce
poems all the fire of the revolutionary fever may be felt. Yet with all
that he could reduce to fine proportions and to efficiency neither his
life nor his work. In the melancholy and sweet poems of the ex-priest,
Gabriel Dayka (1768-1796), the Hungarian Hölty, which have to the present
day lost nothing of their Wordsworth-like delicacy, we have the first
instalment of those mournful _largos_, in which Hungarian Literature is
as rich as is Hungarian music.
These three writers were as the forerunners of literary individualities
of a much higher type. The first of them was Joseph Kármán (1769-1795).
He too spent some time in Vienna, where then centred the political and
social life of a large portion of Europe. Like so many more Hungarians,
he burst into enthusiasm for his country by staying and living amongst
a foreign people who, in the nobler traits of character, were decidedly
inferior to the Magyars, and who yet were considered to be their rulers.
The people of Austria, and especially the Viennese, are utterly different
from the Hungarians. Their love of the burlesque, of the grotesquely
funny, of the clownish, stood out then, as it still largely does, in
sharp contrast to the dignified gravity of the Magyars. To be considered
as subject to people so very much less adapted for the functions of
government than themselves, was at all times galling to the Hungarians;
and perhaps never more so, than in the nineties of the last century, when
a mighty wave of opposition to the Habsburgs was sweeping over Hungary.
Kármán’s was a most sensitive soul. He fully realized that to render
Hungarian Literature more perfect and independent was first of all a
great political deed. He keenly felt, that Hungary, unless emancipated
intellectually, must fall a victim to the then immense ascendancy of
Austria. Every good poem, every good novel, written by a Hungarian in
the language of his country, was then of more service to Hungary than
all the proceedings at the national assemblies. Kármán, despite his
extreme youth, at once set to work. He proclaimed that Pesth ought to be
the literary centre of Hungary. He started a quarterly (“_Urania_”),
and hastened to write his “_Memoirs of Fanny_” (“_Fanni hagyományai_”).
The latter is a novel in the form of letters and leaves from a diary.
Fanny, the heroine, loves with all the inconsiderate passion of a
young girl, a young man, whom she is not allowed to marry. She dies of
a broken heart in the arms of her lover. The plot of the novel is of
the simplest. The excessive sentimentality of the heroine, who is, as
it were, drowned in the floods of her own feelings, is to our present
taste somewhat overdone. With all these shortcomings, however, Kármán
has poured over his little story so much of the golden light of fine,
unaffected style, and has enriched it with so many touches of the most
effective descriptions of scenery, that “_Fanny_” will always rank among
the foremost of the literary products of the kind, of which Goethe’s
“_Werther_” is the most famous.
The second great poet was Michael Vitéz Csokonai (1773-1805). Born at
Debreczen, a town whose famous fairs brought together annually an immense
concourse of the agricultural and trading people of Hungary, Csokonai was
at an early age imbued with the riches of the gallery of types for which
his country has always been so remarkable. Although at all periods of
his irregular and vagrant life Csokonai kept in close touch with books,
Bürger amongst the Germans, Pope amongst the English, and Metastasio
amongst the Italians, being his favourites; yet the real source of his
surprising fertility of invention, and surety of draughtsmanship was laid
in his constant contact with the people itself. His proud and independent
character, the ruggedness of which was not rendered less objectionable
by an independent fortune, drove him from post to post. As a roving poet
he visited most of the counties, making friends everywhere, protectors
and helpers nowhere; and when he finally returned to his old mother’s
house, his health was irretrievably shattered by poverty, privations and
occasional excesses. He is a great poet. His language is full of savour
and truly Magyar. He has abundant and merciful humour, without lacking
wit. Frequently he soars to philosophical heights of thought, where, like
the eagle, he broods alone. In his lyrical poetry there is much of the
rhapsodic frenzy, which was to make Hungary’s greatest poet, Petőfi, as
unique in poetry, as Liszt is in music. Csokonai’s most famous poem is
a comic epic, somewhat in the style of the _Rape of the Lock_, called
“_Dorottya_,” or the _Triumph of the Ladies at the Carnival_ (“_A dámák
diadalma a farsangon_”), in four parts. It narrates the warfare of the
ladies of a small town, under the leadership of an old maid (Dorottya),
with the men of the same place. The women complain of the shortness of
the carnival, of the rarity of weddings, etc., and attempt to steal the
registers of births compromising to many of them. In the end, the women
fall out amongst themselves, Venus steps in, rejuvenating Dorottya, and
making peace by marrying the contending parties to each other. The tone
of that comic epic is throughout one of genuine mirth, and the language
forms a fit drapery of the fleeting scenes of this charming carnival.
The types stand out with great plasticity, and in this respect at least,
Csokonai’s _Dorottya_ need fear no comparison with Pope’s masterpiece.
The critics of his time did not recognize Csokonai’s greatness; and his
townsmen, nearly all of them rigid Calvinists, did not think much of a
poet in whose stanzas wine flowed abundantly, and love was rampant in
forms at times unrestrained. When, therefore, some years after the poet’s
death, admirers of his wanted to have his statue erected at Debreczen,
and the words, “I too lived in Arcadia” engraved upon it, the good
burghers of Debreczen violently opposed the suggestion. For, as if trying
to give the departed poet exquisite material for another comic epic, they
alleged, that by “Arcadia,” was meant, as they had learned, a country
with good pasture, especially for donkeys; and since they solemnly
protested against being considered donkeys, etc., etc. From this incident
followed the so-called Arcadian lawsuit (“_arkádiai pör_”).
CHAPTER XV.
1772-1825.
In the literature of all civilized nations we meet with certain writers,
whose great effect on their contemporaries was owing less to the absolute
excellency of single works of theirs, than to the general tone and power
of suggestion inherent in all their individuality. Such are, in England,
Dr. Johnson and Thomas Carlyle; in France, Diderot and Renan; in Germany,
Hamann and Herder. Without being creative geniuses, they influence their
time as if they were such. One does so by the brilliancy of his talk,
like Johnson; the other by pamphlets or essays _de omni re scibili_,
like Herder; a third by boldly attempting to rear a new intellectual
world in the place of the fabric of old literature and knowledge, like
Diderot. The merit of such men is immense, yet relative. They deserve
more highly of literary men, than of literature. They spread interest in
or taste for good literature. They are critical, not constructive; and
so decidedly preparatory and temporary is their work, that in the whole
range of the world’s literature there has so far been one man, and one
alone, whose genius shone equally in this preparatory or critical work,
and in the still more precious work of positive creativeness too. That
man was Lessing. In him the critical faculty did not seriously impair the
creative; and he rendered immense services to German literature both by
what he destroyed, by what he suggested and by what he created.
Hungarian Literature was fortunate enough to find one of those initiators
and suggestive stimulators during the period of its great revival, in
the person of Francis Kazinczy (1759-1831). His work has frequently
been compared to that of Lessing. No greater injustice could be done
to Kazinczy. To compare him to the author of “_Laokoon_,” “_Emilia
Galotti_,” and “_Anti-Goetze_,” is to render him much smaller than he
really was. Without being a Lessing by far, he had a very considerable
and beneficial influence on Hungarian writers, many of them greater
than he. He was the son of a well-to-do gentleman of the county of
Bihar, which has a population of both Magyars and Roumanians, and does
not therefore belong to the counties where the purely Magyar spirit is
permeating all the phases of life. To this circumstance, no less than
to his education, must be ascribed Kazinczy’s little sympathy with the
strongly Magyar and nationalist aspirations of the Debreczen school.
His youth he spent chiefly in North Hungary, where the study of German
literature was then rife in the better circles of society. Having
acquired a competent knowledge of German, French and English, he poured
forth, since 1791, numerous, most carefully composed translations from
Shakespeare (_Hamlet_), Goethe, Molière, Klopstock, Herder, Lessing,
etc. From 1794 to 1801 he was kept in various state prisons, for having
been, as was alleged, implicated in the conspiracy of Martinovics.
This terrible experience left no particular traces either on his mind
or on his character. Subsequently, as previously, nay during his
imprisonment, he was busy with the elaboration of essays, critical,
historical, or novelistic, all of which had two distinct aims: first—to
reform the Hungarian literary language, by the introduction of new words
and especially new idioms; secondly, to reform Hungarian Literature
by modelling it after the standard of Greek masterpieces. Both lines
of reform were in the right direction. The Hungarian language was in
Kazinczy’s youth still far from developed. Its vocabulary was limited
mostly to the designation of things material, and quite fallow for the
production of terms expressing things abstract or æsthetic. It resembled
a country in which there is abundant currency in the shape of small
coin; it lacked gold coins and bank-notes of great value. Yet like
Hungary itself, its language was replete with gold-mines. In the rich and
racy vocabulary of the common people there was both overt material and
abundant hints for material hidden under the surface. Kazinczy, instead
of taking these hints—instead of coining his new terms and idioms from
the language of the common people, as he ought to have done, preferred
to coin them according to standards taken from the western languages of
Europe. In this he was grievously mistaken. There are unfortunately very
few, if any, true dialects of the Hungarian language. This, the greatest
drawback to Magyar writers, as the reverse of this deficiency is the
greatest advantage to the writers of Germany, France, Italy or England,
was rendered very much more harmful by Kazinczy, in that he totally
neglected the few dialectic features together with the common household
language of the people. In his efforts to enrich the language he thus
could not but obtain results of an inferior type. His syntactic moves
have not been followed on the whole; and of his new words few have gained
general recognition.
He was much more successful in the second of his life-long efforts; in
the introduction of the æsthetic ideals of the Greeks into Hungary. We
have seen above, that the neglect of the study of Greek literature in
Hungary had, in the preceding periods stunted the growth of Hungarian
Literature. Literature, like sculpture, is born of Greek parents; and
none but nations trained in the Hellenic world of ideas, can make a
literature proper. In Germany, Lessing, Wieland, Herder and Goethe
were so profoundly imbued with Hellenic modes of thought and moulds of
expression, that many of their best works have, as has been felicitously
remarked, enriched ancient Greek literature. So deep were in Germany,
through the works of these men, the furrows of Greek thought, that even
writers like Schiller, who did not know Greek, were full of the Greek
spirit of beauty and moderation, and amongst its most ardent propagators.
It was from these German Hellenes that Kazinczy learned the great and
invaluable lesson of Greek idealism, that spiritual atmosphere in which
the human intellect feels as different from its ordinary sensations, as
does the human body in a river. Kazinczy was the first of the Hungarian
writers whose soul had undergone the process of Platonization, to use
this clumsy but expressive word for a process, the chief stages of which
are an increased familiarity with mental tempers, the greatest exponent
of which was Plato. In Kazinczy’s wide correspondence with nearly all
the literary men of his age; in his greater and smaller works; in his
personal interviews with the leading men of his time; he invariably, and
with noble persistency, endeavoured to instil Hellenic ideals of form,
of beauty, of serenity. He had clearly seen how much German literature
had been benefited by the adoption of those ideals; he sincerely and
fervently wanted to confer the same boon on the literature of his own
country. This endeavour constitutes his greatness, as its success does
his historic importance. His own poems are mediocre; yet he has the
merit of being the author of the first sonnets in Hungarian; his forte
lies in his prose works, and there chiefly in his translations from the
classical writers of Rome, Germany, France and England. It was also
his indefatigable activity which gave rise to a wholesome literary
controversy about the nature and limits of a radical reform of the
Hungarian language as a vehicle of literature. This controversy merits
special mention.
Omitting the names of some learned precursors, whose works have not much
advanced the philological study of the Hungarian language, it may be
stated, that the first to subject that idiom to a careful and systematic
study based on researches into its historical development, was Nicolas
Révai. In his _Elaboratior Grammatica Hungarica_ (1806, 2 vols.), he
summed up his previous essays, and placed Hungarian philology on a
tolerably sure basis, after the manner subsequently adopted by Jacob
Grimm for Germanic philology. Although he still hankered after the
purely imaginary affinity between Magyar and the Semitic languages, he
yet succeeded in clearing up many a vital point in Hungarian historic
grammar. With regard to the then wanted reform of the language, he taught
that that reform ought to proceed on the lines of the laws of language
as discovered by a close study of the ancient remains of Hungarian
Literature. He was vehemently opposed by Verseghy (see page 85), who
taught that the reform ought to be guided, not by the bygone forms of
Hungarian, but by those actually in force. It is now pretty clear, that
while the science of language is sure to be enriched by methods of study
such as that of Révai, the art of language is more likely to gain by the
advice of Verseghy. Kazinczy, who possessed neither Révai’s philologic
erudition, nor Verseghy’s powers of philologic analysis, but who adopted
principles of reform from both, Kazinczy became the centre of the
passionate warfare that now arose for the golden fleece of “Pure Magyar.”
The Conservative party, whose headquarters were at Debreczen, Somogy,
Szeged, and Veszprém, were called orthologues; the adherents of Kazinczy,
neologues. Satyric writings were published by both; by the orthologues:
“_Búsongó Amor_,” 1806, and the still more famous “_Mondolat_,” 1813; by
the neologues: “_Felelet_,” 1816, written by Kölcsey and Szemere; and
chiefly, the prize-essay of Count Joseph Teleki, in 1817. In the end most
of the work of the neologues has been accepted by the nation.
CHAPTER XVI.
1772-1825.
The great campaigns fought by Austria against the French Revolution and
Napoleon were in reality the prelude of the subsequent warfare of the
Conservative and reactionary classes against the rising Liberalism of
modern times. In literature, that mighty duel of night and light was
reiterated by the struggle between the romantic and the national schools
of poetry. The romantic writers, whether Byron in England, Chateaubriand
in France, or Eichendorff in Germany, were all perfect in form, and
morbid in subject. They were to poetry what Prince Metternich was to
politics, a genius of twilight. So natural was this connection between
the French Revolution on the one hand, and national, or sound literature
on the other, that they who personally fought in the wars against the
Convention and the Directory (1792-1799), as later on against Napoleon
(1799-1815), invariably inclined to the romantic or the reactionary
school. This will explain the rise of romantic works in Hungary at a
time when their classical and national school had scarcely begun to
appear. The first great romantic Hungarian poet is Alexander Kisfaludy
(1772-1844). He had fought in the Austrian army in Italy and Germany
against the revolutionary armies of France, and so naturally considered
the gentry of his country as the true representatives of his nation. In
1801 he published the first part of a series of lyrical poems called
“_Himfy Szerelmei_,” through which runs the uniting link of luckless love
for one and the same maiden. Kisfaludy lived for some time in the country
of Petrarch, and the influence of the great singer of hopeless love is
clearly visible in the Magyar poet’s work. It is written in stanzas of
twelve lines, and is full of that shapeless but sweet sentimentality
which so characterizes the romantic writers. It is like a landscape in
which the most attractive part is the fleeting clouds: mountains, rivers,
houses, and persons being all blurred and vague. It is atmospheric
poetry, full of sweet words and sounds, as if coming from distant music.
In 1807 Kisfaludy published another part of his _Himfy_, this time
singing the joys of requited love, as the first did its sorrows. The
work was received with great enthusiasm, more especially, of course, by
the unmarried population of the country; and Kisfaludy was encouraged to
write novels, dramas and ballads in great number. All these works are
meant to form an apotheosis of mediæval times in Hungary; just as the
German and French romantic writers revelled in the charms of chateaux
and knights and crusades. Some of his ballads are really good, such as
_Csobáncz_. His dramas are worthless.
CHAPTER XVII.
1772-1825.
The romanticism started by Kisfaludy did not, however, retard the other
literary movements in Hungary. The Hungarian language is in many ways
too closely akin to the classic languages, if not in body, at least
in prosody, to have easily forsaken the classic forms which had long
been used by writers of this period, for the sake of romanticism. The
Hungarian language is in that respect like Hungarian music. Although
apparently nothing can be more remote from the strict moderation and
stately respectability of classical music than Hungarian music, yet the
strictest of the forms of classical music, viz., the fugue, has a curious
internal resemblance to Magyar airs, in that the latter easily yield
magnificent fugue themes, and preludes to fugues. Likewise the Hungarian
language lends itself with surprising felicitousness to the expression of
the highest form of classic metrical poetry: the ode.
Daniel Berzsenyi (1776-1826) was the poet who fully realized the
riches of the classical veins in the mines of the Hungarian language,
and who gave his country a number of perfect odes written in the metre
and in the spirit of the best of antique odes. His patriotic odes, most
famous of which is the one beginning “Perishing is now the once strong
Magyar” (“_Romlásnak indult hajdan erős Magyar_” in alcaic metre); his
religious odes, most perfect of which is “God-seeking” (“_Fohászkodás_”
in alcaic metre); show the chief quality of classical poetry: perfect
form wedded to hale and true subjects. He moves on the Alpine roads and
in the ravines of the antique arduous metres with natural ease; for the
real subjects of his poetry are akin and similar to Alpine sunsets and
sunrises, majestic glaciers, and despondent abysses. He is sublime and
natural; and amongst modern writers of odes in antique metres only the
German Platen, when at his best, can compare with him. His poems were
listened to with rapturous attention by the old warriors and politicians
of the National Assembly, and read with equal enthusiasm and admiration
by the youth of Hungary. From the height whereon he places himself with
his lyre, there is no difference of size or age in his listeners. Nor
has time abated one tittle of the glory of his best poems. Some of the
best critics of his epoch (amongst them Kölcsey) did not appreciate him
adequately. At present we cannot sufficiently wonder at their blindness.
We must console ourselves with the thought that poets, like the sun,
are, as a rule, not noticed for some time after their appearance on the
horizon. In the time of Berzsenyi there died at Vienna (in 1820) a young
Hungarian, probably by his own hand, in utter distress; his name was
Ladislas Tóth de Ungvárnémet. His mind, living in the regions of the
Greek ideals (he even wrote Greek poetry), could not endure the sordid
materialism of his surroundings. He left, in Hungarian, a tragedy after
the Hellenic model, “_Narcisz_.” Hungary has, by the premature death of
Tóth, probably lost her chance of having her Shelley.
CHAPTER XVIII.
1772-1825.
The enlightened foreigner from France, England or Germany, reading about
the allegedly great literary works written by Hungarians, Poles, Czechs
or other nationalities who have so far not succeeded in playing first
fiddle in the European concert, will probably indulge in a polite doubt
as to the exceeding excellence of those works, not one of which has ever
been spoken of in the columns of the leading papers or periodicals of
London, Paris, Berlin, Rome or Vienna. In the preceding pages we have
ventured to mention Pope and Shelley, and a few great German poets in
the same breath with great Magyar writers. This may appear preposterous
to Englishmen or Germans. Far from reviling them for that, we would
rather hasten to add, that in a certain sense they are quite right.
Pope’s genius is in one most essential point decidedly superior to that
of Csokonai (see page 88). Pope’s best poems are not exclusively English
in taste, subject-matter or form. They belong to that class of European
literature, the best products of which may be relished with equal
delight by Spaniards and Danes alike. They are European in character;
and so much is this the case with the foremost of those writers, that
Shakespeare, for instance, is far better known, by the youth at least
of Germany, Austria and Hungary, than by that of England. In the great
German writers there is little of that specifically German tone, which
people other than Germans cannot very well enjoy. In Lessing there is no
trace of the sentimentality and liquoriciousness of his native province;
in Schiller there is not a trace of Suabian cunning or lumbersomeness;
and Goethe might just as well have been born at Syracuse under Gelon,
or at Athens under Pericles. Is there any trace of Puritanism, this the
most specifically English feature of his time, in Shakespeare? The major
part of the better writers of Hungary or Poland, on the other hand, have
suffered their intense patriotism to make such inroads on the literary
character of their works, that the latter frequently lose all their point
to readers outside Hungary and Poland.
These reflections are suggested by a consideration of the works of
Francis Kölcsey (1790-1838), a really great orator and a good poet. Born
in the county of Bihar, where he spent the best part of his short life,
he employed his magnificent powers of oratory chiefly in inculcating
in the Hungarians of his time the lesson of patriotism. There can be
no doubt that his speeches, his lofty “_Paraenesis_,” and some of his
critical work are written in that gorgeously laborious style which has
made the fame of Bossuet in France and Gibbon in England. His poems
breathe a mild melancholy that gives them a sombre tint of peculiar
beauty. Yet, on the whole, he never oversteps the narrow limits of Magyar
life as then existent; and what appeals to men of all countries and all
nations found but a feeble rhetorical echo in his writings. No young
Hungarian can read his works without deep emotion. In maturer years,
however, he finds that Kölcsey’s works belong to those that one gladly
remembers to have read once, without desiring to read them again.
The growth of Hungarian Literature from 1772 to 1825 was, compared to
that of England from 1570 to 1620; of Germany from 1760 to 1805; or of
France from 1630 to 1675, a slow one. Many of the Hungarian writers of
that period were endowed with gifts of no common calibre; and some of
them, such as Kazinczy, Kisfaludy, Csokonai, Berzsenyi, Kölcsey, can
certainly not be denied the distinction of genius. Yet with all their
efforts, individual or collective, they did not quicken the step of
literary progress very considerably. This was owing to the fact, that
Hungary had as yet no literary centres, such as England possessed in
London; France in Paris; and Germany in Berlin, Leipsic or Weimar. Nearly
all the poets and other writers so far mentioned lived in small towns
scattered over the country, and, from the lack of good communications,
were practically isolated from one another. Kazinczy lived in the county
of Zemplén; Kölcsey in the county of Bihar; Kisfaludy, Berzsenyi, Ádám
Horváth in the cis-Danubian counties. There were, it is true, some
literary centres in Pesth; such as the house of the able folk-poet
Vitkovics. But they were few, and Pesth was, as yet, not a great capital.
Literature needs local concentration of high-strung people. Country life
gives the aptitude for poetic work; intense urban life alone ripens that
aptitude into creative talent. Virgil at Mantua, or Cicero at Arpinum
would have remained sterile provincials. The great mental agitation set
in motion by the writers in Magyar above mentioned was given additional
fuel by a very large number of Hungarians writing in Latin and French.
The ideas of the French and German Rationalism (“_Aufklaerung_”) of that
time were eagerly seized upon, elaborated and discussed in over five
hundred works and pamphlets treating of Religion, Politics, Law and
Philosophy. Hungary was thus during that period (1772-1825), instinct
with great intellectual powers; and all that was wanting was to focus
them. As long as the political or _the_ life of Hungary was crippled by
the autocracy of Metternich, that is, down to 1825-1830, that national
focus could not be forthcoming. With the revival of the political
life in and through the national Diet assembled at Pesth in 1825, the
only remaining condition of a quicker and more energetic pulsation of
Hungary’s literary life was fulfilled. Henceforth Hungary employed the
right strategy for the able men of her literary army, and the result
was a short but brilliant period of literary productions, many of
which attain to the higher and some to the highest degrees of artistic
perfection. And inasmuch as the creation of the national focus was the
most potent cause of the unprecedented revival of Hungary’s literature,
we must first treat of that glorious man who was chiefly instrumental in
its realization: Count Stephen Széchenyi.
CHAPTER XIX.
1825-1850.
1825-1850. Count Stephen Széchenyi, “_the greatest Magyar_” as Kossúth
called him, was one of those rare patriots whose enthusiasm is tempered
by the most careful respect for facts and practical probabilities, while
their love of detail and material work is broadened and elevated by the
noble passion of disinterested patriotism. The maxim of his life was,
“Hungary has not yet been; she will be” (“_Magyarország nem volt hanem
lesz_”). A scion of a magnate family he had, like Mirabeau, derived much
light from the study of foreign countries. As most of his contemporaries,
he was convinced that Hungary, unless aroused from her political and
industrial torpor, could not in her then state claim a place amongst
the civilized nations of Europe. He was by no means of a revolutionary
disposition against the Habsburgs. On the contrary, he wanted to realize
all the vast reforms he contemplated in peace with Austria; for being a
sort of enthusiastic Walpole (—the manes of Sir Robert will pardon us
that epithet!—) his activity was directed mainly, at times at least, to
the bettering of the material condition of Hungary.
Széchenyi did not, however, neglect the intellectual needs of his
country either. When still a young cavalry officer he offered one year’s
revenue of his estates (£10,000 in value; nominally, £5,000) for the
establishment of a national Hungarian Academy of Science, the members of
which were to consider the cultivation and development of the Hungarian
language as their prime duty. Széchenyi’s magnanimous offer was at once
responded to by similar offers on the part of three rich magnates (Count
George Andrássy, Count George Károlyi, and Baron Abraham Vay), and thus a
serious commencement was made with the founding of an intellectual centre
in Hungary. The Academy (“_Magyar Tudományos Akadémia_”) was formally
established in 1830, its first president being Count Joseph Teleki.
Among the great number of linguistic, historic, and scientific works,
both original and translations, published by the Academy, we may mention
the “_Monumenta_,” or historic sources of Hungary; several smaller
dictionaries for current use, and the great Dictionary of the Hungarian
Language, edited by Gregory Czuczor and John Fogarasi (1844-1874); the
translation of the best works of foreign authors on History, Philosophy,
Law, and Science, including, amongst others, almost all the standard
works of English literature; and a series of original researches into all
branches of Science, descriptive, mathematical, physical and chemical.
Together with numerous writers of that period, Széchenyi also attempted,
and very felicitously too, an internal reform of the Magyar language, to
the vocabulary of which he added some needed and now generally accepted
terms.
Széchenyi’s restless propaganda succeeded in moving even the
ultra-conservative and indolent country-gentry; and in the thirties many
a nobleman had a residence of his own built in Pesth. The Country began
to move into the Town. In 1837, the national Hungarian theatre was opened
at Pesth. Numerous newspapers and periodicals were published; the number
of press-organs in Magyar, which was five in 1820, rising to ten in 1830,
and to twenty-six in 1840. In 1891 there were 645 Magyar newspapers and
periodicals in Hungary. The work meted out to the “Academy” being rather
of a technical nature, the “Kisfaludy-Society” (“_Kisfaludy-Társaság_”)
was formed in 1836, with the view of promoting the interests of
_belles-lettres_ proper in Hungary. Thanks to the patriotic and
well-directed activity of that Society, many an unknown but gifted author
was enabled to bring his work under the notice of the country. Its
prizes were, and are eagerly competed for, and it has done very much
for the great progress of good literature in Hungary. Historical and
archæological societies were formed in many parts of the country; and the
nation became conscious of the greatness of Hungarian music, which in the
wizard hands of Francis Liszt (1811-1887), the greatest of all executive,
and one of the most striking of creative musicians, was fast becoming
the admiration of Europe. Nor were the schools neglected. Since 1844 the
language of instruction in schools was mostly Hungarian. The political
reverses of the Hungarians in 1849 caused the introduction of the German
language into the schools of Hungary; in 1861, however, the national
language was again reinstated in its rights, and now the language of
instruction in all the schools and colleges of Hungary is Magyar.
These are some of the most important intellectual reforms which, from
1825 to 1848 completely changed the face of the Hungary of olden times.
While previous to 1825, all attempts at reform were restricted to small
circles and straggling individuals, and could, therefore, bear no fruit
for the nation at large, now the efforts for the renascence of the
material and intellectual life of the country were concentrated by the
creation of a true capital of social, literary and scientific centres;
by the co-operation of great numbers of patriotic and able men; and by
the powerful, nay, in Hungary, all-powerful stimulus imparted to all the
energies of the nation through the revival of its ancient parliamentary
life. In Hungary, as well as in England, Parliament is the soul of the
body-politic. The stagnation of parliamentary life in Hungary from
1813 to 1825 was almost tantamount to the stagnation of all the other
intellectual energies of the nation. From 1825 onward, the National
Assembly met frequently; the Magyar language was again used in the
debates, and many reforms that had proved unrealizable in the hands of
private reformers, were carried out by the power of the nation assembled
in Parliament. The constant opposition offered to all reforms in Hungary,
at the hands of the Vienna government, only acted as a further stimulus
to the Hungarians; and within the five-and-twenty years of the present
period, Hungary advanced by leaps and bounds, both in its politic and
literary development.
CHAPTER XX.
The _rôle_ of Kazinczy as mentor and model for the younger generation
of his time was now allotted to a very gifted poet, Charles Kisfaludy,
brother of Alexander (see page 101). He was born in 1788, and like his
brother, became a soldier in the Austrian army. His proud father, on
learning that he had, in 1811, thrown up his military career, disowned
him; and Charles had to rough it in wild wanderings over Europe amidst
great privations. Yet his mind, singularly widened by the view and study
of European civilization, was thereby so strengthened and developed, that
on his return to his country (1817), he contrived to rise from abject
poverty to comparative comfort by his own literary exertions. His dramas,
some of which he wrote in the course of a few days, were at once so
intensely relished by the public, that Kisfaludy, who produced with equal
ease poetic works of lyric or epic character, quickly became the centre
of the literary life of Hungary. The “_Aurora_,” a literary periodical
founded by him in 1822, was enriched by the contributions of the
foremost writers, mostly his followers; and he himself was the rallying
personality for the new literary movement. Alas! his body, less elastic
than his mind, could never overcome the effects of his wanderings, and he
died of consumption in 1830.
In Kisfaludy the influence of the literary ideals of the French
and Germans is easily traceable. Like his models he was steeped in
romanticism and worship of the distant past. Yet he was saved from the
sickliness and namby-pambiness of many a German or French romantic poet
by his strong sense of humour. In his dramas (“_Stibor Vaida_,” “_Irén_,”
etc.) he frequently manifests strong dramatic vitality. It is in his
comedies and gay stories, that he excels. His humour is broad, subtle,
sympathetic and well worded. In his tragedies he did not succeed in
creating a type, this, one of the safest criteria of a poet’s genius.
In his comedies (“_Csalódások_” [“Disappointments”]; “_Kérők_” [“The
Wooers”]; “_Leányőrző_” [“Girl’s Guard”], etc.) on the other hand, he
has given types of undying vitality; such as “_Mokány_,” the rough,
humorous and honest young country squire. If we consider the fact here
so frequently alluded to, that social life in Hungary was up to the
thirties of this century exclusively life among the county-families in
the country, or in small towns; if, moreover, we remember that such
life on a small scale, where each person stands out in bold relief and
unencumbered by the numerous social mediocrities of large towns, is
the proper foster-earth of rich personalities: it will be easy to see,
that social life in Hungary in Kisfaludy’s youth was bristling with
delightfully original types of men and women. They only waited for the
hand of the poet to spring into their frames, and form valuable pictures.
Country-life and small towns in Hungary, to the present day, are full
of the most delightful types, both men and women; and the reputation
of a Dickens might have been acquired by him who would have told the
“adventures” and freaks of, for instance, the quaint, many-tongued sires
of the county of Sáros. Kisfaludy, with the true poet’s eye _saw_ those
types, and put them bodily on his canvas. They talk on his pages that
very language, full of savoury adjectives and verbal somersaults, that
they used when meeting at the halls of their friends, at the “Casino”
of the place or at the table in front of the Swiss _Confiserie_, in the
sleepy streets of their county capital. In his novels, “_Tollagi János_”
[a proper name]; “_Sulyosdi Simon_” [a proper name], etc., Kisfaludy has
recorded many a precious feature of the life of these sturdy, amiable,
enthusiastic, shrewd and simple country-gentry, in the midst of whom
moved the pathetic and lofty young girl; the coquettish and charming
young wife (or “little heaven,” “_mennyecske_” as the Hungarian word
has it); the quaint old maid, and the still quainter old bachelor. Here
Kisfaludy is at his best; and in showing his fellow-writers some of the
wealth to be found in their own country, he did Hungarian Literature and
Hungarian nationality an immense service. In some of his lyrical poems,
and especially in his truly majestic ode to the memory of the disaster
of Mohács (1526), written in dystichs, Kisfaludy is frequently more than
clever; in that ode he soars to the sublime. His “_Eprészleány_” (“Girl
Gleaning Strawberries”) is a charming idyll.
CHAPTER XXI.
The work of Kisfaludy was great. He charmed his readers, and thus
awakened an interest in Hungarian Literature in circles that had hitherto
been callous to the intellectual revival of their country. His vocation,
however, was limited. The Hungarians, by nature grave and given to
ponderous sentiments, needed, for a full awakening of their literary
life, more than the perfume of flowers. The rhythmic thunder of the
war-clarion; the majesty of the organ was needed. And the right man came.
The man, in whose sublime poems was heard the turmoil of the old glorious
wars, the symphony of love and patriotism, in tones of unprecedented
beauty. That man was Michael Vörösmarty (1800-1855). His life was devoted
entirely to the pursuit of literature, and in his soul there was only
one grand thought: to become Hungary’s troubadour, to kindle the holy
light of patriotism on the altar, and with the aid of the muses. In this
he was successful beyond all his predecessors. His were some of the
rarest qualities, the union of which goes to make the great poet. In
beauty and truly Magyar rhythm of language he was and largely still is
unsurpassed. His diction is, like his country, full of the majesty of
vast mountains, and the loveliness of flower-clad meadows sloping down to
melodious rivers. Without being a reckless innovator of words, his works
read at the first appearance as if written in a new language. As when
the student of Hellenic antiquity, after years spent with engravings of
old Greek art, comes for the first time to see one of the still extant
remains of that art itself: so felt the contemporaries of Vörösmarty
when the glorious hexameters of his epic, “_Zalán futása_” first struck
their ears. There was at last, not only this or that instrument of the
orchestra of Hungarian language; there was heard, not only the wails of
the ’cello of Kölcsey; the musical cascades of the clarinet of Charles
Kisfaludy; the wafting chords of the harp of Berzsenyi; or the gossamer
oboe of Csokonai: there was heard the unison and harmonious struggle
of all the instruments of the great idiom. Like the composers of the
immortal symphonies, Vörösmarty wielded the resources of the Magyar
language, intensifying the effect of each instrument by the parallel or
counter-quires of the other instruments. In his love-songs you hear
not only the notes of the melody, but also, as in the songs of his
Austrian contemporary, Schubert, the undercurrents of the melody in the
accompaniment. The wealth of poetic figures in Vörösmarty is surprising;
yet a chaste moderation tempers all undue exuberance. He is powerful,
not violent; imposing, not fierce. He writes mostly Largos; but there
are very few _longeurs_ in them. The quick pulsation of the drama does
not suit him; the epic and ode are his favourite forms. For, in him is
much of the priest, of the seer of a nation. In the depth of his reticent
heart he feels the whole life of his nation, and smarts unspeakably from
its then degradation. Too proud to indulge in constant moanings, he is
yet in an agony of rage and indignation at the oppression of his people.
But this holy anger goes forth from him sculptured in songs, swelling
with abiding life of beauty and power.
Vörösmarty’s poetic vocation was, if not aroused, yet, undoubtedly,
guided into the right direction by an epic of one Alexander Székely, a
Unitarian preacher, entitled “The Szekler in Transylvania” (“_A Székelyek
Erdélyországban_”), in which a not infelicitous attempt was made to work
into one national song the ancient Magyar legends and mythology. An
epic is the song of a nation whose critical dangers are not yet over.
It may be said, without exaggeration, that heroic Wolfe in driving the
French out of Canada (1759), drove out the last chance of the Americans
for anything like a great national epic. In gaining their independence
a few years after Wolfe’s success, the Americans also obtained perfect
security. There was no serious enemy left to jeopardize their existence.
The Indians could and did annoy them much; they could not seriously call
their very existence in question. Hence the Indian tales of Fenimore
Cooper are the only epics of the Americans. In Hungary matters stood
quite differently. There the very existence of the nation was doubtful.
A catastrophe might occur at any time. And in the terrible anguish of
that “gigantic death” (“_nagyszerü halál_”), of which Vörösmarty sings
in his “_Szózat_” (national hymn), the people of Hungary needed more
than a drama or an ode can give. It needed a national poem of large
dimensions in which the glories of the past were held up to the people
as an incitement to the conquest of the trophies of the future; in which
the powers of the Divine were shown to have a personal interest in the
destinies of the nation; and in which the sacred language of thirty
generations of patriots glows in all the victorious beauty of perfection.
When in 1748 Klopstock published his great epic, the “_Messias_,” he too
desired to do his country a patriotic service. His aim was, however,
at once larger and smaller than that of Vörösmarty. He meant chiefly
to weld for the Germans the weapon of a better language. Beyond this
he meant his epic for any nation whatever, its subject-matter being of
universal acceptance amongst Christian nations. Not so Vörösmarty. He
meant to write a Messianic epic, in which the Messiah was the Hungarian
nation itself. He wanted to raise up a particular nation, his nation,
to the consciousness of its force, of its vocation. And thus, while the
intellectual scope of his poem was much more limited than that of either
Milton or Klopstock, the intensity of its purport far exceeded both.
The name of the epic was, “The Flight of Zalán” (“_Zalán futása_”). It
appeared in 1825, or in the year when the national Parliament reassembled
after twelve long years’ adjournment, and when the nation, at any rate,
many of the best men of the nation, were in feverish expectancy of the
rise of New Hungary. Its subject is taken from the history of Árpád the
Conqueror, and centres in the Battle of Alpár, in which Árpád defeats his
most fearful enemy, Zalán, one of the Bulgarian rulers of the territory
between the Danube and the Tisza (Theiss) rivers. There are in the poem
three parallel streams of epic deeds, which, like the three choruses of
string, reed and brass instruments in an orchestra, join in one powerful
symphony. Árpád, the great duke and father of his people, fights Zalán,
and especially his herculean general Viddin. Ete, the young and romantic
Magyar knight fights Csorna, the diabolic Bulgarian hero; and in the
heavens “_Hadúr_” (“God of the war,” a name introduced by Székely),
the national god of the Magyars, fights and conquers “_Ármány_,” the
arch-fiend. The element of love is represented by Ete, who loves Hajna,
the beautiful daughter of an old Hungarian hero. She is also courted by
a divine charmer, whose temptations, however, she rejects, and from whom
she receives an enchanted horse. A large portion of the epic is taken up
with the description of single combats between the heroes. In the end,
the Hungarians are (as in reality they were) victorious, and Zalán flees
from his country.
There is undoubtedly much Ossianic misty glamour in Vörösmarty’s great
epic; and the figures of its leading heroes do not stand out with all
the desirable plasticity from among the multitude of minor heroes and
mythologic divinities. Yet Ete and Hajna are suffused with all the
charms of youth, love and heroism; and in Hadúr and Ármány two powerful
mythological types are placed before us. Árpád himself answers very well
the chief purpose of the poem, in that he is rather the incarnation of a
nation strong, noble, God-fearing and conquering, than the representative
of any special personality. Perhaps the least endowed figure of the poem
is Zalán, in whom the poet might have represented, in contrast to Árpád,
the various enemies endangering Hungary’s existence, and of whom he
only made a proud and despairing prince. Yet, after allowing for these
shortcomings—very natural in a work written in eleven months—“_Zalán
futása_” is a truly great epic. The splendour of its language, in regard
to which it is fully the equal of “Paradise Lost,” fell upon its first
readers with the spell of the Fata Morgana of the Hungarian _pusztas_
or prairies, on the lonely traveller. There was one general feeling:
“such language had not yet risen from any Hungarian lyre!” (“_igy még
nem zenge magyar lant_!”). A nation whose past could inspire such epic
music, was a nation of imposing resourcefulness. Only great nations,
after conquering great dangers, can produce great epics. A great epic is
not alone a literary event; as such it would redound mostly to the glory
of the author. It is a national event, and redounds chiefly to the glory
of the nation. It is the symptom and warrant of national greatness; of
that noble enthusiasm—without which, numerous factories and railways can
be built indeed, but no fabric of a national commonwealth holding its own
amidst roaring seas of danger and adversity. Vörösmarty’s epic poured
into the Hungarians that Belief and Confidence, that Eternality of Hope,
which alone steels nations against fate. Széchenyi had connected Buda,
the capital of the past, with Pesth, the capital of modern Hungary, by
means of a gigantic suspension bridge. Vörösmarty now connected Hungary’s
past with her future by the rainbow of his immortal epic.
In addition to “The Flight of Zalán,” Vörösmarty enriched Hungarian
Literature with several other smaller epics, such as “_Széplak_,”
“_Cserhalom_,” and the exquisite “The Two Neighbouring Castles” (“_Két
szomszéd vár_”). After 1831 he ceased writing epics. He had a real
passion for dramatic poetry, and although in “_Csongor és Tünde_” alone
he contrived to write a drama of superior finish, yet he continually
tried his hand at that form of poetry (“_Vérnász_”) (“The Sanguinary
Wedding”); “Marótbán” (Banus Marót); “_Áldozat_” (The Sacrifice), etc.
His lyrical poetry, on the other hand, contains priceless gems. Adorning,
as he did, even the smallest of his lyrical poems with the unrivalled
splendour of his diction; he reaches in some of them, and first of all
in the majestic “National Hymn” (“_Szózat_”, 1837), the highest level
of poetic _élan_. In these select poems, while still singing nothing but
the hopes and glories of his nation, he becomes so European in tone and
chaste beauty of form, that his work will lose little of its perfection
by fair translations into other European languages. In them there is felt
the breath of that civilization of Greater Hellas, or Europe, which was
originally that of Hellas proper. Nor does his lyric muse move in grave
and solemn moods alone. In his famous “Song of Fót” (“_Fóti dal_”), he
has left the wine-drinking community of the world a model song in praise
of the noble child of Bacchus. He likewise succeeded in writing poetic
apotheoses of some of the great Hungarians of his time, such as Liszt,
the great musician, and in the composition of small narrative poems,
which prove him to have been endowed with a keen sense of humour (“_Mák
Bandi_”; “_Laboda_;” “_Petike_;” “_Gábor deák_”). His great activity as a
creative poet did not prevent him from writing a considerable number of
articles for literary periodicals, such as the “_Tudományos Gyűjtemény_,”
“_Kritikai Lapok_” (edited by Bajza), and for the new “_Aurora_,” and the
“_Athenæum_.” He was also one of the translators of the “Thousand and One
Nights,” and of some of Shakespeare’s plays.
CHAPTER XXII.
The national and literary current of which Vörösmarty was the chief
exponent brought several other great epic works to the surface. Andreas
Horvát de Pázmánd (1778-1839) was working for many years at a national
epic in twelve long cantos, singing the history of Árpád the conqueror.
In 1831, at last, he published the huge poem which, however, was
distanced and soon silenced by the masterwork of Vörösmarty. It certainly
helped both to set off “The Flight of Zalán” still more strongly, and
also to widen the circle of old Magyar mythology.
An epic poet of far superior merit was Gregory Czuczor (1800-1866). Had
he not been a monk, and so lost much of the vivifying contact of civil
life, he might have soared very high. It must be, however, added that his
conflict both with poverty and with the Austrian Government, did make
up largely for the lack of experiences of romantic, conjugal and family
conflicts. His was a vigorous, systematic and finely discerning mind.
To the epic he felt attracted not only by the general literary tone of
his time, but by his personal bent for popular or rather folk-poetry. The
_naïveté_ of the latter, which forms its distinctive feature, is also one
of the chief elements of the epic. Among Czuczor’s epics, “_Botond_,”
in four cantos, is the best. It tells part of the life of that famous
Hungarian hero of the time of the conquest. Botond had brought home from
his Byzantine campaigns a charming Greek girl, Polydora. One of the
Magyar heroes, Bödölény, who also loves Polydora, takes her secretly back
to Constantinople. Now Botond again invades the Greek Empire, and with
his huge war-club breaks a hole in the gate of the capital. In the end
he gets back Polydora. This simple plot is enlivened with recitals not
only of military and heroic exploits, but also of touching love-episodes.
The contrast between burly, brave Botond and the refined Greek maid, the
episodes in which Szende, the page occurs, and the beautifully rolling
hexameters lend a peculiar charm to this epic. Perhaps now, after the
realization of most of the ardent political hopes of Czuczor’s age,
his epic will be considered even as much better than at the time of
its appearance when it had to compete with the more fiery epic muse of
Vörösmarty. Of Czuczor’s linguistic works we have already made mention
(see page 112).
A contemporary of Czuczor, John Garay (1812-1853), although not a
poet of great distinction, must be here mentioned, on account of the
popularity of his innumerable ballads and similar epic poetry, covering
almost every one of the memorable events of Hungarian history. Rather a
rhetor than a poet, he wrote his ballads, of which “_Kont_” (relating to
the martyr-death of thirty Hungarian patriots at the hands of Emperor
Sigismund), is the best known, in an easy-flowing popular style. He
trusted rather to the attractiveness of the story itself than to his own
poetic genius. When well recited, many of his ballads are still very
effective.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Despite the very great advance made in the development of their
literature up to 1830, the Hungarians were still wanting in one of the
necessary elements of the growth of truly good works. Honest, just and
well-informed criticism was wanting. Kazinczy, it is true, had in his
extensive correspondence paid very careful attention to the critical
examination of the prosody and language of his friends and pupils.
Such external criticism, however, did not suffice. In a country, such
as Hungary, where Greek literature was then known only to exceedingly
few writers, the canons of criticism were easily neglected. Moreover,
literature being still considered more as a patriotic than a literary
function, poets did not, as a rule, tolerate even mild criticism. Yet
without such criticism, Hungarian Literature was likely to deteriorate.
Even men of genius are the better for good criticism. Yet they are the
exception; and to the vast number of writers with talent rather than
genius, criticism was, and always has been, the mentor whom they could
not afford to miss. It has been one of the great advantages of French
literature that its creative writers have nearly always been watched
by great critical writers. From Boileau and Diderot, to Sainte-Beuve,
the French have always had men of piercing and tasteful criticism,
who controlled the works of the purely spontaneous genius. Nor can
the literature of Germany congratulate itself on a more auspicious
circumstance than the fact of Lessing’s incomparable activity as a critic
at the very outset of the classical period. It is with regard to this
historic value of sound literary criticism, that we must appreciate the
work of the Hungarian writer forming the subject of the present chapter.
Joseph Bajza (1804-1858) had many of the qualities of a great critic. He
was courageous, especially in that courage which is perhaps the rarest,
the courage defying current opinions; he was learned; he possessed a
very keen sense of linguistic niceties and poetic forms; and, last not
least, he was no mean poet himself. Already in 1830 he gave signal
proof not only of his pure patriotism, but also of his penetrating
knowledge of the true needs of the then Hungarian Literature, by fiercely
attacking a plan, broached by a Hungarian publisher, to prepare a
Hungarian Encyclopædia (or “Conversations-Lexicon,” as, in imitation
of the well-known German publication, it was called) on lines, as Bajza
proved, unpatriotic, because unsuited to the character and stage of
Magyar literature of that time. This was the “Conversations-Lexicon
Quarrel.” In the same year, Bajza started his critical paper (“_Kritikai
Lapok_”), which was later on (1837) followed by his “_Athenæum_,” and
its appendix “_Figyelmező_.” In these periodicals he discoursed with
great verve and knowledge on the theories of various poetic forms;
and carefully criticised the works of his contemporaries. His chief
contributors were Vörösmarty and Toldy (then still Schedel), the former
a great poet, the latter (see p. 254) a great scholar. The authority of
Bajza made itself felt very soon; and the numerous polemics occasioned
by his articles only served to aggrandize his position as a critic.
Already in his essays on the epigram, the novel, the drama, etc., Bajza
had proved himself a constructive as against a purely negative critic.
In that capacity probably his chief merit is his elaboration of the
“theory” of the folk-poem. In Hungary, with her numerous peasantry,
there is an inexhaustible wealth of poems composed by unknown people,
exclusively peasants, shepherds, and similar inglorious poets. These
poems, invariably meant to be adapted to songs, are wafted over the
country like the mild breezes of spring, and like them, no one knows
their origin. In previous times, the rococo taste of enlightened pedants
had contemptuously ignored these blossoms of the wild _puszta_ (prairie).
Since Csokonai they were held in greater esteem; but it was Bajza who, by
framing them in the time-honoured formulæ of classical æsthetics, raised
them to a literary status. Since Bajza, the “_népdal_” or folk-song was
not only a matter of national delight or pride, but also of serious study.
To Bajza’s circle belonged the poets Alexander Vachott (1818-1861);
Frederick Kerényi (1822-1852), who died in America; Julius Sárosy
(1816-1861), the author of several stirring revolutionary poems; Andreas
Pap; Emeric Nagy; Sigismund Beöthy, etc.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The rapid growth of Hungarian Literature since 1825, shows chiefly in
works of poetry proper; that is, in verse. Hungarian prose had in the
first ten years of this period received no development similar to that
of Hungarian verse. Yet many a writer had tried his hand at the creation
of Hungarian literary prose. The reason of this belated advance of
Hungarian prose was owing mainly to the late introduction of the Magyar
language into the schools. Not before a language has hewn its way through
the thickets of philosophy, the subtleties of distinctions in physics
and chemistry, or the awkward bulkiness of historical facts, will it be
supple and flexible enough to do efficient service for the innumerable
needs of prose. Without a prose ready for all the turns and twists of
serious thought, great historical or philosophical works are almost
impossible. The difficulty was overcome in Hungary by applying prose
first to novels, and then to History or Philosophy. Novels and romances,
taking as they do the place of the epics in olden times, have also a
national or more than literary importance. And we find that nations
without great epics are also, as a rule, without great novels of their
own. The astounding progress made in Hungary in epic literature proper
bade fair to inaugurate the forthcoming of a novelistic literature.
Vörösmarty and Czuczor were soon to have their followers in prose—the
novelists. The frequency of rich types in Hungarian society could not
but favour that branch of literature. In fact, the greatest difficulty
for Hungarian novelists then, and to a large extent even now, was not
to discover and work out a good subject, but to hunt up a sufficient
number of readers. In the thirties and forties of this century, most of
the cultivated individuals in Hungary were so familiar with German and
even with French, that they could and did easily gratify their novelistic
appetites with the innumerable products from the pens of German and
French novelists. People will seldom relish or crave for lyric or epic
poems of nations other than their own. They will ordinarily prefer
homemade verse. With novels it is quite different. There is scarcely any
exaggeration in stating that Lord Lytton’s novels have been read more
extensively in Germany and Austria-Hungary than in England. The same
applies respectively to George Sand, the French, and Mme. Flygare-Carlén,
the Swedish novelist. Hungarian novelists had, therefore, to contend
against formidable competition from abroad. But there was another and
equally grave difficulty to conquer. The public in all countries has a
fatal tendency to take up one author as the “standard” author in a given
department of literature, and to give all other authors in the same
field the cold shoulder. The less intense the interest which the public
takes in that department, the more it will be inclined to believe in the
“standard” man. In Hungary, that evil tendency has wrought great injury
to novelists. At once a few of them became the “standard” novelists.
Nobody wanted to hear of any other. By this means the rise of other,
perhaps greater novelists, was retarded, if not altogether foreclosed;
and the “standard” man, eagerly seizing on the great favour bestowed upon
him, poured forth scores of novels, irrespective of the higher demands
of Art. The consequence was that he deteriorated. For one good novel he
gave ten bad ones. Having a sort of literary monopoly, he did not heed
adverse criticism. The public, on the other hand, did not care to learn
of a new novelist, and, as actually happened in Hungary, almost entirely
neglected a real genius for no other reason than that mental laziness,
which in countries with less abundant literature is perhaps one of the
most baneful of obstacles to the success of a writer.
The preceding remarks appear to be necessary for a right appreciation
of Hungarian novels. Foreign readers, and perhaps more especially the
English, are apt to admire in Hungarian novels such qualities as strike
them as new and “weird,” because German, French, or English novelists
do not excel in them. Thus foreign readers will easily be impressed,
and in many cases unduly so, by the great picturesqueness of Hungarian
novelists. This quality, commendable though it no doubt is, will induce
many a foreign critic to overrate the value of this or that Hungarian
novel. In Hungary, picturesque turns of phrases are of the very
commonest. They do not strike a Hungarian critic as being particularly
meritorious. Hence the reader of the present work must not be astonished
at some of the subsequent severe judgments passed on Hungarian novelistic
celebrities. Far from trying to deter English or French readers from
the reading of such novels as they will find criticised adversely, we
would rather advise them to enjoy those novels without further regard to
the views of the writer. We have in so criticising of necessity placed
ourselves on a basis rather Magyar than European, and we are fully aware
of the marked difference in taste to be found in the various nations
of Europe. If the novelists and poets of one nation were to be judged
by the taste of another, Thackeray could hardly be regarded as a great
novelist, and Tennyson scarcely as a great poet. Yet both are in England
recognized as two of the best writers in English literature.
Of the great novelists of Hungary, four stand out as peculiarly
excellent. Their names are Nicolas Jósika; Joseph Eötvös; Sigismund
Kemény; and Maurus Jókai. The first three belong to the class of
Magnates, being Barons; the last is a commoner by birth. It is rather
curious, that the Magnates, who have in the present century given no poet
of the first order to Hungary, should in the field of Hungarian novel
writing have furnished three writers of the first rank, of whom one,
Baron Kemény, has done work not unworthy of the greatest novel-writer of
the century.
The first of the four to attract general attention in Hungary was
Baron Joseph Jósika. He was born in 1794 at Torda, in Transylvania.
Having spent many years in the military service of Austria, and in
travels abroad, he retired in 1818 and withdrew to Transylvania, where
he pursued historic and literary studies, relating chiefly to his own
province. Transylvania harbours many of the most glorious traditions
of Hungarian history. For generations, especially in the seventeenth
century, it was practically the only home of Magyardom. There is no lack
of romantic, picturesque, or startling facts in the public or social
life of that country; and Jósika, whose heart had, through his first
luckless marriage, learned the depths of sorrow, as through his second
wife he learned the bliss of true love, Jósika was in a position to do
full justice to the wealth of picturesque characters and scenery in
Transylvania’s past. His first novel, “_Abafi_,” was published in 1836,
and at once received general applause on the part of the critics, and,
what was still more important, at the hands of the public. Its subject
is taken from the troubled times of Sigismund Bátori, when Turks,
Austrians and Magyars, were fighting and intriguing for the possession of
Transylvania, in the last two decades of the sixteenth century. Bátori’s
mighty and tainted personality, with all his cruelty, heroism, astuteness
and audacity, is, together with that of the Turkish conquerors, pashas,
and court people, the personal background to the hero of the novel,
Oliver Abafi, who rises from conduct dissipated and lawless, to the
heights of noble self-sacrifice. The story is told with great power of
description and impersonation. The reader cannot fail to feel as if quite
at home in that agitated corner of Europe, where some of the historic
agencies met in deadly conflict, and where men and women breathed much
of that grand air of great events, which colours them in tints unknown
to the people of less eventful times. The novel is intensely interesting
and will convey a more life-like picture of its period than many a dull
historic volume.
Equal to, and if possible, even more fascinating, is Jósika’s novel,
“The Bohemians in Hungary” (“_A csehek Magyarországban_”). This novel
goes back to older times still. It pictures the state of Hungary in the
middle of the fifteenth century, when the Bohemian (Czech) Hussites were
invading Hungary. Of all the innumerable sects and heresies from the end
of the twelfth century to the rise of Protestantism, the Hussites were no
doubt the most powerful. From the depths of the forests ranging round the
river Main, to the mountains encircling Hungary and Transylvania, these
heroic and fanatic warriors spread the terror of their name. But for
some grave political mistakes and unforeseen reverses of Vitovt, one of
the greatest of the historic Slavs (flourished 1380 to 1430), who wanted
to found a Slav empire, reaching from the western confines of Bohemia,
to the walls of holy Moscow, the Slavs, on the basis of Hussitism, and
under leaders like Ziska, and the Procops, might have for ever reduced
the historic _rôle_ of Germany to that of a small power. Theirs would
then have been a great empire, strongly unified in language, creed and
traditions. No Austria would have been possible; and Hungary would have
probably been submerged in the Slav flood. It is the story of the lives
of some of these wild and terrible Czechs in the north and north-west
of Hungary which forms the subject of the powerful novel of Jósika.
The castles of the Czech leaders were real fortresses of Slavdom, and
the population of those parts of Hungary being largely Slav to the
present day, the danger for Hungary was very great. Fortunately for the
independence of the Magyars, their young king Matthew Corvinus, son of
John Hunyadi, was a match for the Bohemians. One by one he destroyed
their castles, liberating thousands of prisoners, and ridding the
country of the Slav invasion. His illustrious figure shines in Jósika’s
novel like the youthful emblem of that historic vitality which has kept
Hungary in a ruling position over Slav and Germanic tribes these last
thousand years. The picturesqueness of Jósika’s novel is extraordinary.
Male and female characters of intense fascination move in the castles,
battlefields, dungeons and mountain-paths described by the novelist.
Komoróczy, the knight and robber; the glorious king and his romantic
love; Elemér, the hero, called “the Eagle”; the charming widow, who
defies with a dimpled smile the most ruthless of amorous men; Jews, at
once grand in suffering and commonplace in their greed; all these and
many more scenes and portraits reconstruct that memorable time when the
Renascence was rising over the dying gloom of the Middle Ages.
It is impossible to tell here, even very briefly, the plots and
characters of the very numerous novels written by Jósika both in Hungary
and at Dresden, whither he retired after escaping the Austrians, who
had sentenced him to death as one of the prominent members of the
Hungarian “rebels.” All these novels are historic in subject, and even
quote, sometimes, chapter and verse from the chronicles on which they
are based. The most famous are “_Esther_;” “_Francis Rákóczy II._,” the
hero of which is the most popular of all Hungarian princes who ever
revolted from the Habsburgs; “A Hungarian Family during the Revolution”
(“_Egy magyar család a forradalom alatt_”); “The Last Báthory” (“_As
utolsó Báthory_”). Jósika is easily compared to and measured by Walter
Scott. Yet there is in the very tendencies of their works a marked
difference. Scott, in writing his novels, was prompted more by his
literary tastes and proclivities than by any consideration of politic
aims. Both Scotland and England were during his life-time (1771-1832)
at the height of their triumphal career. His novels were romantic work
pure and simple. England being at the head of the powers combating the
French Revolution, her literary geniuses, too, followed lines opposed to
modern Liberalism; in other words, they became romantic. Hungary, on the
other hand, was, during the life-time of Jósika, an oppressed country,
and after a short period of glory during her war of independence, she
vegetated for over ten years in a torpor caused by a fiercely reactionary
government. Into Jósika’s novels, therefore, there necessarily entered
a political element, which coloured his work with a tint unknown to the
great Scotchman’s tales. And this, together with the circumstance of
his becoming rapidly a “standard” novelist, explains Jósika’s literary
eminence and also his literary failings. In his attempt to use the story
of Hungary’s past as a means of reviving her present, he naturally
lost sight of some of the purely literary laws of novel-writing. His
characters being already given by history, he neglected to elaborate
their psychology. Events happen rather unto or by them, than through
them. The inner machinery of motives is sometimes clumsy or too flimsy.
Being much in demand as a “standard” novelist, he wrote much; too
much. Yet with all these occasional shortcomings, Jósika is one of the
most splendid novelists of the picturesque class. Few Hungarian books
recording Hungary’s past will give the foreign reader a more pleasing
and, at the same time, instructive picture of the romantic days of that
great country. The professorial critic, reposing on the tattered laurels
of his victims, if not on his own, will find much to rebuke in Jósika.
The youth of Hungary and the unprejudiced foreigner will always read him
with delight.
CHAPTER XXV.
The second great novelist in that period was Eötvös. Born in 1813, he
received a careful education, and after extensive travels in western
Europe, embraced the judicial career for a time. When still a young
man, at the age of six-and-twenty, he published his first great novel,
“The Carthusian” (“_A Karthauzi_,” 1839-40). This remarkable work had
an immense effect. It was read with equal delight in the palaces of the
magnates, and in the closets of the middle-class people. It charmed the
young and moved the old. It seemed to express the very innermost cravings
and mental propensities of the then Hungarian public. More than that.
It expressed a state of feeling then almost universal on the continent
of Europe. Like Goethe’s “_Werther_,” it lent expression to what lay
dormant and unexpressed in the hearts of millions of Europeans. The
sultry atmosphere then weighing on continental Europe had engendered a
morbid melancholy in many a high-strung man and woman. Life seemed to
be full of unsolved and unsolvable problems; full of forces disruptive
and disintegrating, causing unease uncertainty and distress. All the
nobler efforts of men in building up their private or public fortunes
appeared to be blighted and marred by the demoniac perverseness of the
political and social powers of the time. A brooding meditativeness
seized people, and fresh and vigorous deeds being impossible, pale
and despondent reflections embroiled men in a dumb struggle against
destiny. Such was the mental temper of a very large class of men and
women in France, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Italy. Eötvös himself
had, from early youth, been given to that morbid meditativeness and
self-destructive sensitiveness of the age; and the sorrowful condition
of his country only increased his pathetic melancholy. Hungarian young
men and women, then and now, are naturally very much more pathetic and
grave than the youth of any other country. They have neither the virile
alacrity of the British youth so agreeably manifested in the games and
muscular amusements of young England; nor the precocious polish and
gaiety of French youths. Theirs is a heavy mood, similar to that of the
_Largos_ of Hungarian music, but followed by no _Friss_ or _Vivace_.
To souls tuned in such minor keys, the “_Karthauzi_” came as the very
revelation of their deepest secrets. Hitherto the epics and novels
written in Hungary had been retrospective work. They narrated the woes
and joys, the troubles and glories of past ages. In Eötvös’ novel there
was, practically for the first time, a work of introspective _actualité_;
a work appealing to the reader himself, and not only to his historic
imagination. The queries tormenting the young men and women of that age
were here subjected to an analysis full of psychological inquisitiveness,
enveloped in the gloaming of poetic descriptions of Nature. The plot
of the novel is of the simplest. Gustavus, a French nobleman, in whose
agitated soul are accumulated all the tempest-laden clouds of his age,
seeks in vain to find peace and consolation in Love, Pleasure and
Ambition. Julia, his first love, deserts him for an unworthy “other one;”
Betti, his second love, he rejects himself. And so, tossed from one rock
of discord to the other, he finally enters the order of the Carthusians,
and there, amidst steady work and in firm faith, finds the only solution
that can await characters like his: Death. Goethe, with the terrible
serenity of judgment so peculiar to him, once remarked, that there are,
as he called them, “problematic characters, who can do justice to no
situation in which they may be placed.” Such a character is Gustavus. But
such was also the general and typical character of his time; and hence
the immense effect of the novel. Even the chief and serious deficiency of
the novel, being as it was, the deficiency of numerous Hungarian minds
of that time, only helped to increase its popularity. Eötvös could never
quite overcome the inner contrast between his Franco-German education and
the Magyar character of his works. Of all the great Hungarian writers,
his language is the least Magyar in form and savour. The European
and the Magyar were constantly battling in him and frequently to the
detriment of the latter. His was not that power of blending European and
national culture into a new and harmonious composition. That power is
distinctively the characteristics of the classical writers of nations.
It belongs only to the highest form of genius. But the reading public of
the “_Karthauzi_” was largely recruited from amongst people in whom that
conflict between western and Magyar culture had likewise not been brought
to a harmonious issue. They thus found in the great novel that very
failing of their own class, without which, according to Grillparzer’s
profound remark, success is hardly obtainable in any profession.
In 1845, Eötvös published another great novel: “The Village Notary”
(“_A falu jegyzője_”). It was meant to be a scathing satire on the
corruption, backwardness and general administrative misery of public
county life in Hungary. Eötvös, whose conceptions of the state and its
organs were formed largely after the models of German, Austrian and
French organizations, was deeply convinced of the utter insufficiency
of that local selfgovernment, which in Hungary had nearly always been
one of greater independence than that even of England. In Hungary all
the leading and influential officials in the counties were elective, and
from among the noble class of the county only. Being more than underpaid,
they frequently abused their power, and contrived to secure a relatively
large income by means of exactions and terrorizations of all kinds. The
typical figure of these squires was the _szolgabiró_, or under-sheriff,
as he may be termed, if with inaccuracy, who presided over nearly all the
public affairs of one of the districts into which counties are divided.
His administration was frequently carried on pasha fashion indeed; and
the poorer classes were much at his mercy. Eötvös, who thought that the
strongly centralized and systematized organization of French or German
local governments was undoubtedly much superior to the system obtaining
in Hungary, published his novel with the intention of bringing about a
change in public opinion, and so finally a change in the county-system
itself. To the immense benefits accruing to the Hungarians as a nation
through the very system of local selfgovernment which Eötvös so cruelly
exposed, he was insensible. That county-life, in spite of all its crying
abuses, was the only and indispensable preliminary schooling for the
functions of government in council or parliament; that these rough
and uncultured county-gentry in Hungary, as well as their brethren in
England, were far better fitted for some of the most important tasks of
government and politics than the most methodic and punctual official
in French or German local offices, to all that Eötvös paid no serious
attention. His warm-hearted love of Equality and Right made him boil over
at the sight of many an injustice—at the hands of men whose inferiority
in point of knowledge and western culture rendered them easy objects
of contempt to one who gauged all political greatness by the standard
of France or Germany. Eötvös, the politician, entertained of course
the same ideas about the value of the old Hungarian county-system, as
did Eötvös the novelist. He was a “centralist”; and the number of his
followers has been very great to the present day. They still maintain
that even the present remnants of the old county-system in Hungary are
very injurious to the Magyar state; and that nothing short of a total
overhauling, or—to talk plainly—abolition of that system, and the
introduction of French centralization in its lieu can save the kingdom
of St. Stephen. In more recent times the historic work of Béla Grünwald
on the social and political condition of Hungary from 1711 to 1825 (“_A
régi Magyarország_”) has elaborated the ideas of Eötvös with the armoury
of learned footnotes and systematic chapters. The novel of Eötvös is
still the text of all the loud centralists in Hungary, to whom the county
selfgovernment is an absurd anachronism. As a matter of fact, on the
continent, Hungary is the only country where local selfgovernment is
still extant. Nor can there be any doubt, that that local selfgovernment
alone enabled the Magyars to hold their supremacy over the numerically
stronger nations in their country. Taking the British constitution as the
model of all representative government, we cannot go astray in claiming
for such government three absolutely indispensable elements. First, a
parliament proper, consisting of two Chambers or Houses; secondly, a
cabinet proper; and thirdly, two or three real and energetic political
parties, the numerous members of which take an intense interest in every
one of the political issues of the day. Applying this standard to the
United States, for instance, we find, that the Americans while having a
federal, two-chambered parliament and also two or more genuine parties,
yet have no Cabinet proper; and hence many of the features of political
corruption that were rampant in England in the times from Charles II.
to George III., when the Cabinet was still forming, and not yet formed,
may be noticed in the United States at the present day. In the same way
France has a Cabinet indeed, and also a two-chambered parliament; but
genuine political parties, with members intensely interested in politics,
are wanting. Hence the instability and irregularity of the French
representative government. In Hungary, and there alone, the student of
politics will find a perfect replica of the British constitution, in
that the fine superstructure of Parliament and Cabinet is based on the
broad pedestal of genuine political parties. The members of these parties
take a real, passionate and untiring interest in political questions of
any kind, and hence there is a real public opinion, a real nation. This
basis of the political life in Hungary, where has it been quarried from
but in the local selfgovernment of the counties? Interest in the mostly
arid questions of politics can be acquired only by early and constant
contact with men who make it almost the chief interest of their lives. It
is in the county halls, and in the social reunions of the county-gentry,
that the young Magyars learn the great lesson of dispensing authority,
commanding respect and discussing public business with tact and prudence.
It is there that men were formed who could at all times find resources
to withstand the anti-national policy of the Habsburgs or the occasional
rebellions of the Slav or Roumanian peasantry. Of the country-gentlemen
in Hungary indeed may be said, what Macaulay wrote of the English esquire
of the seventeenth century: that “his ignorance and uncouthness, his low
tastes and gross phrases, would, in our time, be considered as indicating
a nature and a breeding thoroughly plebeian. Yet he was essentially a
patrician, and had, in large measure, both the virtues and vices which
flourish among men set from their birth in high place, and accustomed to
authority, to observance and to self-respect.” (_History of England_,
Ch. III.) It was amongst these rough squires that the two great parties
of England were formed. It was likewise amongst the much derided
_táblabirók_ and _szolgabirók_ (squires and justices) of Hungary, that
the men of 1825 and 1848 were formed; and in our time they have given
Hungary one of the indispensable elements of representative government:
real political parties.
It appears necessary to dwell at some length on the great historic and
political questions underlying the famous novel of Eötvös. No doubt,
every Hungarian cannot but wish to see that novel in the hands of all who
take an interest in Hungary. For, “The Village Notary” contains capital
portraits of many a quaint, wild or pathetic type of inner Hungary.
The down-trodden notary (Tengelyi); the tyrannical _szolgabiró_ (or
squire) Paul Nyúzó (meaning: flayer); Viola, the honest peasant, who
being shamefully wronged betakes himself to the forest and _pusztas_
(prairies) to lead the life of a robber; Mrs. Réty, the wife of the chief
magistrate of the county, who is entangled in a fearful domestic tragedy,
etc., etc. Moreover, the novel contains excellent pieces of irony and
satire; and being reared on the broad idea of social reform never sinks
to mere pamphleteering. Yet, with all that, we cannot but protest against
the misstatement of the political importance of county-life in Hungary
as advanced in that novel. Fully acknowledging, as we do, its literary
value, which is diminished only by the heavy and un-Magyar diction, we
deprecate its judgment on an institution without which Hungary would have
long been reduced to the level of a mere province of Austria. Eötvös,
like most idealists bred in the school of German idealism, could not
endure rough Reality. He forgot, that for the making of history, as for
that of bread, unclean matter is, at certain stages, an indispensable
element.
We have two more novels by Eötvös: “Hungary in 1514” (“_Magyarország
1514 ben_,” 1847), which is a fair picture of the time of the
peasant-rebellion in Hungary, under George Dózsa; and “The Sisters” (“_A
nővérek_,” 1857), a feeble story with many ideas on Education.
On Eötvös, as a writer on politics, and the Philosophy of History, see
page 251. It may here be mentioned that Eötvös, who was President of the
Academy, was frequently called upon to deliver commemorative discourses
on the lives and merits of deceased members of the Academy and the
Kisfaludy Society (see page 113). His speeches are, as a rule, of great
oratorical power, and illuminated with grand conceptions of Life and
Literature. He was eminently an orator, not a rhetor; and although he
seldom reached the magnificence of Kölcsey (see page 107), he is no
unworthy follower of him.
CHAPTER XXVI.
At the present day most people of culture outside Hungary know the name
of Jókai, the Hungarian novelist; few, if any, know the name of Sigismund
Kemény. Yet, of the two, Kemény is probably the greater writer. He is the
Balzac of Hungary, less Balzac’s fame. For, strange to say, in Hungary
itself, the novels of Kemény are very little known; and although several
Magyar critics of the highest authority have declared Kemény to be the
greatest novelist of the Hungarians, yet the reading public in Hungary
neither buys nor reads the masterpieces of the Transylvanian baron. This
lack of general appreciation seems to be somewhat inherent in the very
kind of genius possessed by men like Balzac and Kemény. The former, it
is true, has a well-known name, and his works have spread over Europe
and America. Yet, even in France, the full grandeur of his genius has
not yet been recognized. Balzac has, as yet, no statue in Paris, which
city he has described more ingeniously than any other writer. Even in
his native town of Tours his statue was erected only in quite recent
times. The _Académie_ has never admitted him within her circle; and the
French are not yet aware that in Balzac they have their Shakespeare in
prose. Indeed, nobody short of Shakespeare will stand comparison with the
gigantic genius of Balzac. Both have created a long series of grand types
of humanity endowed with an undying life and charm of their own. To both
the secrets and puzzles of the human soul were transparent; and both had
the powers of philosophic analysis and poetic synthesis in equal shares.
Shakespeare, too, had to bide his time; and twenty-eight years after his
death, John Milton does not even mention his dramas as necessary reading
for a young gentleman’s education. Considering, then, the fate of Balzac
in France, with an eager reading public immeasurably more numerous than
that of Hungary, we need not wonder that Kemény suffered with tenfold
intensity from the drawbacks peculiar to his Balzacian genius.
We said, Kemény is the Balzac of Hungary. We did not say, he was equal to
Balzac. In Hungary a full-fledged Balzac can as yet not be expected. No
amount of native genius will enable a man to overcome obstacles such as
stand in the way of him who should undertake to do for Hungarian society
what Balzac did for French. The France of Louis-Philippe was infinitely
better adapted to the writing of its “_Comédie humaine_,” than the
Hungary of Kemény’s time.
Hungary is far from being as homogeneous as is France. In the latter
country, despite much variety in language and social institutions, there
is one pervading common spirit in all classes and peoples of the state.
Whether Norman or Gascon, the citizen of France is chiefly a Frenchman,
with distinctly French ideas and sentiments. France is the country
of the French. Hungary is not the country of the Hungarians; it is a
trysting-place of nations rather than the country of one nation. There
are not only classes and ranks, but each class or rank differs according
to the nation it belongs to. The Magyar _bourgeois_ is not like the Slav
_bourgeois_; and both differed, especially in Kemény’s time, from the
German _bourgeois_. No one, certainly not Kemény, can claim an intimate
knowledge of all the nations in Hungary; and thus no one has, as yet, so
profoundly impregnated himself with as immense an array of social facts
as had Balzac before he wrote his great novels. Balzac knew the entire
anatomy and physiology of the peasant, the soldier, the clergyman, the
provincial, the Parisian, the maid, the _concierge_, the _bourgeoise_,
the _grande dame_, the actress, the scholar, the lawyer, the speculator,
the _viveur_, the diplomatist—in short, of every shade of character that
went to form French society. In Hungary, such a knowledge could not be
acquired. Familiarity with ten to twelve languages is required to know
the full anatomy and physiology of the peasants in Hungary alone. To
do, therefore, for Hungarian society what Balzac had done for French;
to write the Hungarian “_Comédie humaine_” has so far been practically
impossible; nor did Kemény do it. And yet, within the narrow limits of
his arena, Kemény worked with the spirit and genius of Balzac. That
his capacity was essentially akin to that of the great French writer
there can be no doubt. It was not of the same comprehensiveness. Balzac
had humour and wit; Kemény had none. Balzac had an exquisite sense
of proportion, if not always in his style, at least always in the
architecture of his plot; Kemény had not. Balzac was an encyclopædist of
the human heart, in that he knew women as well as men; Kemény knew men
far better than women. Balzac’s range of observation being greater, his
mind was subtler even than that of Kemény. Yet, with all that, Kemény’s
genius was essentially akin to that of Balzac. He, too, had that vast
knowledge of historic events and that interest in scientific researches
that suggested to Balzac innumerable shades and innuendoes of thought,
and _aperçus_ on every form and phase of life. Kemény, like Balzac,
had studied much in books and nature and man; he also had that love
of realism—that following up of mental or emotional waves into their
minutest recesses in the face or voice or gestures of persons. The
outward or material appearance of man: his dress, house, arms, art-work,
or contrivances were a matter of profound study to Kemény, as they were
to Balzac. Although intensely analytical, he is equally great at and
fond of descriptions. He paints nature, more especially that of his
beloved Transylvania, as one intimate with mountains, rivers and forests.
He knows their language and physiognomy; his landscapes are like the
choruses in Greek tragedies. They form part of the scenes; not only of
the scenery. They are like the contrapuntal bass to the melodies of his
novels. But in what Kemény resembles Balzac most is his inexorableness.
There is no other word for it. In nearly all his novels, as in most of
those of Balzac, man is crushed down pitilessly, remorselessly. Without
making any deliberate show of pessimism, Kemény is intensely pessimistic.
As in Balzac the overpowering demon of modern times is money, after
which all crave, all run and rush, jostling, panting, jading; so in
Kemény, the bane of man appears under the form of those small mistakes
and errors which dig the grave of all hopes. The great passions, vices
and crimes do not, in Kemény’s novels, act as the causes of the final
downfall of his heroes or heroines. His heroes do not die from strokes
of lightning, shooting forth from the black clouds of their terrible
passions or heinous crimes. On the contrary: such lightnings rather
illumine their road to success. They end, as it were, through a fire
caused by a carelessly dropped match. The ghastly irony of real life,
which no unbiassed observer can have failed to notice, is shown in
his novels in all its terrible working. The melancholy of Eötvös is
sweet and soothing; the gloom of Kemény is discomforting, distressing,
just because Kemény never seems to be deliberately pessimistic. While
reading his novels, the reader is so struck with the beauty of those
gems of original and profound ideas and remarks, which Kemény strews in
prodigious abundance over the objects and persons of his novels, that
the persistent gloom and despair dominating nearly all his works, do not
become so painful to the reader. It is when we have finished the book;
when we overlook the whole of the plan; when we have laid our ear on the
throbbing heart of each of the persons with whom we had been through
several volumes; it is when the novel in its entirety has entered our
mind, that we feel deserted by all hopefulness, and embittered by the
foul destiny reigning over man’s best efforts. There can be but little
doubt that the indifference, with which Kemény has been so far received
in Hungary, is largely owing to his pessimism. The Hungarians, like the
English, have little idiosyncrasy for pessimism. This mood of viewing
things is the outcome of mental struggles, from which the better minds of
both countries have been saved by their intense political life. Pessimism
is eminently the nursling of thought. In Hungary there is, as in England,
much more acting than thinking. Whatever there may be of pessimism in the
Hungarians is used up in some of their superbly-despondent folk-songs.
For Kemény’s pessimism the time has not yet come. Perhaps he would have
impressed his contemporaries far more deeply had he chosen not to write
historic novels. Nearly all of his great novels are historic novels.
As history, they are really incomparable. If we possessed a hundred
historic novels, describing a hundred important periods of general
history, in the manner, with the graphic power and true intimacy with the
past, so peculiar to Kemény, we should know history infinitely better.
Kemény has something of the erudition of a Gierke or John Selden, with
the plastic descriptiveness of a great painter. Read his Transylvanian
novels, and you have a clearer, more vivid and more correct knowledge
of Transylvanian history in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
than you could gather from the study of the various chroniclers and
memoir-writers of that time, such as Reicherstorffer, Schesaeus,
Sigler, Heltai (see page 47), Verantius, Tinódy (see page 47), Somogyi
(Ambrosius), Stephen Szamosközy, Nicolas Oláh, Zsámboky, Michael Brutus,
Francis Forgách, Nicolas Istvánffy, Francis Mikó, Gregory Petthő, Kraus,
the Bethlens, Haner, etc. Kemény is thus one of the best historians of
Hungary. Nor can we think much less of him as a novelist. He engages our
interest in the characters of his tales; they work on our imagination,
they appeal to our hearts. More particularly to Hungarians, the actors of
Kemény’s novels appear as individuals full of charm and significance. To
use one of Ben Jonson’s happy phrases, they are “rammed with life”—life
national, patriotic, historic. And yet, with all these commanding
excellencies in his novels, Kemény has, there can be little doubt,
committed a grave blunder in literary strategy, in investing the output
of his vast intellectual mines in historic novels. Had he been less of a
historian, he might have written his historic novels at a smaller loss
of literary efficiency. His very greatness as a historian debarred him
from approaching Balzac still more closely. For his faithfulness as a
historian prevented him from elaborating fully those types of humanity,
the creation of which is Balzac’s glory. Such types cannot, as a rule, be
found in history. History, or that part of reality in which human beings
are the actors, is full of blurred types of mongreldom and bastardy. No
line in the features of man, as a real phenomenon, is drawn out purely
and to its legitimate term; good and bad, sublime and vile, sentiments
and deeds, are lumbering higgledy piggledy across each other. The poet
or artist, who is truest to reality, is untruest to poetry and art.
At all times the attempt at realism in art has landed where has the
attempt at materialism in philosophy—in impotence. Historic novels, if
very historic, as are these of Kemény, must thus necessarily benumb the
creative power of the poet. And so they have. Had Kemény, instead of
the past, embraced the present; had he followed in the wake of Balzac
in fetching from the depth of Hungarian humanity some of the arch-types
of European humanity, as was done by the author of “_Père Goriot_” with
regard to French humanity, Kemény would stand out as one of the greatest
writers of European literature. As it is, he is only one of the great
writers of Hungarian Literature. What is perhaps more astonishing still
in that choice of the historic novel by Kemény, is the fact that he was
for years engaged in a profession than which very few can attach us more
intently to actual, present life. Kemény was one of the most influential
and hardest-worked political journalists of his time. In the columns
of the “_Pesti Napló_” he poured out, in astounding profusion, leading
articles about all the great events and persons of his time. In these
articles he showed profound knowledge of the very pulse and heart of his
age; and such was his power of exposition, analysis and appreciation of
the fleeting occurrences of the day, that his political articles have
been a matter of admiration both to his contemporaries and subsequent
historians. As a rule, great politicians do not write historic novels.
They are too much imbued with the spirit of their own age, in the
direction of which they have had no small share, to be inclined, or even
able, to familiarise themselves with the spirit of ages bygone. Kemény is
an exception, and while this certainly testifies to the comprehensiveness
of his mind, it renders the strategic mistake above mentioned more marked
still.
We must abstain from giving a detailed account of his novels. Their plots
are, by themselves, simple, if not purely on the lines of the historic
events which they relate. Their author, like Balzac, excels chiefly in
psychology and analysis; and although the dialogue is not neglected, it
is not made the centre of the tale. In “_Gyulai Pál_” (1846) is shown the
struggle between a noble and high-minded statesman and his ambition. In
the attempt at saving his prince, Sigismund Báthori, from the latter’s
rival, Balthesar Báthori, Gyulai plunges into a series of crimes, and
mortally wounds the heart of his idol, Eleonore, who finally brings about
his execution. In “The Widow and Her Daughter” (“_Az özvegy és leánya_,”
1857) is told, and with greater regard to form and architecture than in
Kemény’s other novels, the tragedy of the family of Mikes. A subject
admirably suited to the gloom of Kemény’s mental atmosphere is treated
in his “The Fanatics” (“_A rajongók_,” 1859), a story of the curious
sect of the Sabbatarians in Transylvania in the fourth decade of the
seventeenth century (_cf._ page 55). The Macchiavellian prime minister,
Kassai, on the one hand, and the rich and mystic Simon Pécsi, the head
of the Sabbatarians, with his beautiful daughter Deborah, on the other,
are amongst the leading persons of this terrible novel. No less appalling
in its way is “Rough Times” (“_Zord idő_,” 1862), in which the capture
of the Hungarian capital, Buda, by the Turks, is told with magnificent
power. In the short novels of Kemény, taking up subjects of modern time
(“Love and Vanity” [“_Szerelem és hiúság_”]; “Husband and Wife” [“_Férj
és nő_”]; “The Abysses of the Heart” [“_A sziv örvényei_”]); as well
as in his smaller tales, such as “Virtue and Convention” (“_Erény és
illem_”); “Two Happy Persons” (“_Két boldog_”); “_Alhi Kmet_” (a proper
name), etc., Kemény likewise dwells on that _fatalisme raisonné_ as it
might be called, that does not permit him, or very rarely, to tarry over
the sunny moments of life. Writers like Kemény, in quite modern times,
have found means of gently veiling their inner despondency by light
touches of melancholy, as is done by Maeterlinck; or by fine irony, as
used by Anatole France. In Kemény there is no mercy, not even that of
irony. His novels are like the gigantic inundations of the Theiss river
in Hungary: you see the floods nearing, often noiselessly, but with
distressing rapidity, and in all directions; there is no escaping them;
in their inexorable progress they roll onward like a host of innumerable
serpents, stifling life and levelling down everything to the sameness
of death. When Kemény died (1875), on his small paternal estate of
Puszta-Kamarás, in Transylvania, he had himself long been buried by the
floods of mental derangement. Reality had shown him no pity either.
CHAPTER XXVII.
The poets and writers of the Magyars, whom we have been studying in the
preceding chapters, were, in a lesser or higher degree, authors of works
whose excellence was, to a large extent, of a relative, or national and
not of an absolute character.
We now approach the study of Alexander Petőfi. His was a genius which,
perhaps alone amongst Hungarian writers, so completely blended the
peculiar national excellencies of Magyar poetry with the broader features
of European literary greatness, as to entitle him to the admiration of
all who can feel poetic beauty, irrespective of nationality or even
language. Real poetry, like real music, appeals to all nations, and to
all times. In Petőfi there is real poetry. Other poets are felicitous
in expression, and the musical cadence of their diction endears them to
their compatriots. Others again create one or two poetical types the
charm of which lends grace and interest to even insignificant verses.
Many more poets again play on religious, moral, or patriotic sentiments,
and thus appeal to the hearts or imagination of readers with whom such
sentiments easily wax overwhelming. In Petőfi there is more than all
that. His language is rich and beautiful; yet it is not in his language
that he excels. He never or very seldom borrows effect from appeals to
morals or religion. He creates poetical phenomena—that is all. Where
before him nobody ever surmised any poetic phenomena at all, there he
conjures up a whole fairy-world of poetic conceptions, figures, events,
or scenes. The true poet discovers the new land by creating it. In Nature
herself there is no more poetry than in a grocer’s shop. Nor is there a
trace of any other thought in Nature. There is no philosophy in it and no
mathematics. Heaven alone knows how Nature is carrying on her business.
She is the most wasteful of managers, and yet she is never bankrupt. She
is as heedless as the most thoughtless of business men, and yet traces
of profound thought appear to be discoverable in her dealings. And so
the mathematician, or the physicist arrives at neatly limbed formulæ
expressing so-called laws of Nature. Yet nothing can be more certain
than that Nature herself is not acting on the lines of laws. To us, to
human beings, it appears convenient and useful to bracket some of the
happenings of infinite Nature between logical ideas, thereby giving us
the satisfaction of “understanding” those happenings. Nature abhors being
understood, yet by dint of an irrepressible desire of man, thinkers will
always attempt at construing her by dressing up natural phenomena in the
jackets of formulæ and in the petticoats of concepts.
It is even so with poetry. There is no poetry whatever in Nature. All
poetry is invented and created by man, just as all music is. He who
invents the greatest number of events, scenes, or types that strike
men as being poetical, is the greatest of poets. It is impossible to
say how he invents them; nor can he or anybody else say where, that
is, with relation to what spot, creature, or phenomenon of Nature he
will invent them. One thing alone is certain, he must _invent_ them.
For centuries before Petőfi was born, Hungary had had the same mixed
population; the same mountains; the same mighty rivers and lakes; and
the same mysterious _puszta_, which to Petőfi suggested an astounding
number of exquisite poems. He alone “understood their mystic language;”
that is, he alone invented the poetry to the substratum of Nature; he
alone wrote the thrilling drama to the dumb flies and staging of Nature
in Hungary. He sees an old ram-shackle inn in the midst of the _puszta_.
To the ordinary mortal the inn is suggestive of nothing more than the
expectation of a poor dinner, of a bad bedstead, of uncanny companions.
To an ordinary poet it may suggest images of decay or regret, more or
less poetical. To Petőfi it suggests intensely poetical scenes of life
exuberant or decadent; the inn (“_csárda_”) is transfigured by him into
a living being; every one of its corners commences to breathe poetry,
music, reminiscences and forebodings. So new and individual a creation
is thus made of that wayside inn, that the painter may find in it new
subjects for his canvas, and the musician new themes for his lyre.
Wherever Petőfi is touched by nature or society, he responds by the
creation of poetic phenomena. The wind blowing over the plains of Hungary
is, in truth, inarticulate; in wafting through the body and soul of the
incomparable poet it turns, as if directed through the pipes of an organ
at the hands of a Bach, to melancholy fugues and majestic oratorios.
And so with everything. Petőfi sings love in hundreds of poems, yet he
was scarcely ever loved by woman. For nearer as woman is to Nature, she
is also more realistic and less charged with poetry than man. What then
could she do with one who had unloaded into the chests of his youthful
soul all the treasures of poetry, but none of gold? This, however, far
from deterring Petőfi or disgusting him, rather stimulated him. He loved
much; that is, he loved little. Love was for him, like the _puszta_, the
Theiss river and the Carpathian mountains, an immense suggestiveness;
an ocean, the crossing of which led to the discovery of new continents
of poetry. Nearly all the pretty or interesting women whom he met,
whether the lawless gipsy-girl, the actress, the coy _bourgeoise_,
the lady, the peasant-girl or the hostelry-maid, he loved them all or
thought he did. And this was owing not to his extreme youth—he died when
six-and-twenty—but to his passion for poetic creativeness. Everyone
of the types of women just mentioned served him as an occasion for
creating one of those scenes as replete with life poetic as are forests
or rivers with life natural. In one sense indeed he was right in saying
that he was “the wild flower of boundless Nature” (“_A korláttalan
természet-Vadvirága vagyok én_”). His mode of creation was quite on the
lines of that of Nature. A poem grew out of his mind as does a violet
out of the ground. In him there is no reflection, no machinery, no
hesitation. Every line rolls on with the assurance and self-contentedness
of a rose-leaf budding forth from the stem. He has the meditated
carelessness of Nature, and also her freshness, her immediateness and
spontaneity. More particularly, he is like Nature in Hungary. From the
heights of thought as lofty as the peaks of the Carpathian mountains,
and as chilling as those snow-clad solitudes (see his superb philosophic
flashes in the poems written at Szalk Szt Márton, in 1846), he descends
into the tiny nest of homely sentiments as does a lark into the furrow.
His indignation, patriotic or otherwise, is as terrible as are the
inundations of the Theiss; and side by side with poems flaming with
uncontrollable fire and restlessness are poems full of oriental calm
and staid repose. Yet, in the poet’s own opinion, he resembled most
the _puszta_ or immense plain of Hungary. Petőfi, who had tramped over
nearly every part of his country, gave, in a magnificent poem, the palm
of beauty to the steppes and pampas of central and southern Hungary.
The _puszta_ in Hungary is really a series of some three thousand
_pusztas_, of which the most famous is that of Hortobágy, near Debreczen,
the praises of which Petőfi has sung in various exquisite poems. These
_pusztas_ differ very much in physical character; some are covered with
rich wheat-fields, tobacco plantations, or maize-forests; others again
are swamps, or natron-ponds, or again waste lands, or heaths. This
diversity of abundance and penury, ecstasy of nature and dreary desert,
squares well with the rhapsodic temper of the Magyars in general, and
that of Petőfi in particular. After miles and miles of deadly silence,
the traveller enters one of the bustling “market-towns,” full of the
eccentric and picturesque types of the _puszta_. There is the dignified
farmer or peasant, with his smart, coquettish, and light-tongued wife,
or _mennyecske_ (“little heaven”); there are the various shepherds and
keepers of sheep (“_bojtár_”), oxen (“_gulyás_”), swine (“_kondás_”), or
horses (“_csikós_”), each in his particular costume and each a different
type of the Hungarian Bedouin. The “_bojtár_,” tending the immense herds
of sheep and lambs in the pampas, is mild-tempered, musical and full
of secret medical lore. The animals under his care are frequently ill,
and he watches their instinctive ways of picking out the herbs that
will cure them. So he acquires a knowledge of herbs and an insight into
nature which makes him appear a wizard. The “_gulyás_” tends the big
cattle, oxen and bulls, and is naturally a rough fellow, fond of fight
and of wild rollicking. He frequently wrestles with enraged bulls that
have fled into the swamps, or with the poachers and robbers roaming
over the _puszta_. The “_kondás_” is the lowest type of those herdsmen.
He is sullen, hard of access, and irascible, and easily turns into a
robber. The most brilliant type is the “_csikós_.” He tends the immense
herds of horses browsing in the prairies of Hungary. As the violin and
the _furulya_ (or sort of piccolo) are the national instruments of the
Magyars, so the horse is their national animal. “The Magyar is created
for being on horseback” (_lóra termett a magyar_), the Hungarian proverb
holds. Peasant or nobleman, all are keen horsemen, and so intense is
their love of the horse that, like Arabs, Hungarian poets treat the horse
as a poetical character. The _csikós_ is dashing, quick at repartee,
an excellent dancer and singer or rather improvisatore, and grown to
his horse. He knows every patch of his _puszta_, and every trick and
dodge of horse-dealing and—horse-stealing. The girls idolize him. In
his fluttering, highly-coloured costume, he is the very martial, bold
and provoking youth whom girls will worship. Amidst these types of the
_puszta_, none the least fascinating is the “_szegény legény_,” or “poor
lad.” He is the robber and brigand of the _puszta_, and the romantic
interest attaching to him grows out of the belief that he took to his
lawless profession after having been thwarted in life or baffled in
love. But of all the phenomena of the _puszta_, the Fata Morgana, or
_mirage_, in Hungarian “_déli báb_,” is the most striking. On a sultry
afternoon in summer, cities appear in mid-heaven, images of towers
and castles, immense lakes and forests. They shine sometimes with a
peculiar, supermundane lustre, and the traveller thinks he is walking in
fairy-land. Then suddenly they disappear. Such is the _puszta_.
The influence of the _puszta_ on the Magyar poets is undeniable; and
Petőfi, more than any other Hungarian poet, seems to be the high-priest
and devotee of the peculiar charms of the great plain. The real relation,
however, between the poet and his country is that between the traveller
and the mirage. It is in the eyes of the former that the latter is
forming, and there alone. Petőfi creates the Fata Morgana, with which he
fills the vast horizon of his beloved _puszta_. Although professionally
a lyric poet, his lyrics are of the purely objective kind. Many of his
best poems might be told in prose, and in any other language, without
losing much of their charm. There is, in his best works, an abiding
_fond_ of poetry, quite independent of the music or picturesqueness
of his words, or the strikingness of his similes. Heine, in his best
moments, rivals without always equalling him. Petőfi’s poems are mostly
very short; they, as it were, only state the poetic scene which then
works on the imagination or heart of the reader quite alone. When Heine
speaks of the lonely pine-tree standing on the snow-covered heights of
the north, dreaming of a palm perched in the far east on a rock burning
with the heat of the sun of the desert, he strikes a chord that will
vibrate in us long after and beyond the two simple stanzas in which
he tells the story of the two trees. This is objective poetry. It is
in this that Petőfi excels. Already in some of his earliest poems he
writes perfect objective poetry. In “The Stolen Horse” (“_Lopott ló_,”
1843) we are told of one of those fleeting scenes in puszta-life, in
which the poet by seizing the pregnant point where present, past and
future meet, gives us the story of several lives in words so few as to
seem insufficient for the telling even of a short anecdote. A _csikós_
dashes on a stolen horse over the vast plain. The rich owner of the
noble animal, happening to pass by, recognizes his property, and calls
upon the _csikós_ to stop and surrender the horse. The fellow takes no
heed, and storms onward. Suddenly he stops, and turning round to the
owner, he exclaims, “Don’t miss your horse too badly; you have so many
of them. One heart was in my breast, and alas! your daughter has wrecked
it;” and disappears in the desert. The story of the poor boy’s love for
the haughty daughter of the rich man, her cruelty, the father’s pride,
the boy’s vengeance, his entrance on the wild life of a “poor lad,” or
robber; all that is pictured and suggested in the few words. In another
poem, the first line of which is “The wife of the inn-keeper loved
the vagabond” (“_A csaplárosné a betyárt szerette_,” 1844), the whole
tragedy of true love thwarted by lawless love is told in a few lines.
The vagabond (“_betyár_,” really “robber”) loves the maid of the wife
of an inn-keeper in the _puszta_. The wife loves the robber, and being
cut by him, drives away the poor girl, who dies of cold in the _puszta_.
The robber thereupon kills the woman, and dies on the gallows, without
regret, for “his life was no longer worth to him a pipe of tobacco.”
Another poem describes the wild rollicking of the boys in the village inn
at night. A knock is heard at the window, and a harsh voice bids the boys
to stop lest the quiet of the squire be disturbed. The boys only hold
forth all the louder. Another knock at the window is heard. In mild tones
a man asks the fellows to stop yelling, for his poor mother is ill. At
once all the frolic is at an end, and the boys leave the inn. It is in
such scenes, all expressed in the simplest and yet idiomatic language,
that Petőfi’s genius shines forth. Of him indeed it may be said that no
colour, tint or instrument with which to touch and stir up the human
heart was alien to him. Considering his extreme youth and the intense
gravity of his pathos, his exquisite and genuine humour is nothing short
of marvellous. It is the humour of a mature mind, full of ripe suavity
and mellow joyousness. Of Petőfi’s humour we could not use Hood’s lines:
“There’s not a string attuned to mirth
But has its chord in melancholy.”
It is playful humour, laughing a broad, sound laugh. He is not as witty
as Heine or Byron, but neither is he as cutting. In his famous poem
ridiculing the Magyar _hidalgo_ (“_A magyar nemes_”) there is nothing but
broad thrusts of a well-handled sword. There is no pricking with needles,
nor any guffaws of a satyr.
Literary critics in Hungary and elsewhere have, in their anxiety for
classification and cataloguing, placed Petőfi amongst the so-called
folk-poets, and nothing is more frequent than a comparison of Petőfi
with Burns and Béranger, the _chansonniers_ of Scotland and France
respectively. However, the comparison is untenable. While humour, pathos,
tenderness and descriptive powers will readily be accorded, and in great
measure, to the Scotch singer, he can hardly be compared to Petőfi in
that distinctively creative power, which not only touches sentiment, not
only finds charming words and images for things external or internal,
but also and chiefly discovers new poetic continents, so to speak, new
mines of poetic gold. The very range of subjects covered by the poetry of
the Hungarian poet is considerably wider than that of the Scotch bard;
and in the last two years of his life Petőfi was raised, partly by his
own genius and partly by the events of his time, to the position of a
nation’s prophet. This very position acted on his poetic gifts with a
force that Burns never experienced, and accordingly, every comparison of
the two poets is radically false. The same remark applies to Béranger.
The entire atmosphere of his famous _chansons_ is so different from that
of Petőfi’s songs, as to render a comparison of the two impossible.
Béranger sings the glories of the great Revolution and of Napoleon’s
time. He is sweet, fresh, graceful, full of _élan_ and smartness. He
creates a _genre_, a mode of poetry, but a limited one. Petőfi was
impressed by both poets; he knew Burns and Béranger well, and studied
them, together with Shelley, Byron, and Heine, pretty carefully. But
he never imitated them, and for the simple reason that he could not do
so. He was in the best sense of the word, original, that is, creative.
He could imitate no one, and no one could imitate him. Petőfi cannot be
classified; he is a class by himself. He cultivates, it is true, the
manner and tone of the folk-song (“_népdal_”), and so to superficial
critics he may appear only as the best folk-song writer of Hungary. He
is infinitely more than that; in 1846, for instance, he did not write a
single “_népdal_” (folk-song); he is Hungary’s greatest poet. In him is
embodied the entire poetical genius of a nation, in whose single members
we may frequently find the gift of improvisation and poetic invention.
The rhapsodic vein so conspicuous in the everyday life of Hungary, and
the exaggerations of which have vitiated many an effort, literary or
musical, comes out in Petőfi in its full vigour and full beauty. Like
all great poets, he is intensely truthful. There is no sham whatever in
him, no affectation and no false note. His passion is terribly real, and
his mirth, true joy. Nowhere can this absolute truthfulness be noticed
with greater clearness; nowhere does it shine forth more imposingly
than in one of Petőfi’s wildest, and apparently most exaggerated poems,
“The Madman” (“_Az őrült_”). It is a monologue of a mad Titan, whose
fine intellect has been unhinged by ingratitude of friends, treachery
of women, and undeserved reverses. We do not hesitate to say that there
is in the whole range of European literature no other single poem
representing the demoniac charm of a mind at once vigorous and diseased
with equal force and truth. Constantly moving on the edges of abysses
than which the human mind or heart does not know any more appalling, the
“madman” yet talks with a power and lucidity so overwhelming as to send
through his hearers the holy shivers of religious prostration. Distorted
in form, terribly true in substance; such is the character of this unique
poem, in which all the serpents of scorn and pain seem to wriggle
beneath the leaves of the beautiful word-foliage.
From Petőfi emanates the very soul of poetry and of all art: enthusiasm,
inspiration. After having written comic epics, love-poems, and
genre-pictures with a success never before witnessed, Petőfi, on the
approach of the revolutionary period, wrote those inflammatory patriotic
songs, the power of which was officially recognized by the Hungarian
Government, who had enormous numbers of Petőfi’s patriotic poetry printed
at their expense and distributed among the soldiers of the revolutionary
armies. His poems were then a national event, and they may in justice be
compared to a series of different “_Marseillaises_.”
We began our characterization of Petőfi by saying that he, perhaps alone
amongst Hungarian writers, completely blended Hungarian with European
elements. We may now state the reason of this his peculiar excellence.
Petőfi, like all classical poets, while very great as a master of
form, owes less to the beauty or ornaments of his language than to the
objective beauty of his imagery, personifications and poetic scenes.
For such as largely identify literature with great word-feats, Virgil
will be greater than Homer (as was commonly believed in the seventeenth
century); Tennyson greater than Shelley; Platen greater than Heine; and
Arany (see page 194) greater than Petőfi. This is, however, not the
judgment of such as gauge poetic greatness by the measure of objective
beauty contained in a given work. The importance of form in poetry can
hardly be exaggerated, and the necessity of paying the closest attention
to the rules of form will be felt by no one more keenly than by the
student of Hungarian Literature. Yet in attempting to find a measure
of comparison between great poets, who all more or less excel in form,
there can be no doubt, that he who is richer in objective beauty is also
the superior poet. It is this superiority that raises Petőfi head and
shoulders not only over the rest of the Hungarian poets, but also above
most other poetic writers of modern Europe. The types of the _puszta_,
which we have essayed to sketch above, the women, and events of his time;
all these and many more Magyar subjects were by Petőfi so _objectivated_,
and given an independent poetic existence of their own, that they cease
to be familiar to Hungarians only. They grow on the German, French or
English reader with equal sympathy, and Petőfi thus needs less commentary
for the foreigner than any other Hungarian poet. His works are like
the Hungarian Rhapsodies of Liszt, which appeal to Americans with the
same irresistible force as to Magyars, as the present writer has had
abundant opportunity of experiencing in the United States. Yet the same
Magyar melodies and turbulent cadences that Liszt, and Liszt alone,
succeeded in _objectivating_, utterly fail of effect in countries other
than Hungary when played by Hungarian gypsies in unadulterated Magyar
fashion. This, then, is the deepest and truest secret of Petőfi’s immense
power: while embracing mostly Magyar subjects, he so _objectivates_ them
as to render them enjoyable and sympathetic to non-Magyar readers too.
National poets inferior to Petőfi give their nation songs which other
nations too possess, and the only difference between them is that of
language. Petőfi gave Hungary and the rest of the civilized world what
no nation other than the Hungarian possesses. As the Hungarian nation
itself has an individuality so marked and so different from the other
nations of Europe, as to entail upon it an historic and social vocation
_sui generis_, so the poems of Petőfi, as the most felicitous exponent
of Hungarian nationality, add to the types of poetry produced by other
nations, a type, a species so individual and so richly personal as to
endow it with a literary vocation altogether its own. If we are to reduce
this peculiarly Magyar element to the precincts of a word, we should say
it is the rhapsodic element. By this we mean a peculiar temper of the
inspired mind pervading its joyous, humorous, meditative or despondent
moods alike. As Liszt is the greatest exponent of this rhapsodic
element in music, so Petőfi is in poetry. Most other rhapsodic poets or
musicians, Magyar or otherwise, have badly failed, some by degenerating
into rant or redundancy, others by becoming formless. Petőfi alone
succeeded in raising rhapsodies to the level of true art.
It was said above that Petőfi’s works are not in need of much commentary,
even for the foreigner. We may now add that the only commentary needed is
a knowledge of Petőfi’s life. Petőfi’s short life as a poet was coeval
with the great awakening of the Magyar nation to the full consciousness
of its position and its rights. He was born in 1823, in Kis-Körös,
and was the son of a well-to-do butcher, by the name of Petrovics,
husband to a Slav woman, called Mary Hruz. For historians who believe
in the race-theory, there is ample room for speculation, sympathetic or
malevolent, in the fact that the beloved mother of Hungary’s greatest
Magyar poet belonged to the “race” of the Slavs, whom all staunch Magyars
are disinclined to reckon amongst human beings. “_Tót nem ember, kása nem
étel_” (“The Slav is no human being, and porridge is no meal”), holds
the Hungarian proverb. Fully convinced as we are that there is no truth
whatever in the race-theory, we can only see in the fact of Petőfi being
the child of a Slav mother and a Magyar (or Magyar-speaking) father
a providential fact creating Hungary’s greatest poet from amongst a
_milieu_ saturated with both of the main elements of Hungarian society:
Magyar and Slav. Young Petőfi spent his youth in the large plains between
the Theiss and the Danube, and the impressions of that picturesque
portion of Hungary have left their indelible traces on his imagination.
At the age of fifteen, Petőfi was deprived of the comfort he had so far
enjoyed, by the financial failure of his father. From that time onward
he led a life replete with hardships of all kinds. At school he was a
failure, and even in poetics, as he has told us in one of his humorous
poems, he was “ploughed.” Being somewhat too fond of the inspiration of
the wine-cup, or at least being credited with such fondness, he soon
fell out with his hosts, his teachers and finally with his father. From
the misery of his position he tried to save himself by volunteering as a
private in the Austrian army. The very harsh treatment he had to endure
as a soldier told on his health, and although he had still moral strength
left to scribble his poems on the planks of the sentry-box in which he
mounted guard during the bitter winter, he at last was dismissed from
the service on account of symptoms of consumption. In the following two
or three years we find him tramping over all Hungary, writing verse,
and eking out a miserable livelihood by means of acting on provincial
stages. The great poet long believed in his vocation as an actor, and
obstinately stuck to a determination that met nowhere with any serious
encouragement. Meanwhile, however, his verses had made him a well-known
poet, and soon the idol of the country. In his travels to the north of
Hungary he was received, more especially at Kassa and Eperjes, with
honours usually accorded only to royalty. The nation felt that he was the
living personification of all the political and poetical aspirations of
the Magyars then struggling for manifestation. In 1846 he made, in the
county of Szathmár, the acquaintance of that strange and ill-balanced
girl, who was to become his wife. Juliet Szendrey was her name. She was
the daughter of a steward on one of the great estates of a Hungarian
nobleman, and had from early years shown symptoms of that malady which is
now more widely known under the name of “new womanism,” or “_féminisme_.”
Accordingly, she was eccentric and aimless, and when Petőfi made love to
her she was at a loss how to respond to a feeling so simple and natural.
Having given Petőfi some cruel samples of the waywardness of her temper,
it occurred to her that she might inflict even more pain on her father by
marrying the poor poet, and consequently she did so against the wish of
her parent. The young couple lived in very primitive lodgings in Pest,
and Madame took her fame as the wife of a great man with very grand
airs. She so intensely appreciated the happiness of being wedded to a
young genius and an affectionate husband, that she married, not quite
a year after Petőfi’s disappearance on the battlefield of Segesvár, a
man in every way infinitely inferior to Petőfi. Can anything prove the
Fata Morgana character of poetry and of poets more cruelly than the ever
infamous conduct of that highly cultivated woman, who, after having been
idolized and, in verses, immortalized by one of the greatest of poets,
showed her worthlessness by marrying a mediocrity before a single year
had elapsed after the glorious death of her husband, whose infant son
still required all her care? But let us return to the poet. A few months
after his marriage Petőfi began his political career by announcing to
the people of Pest the abolition of the censorship, and by reading to
the enthusiastic crowd his famous poem, “Rise o’ Magyar” (“_Talpra
magyar!_”), on the Ides of March, 1848. Towards the end of the same
year he took service in the revolutionary army, and was attached to
the Polish general, Bem, a hero wounded in untold battles for liberty,
and then serving the cause of the Magyars in Transylvania. Few letters
are more touching than the letters written by Petőfi in fair French to
the old warrior, his “father,” as he calls him. Bem, himself a genius
of character, at once felt and recognized the genius of Petőfi, and
with great tact smoothed over difficulties arising from the poet’s wild
insubordination. Against the advice and in spite of the entreaties of
numerous friends, who wanted to save the poet for his country, Petőfi
took actual part in various battles. He was last heard of in the battle
of Segesvár, in Transylvania, on July 31st, 1849, where he died as he had
long wished, fighting for his country. “To live for love, and die for
one’s country”—he had not only sung it....
The works of Petőfi are both lyrical and epical; his novelistic attempts,
“The Rope of the Hangman” (“_A hóhér kötele_”) are crude, so are his few
essays in the drama. Amongst his epics, “_Childe John_” (“_János vitéz_”)
is the best. It is a comic epic, or rather a fairy-story told with
exquisite humour and exuberance of fancy. Another excellent comic epic of
his is “_Bolond İstók_.” His lyrical poems are very numerous and cover,
as has been already indicated, the whole range of human sentiment.
Perhaps it is not superfluous to remark that there is in all the works
of Petőfi not a word likely to jar on the ear of the most fastidious
moralist. Like himself, his works all breathe the purity and health of
untainted youth.
The reader will now perhaps expect a laborious statement of the
shortcomings and failings of Petőfi as a poet. And many a Hungarian
critic has, apart from his professional duty to fall foul of this or
that feature in the literary physiognomy of poets, pointed out some
grievous drawbacks in Petőfi’s works. Thus, most critics have, while
lauding the splendid lyrical subjectivity of Petőfi, pointed out his
alleged incapacity to write anything else than himself. His chief
deficiency, it has been asserted, is his lack of objective imagination,
such as was possessed by the great epic and dramatic writers of European
literature. To this the answer is, it appears to us, very simple.
Petőfi never wrote a work intended to be an epic proper; nor were his
attempts at dramatic composition really serious. He cannot, therefore,
be legitimately reproached with having failed where he did not intend to
succeed. He never deliberately worked for such achievements of objective
imagination as show in the creation of dramatic personalities. Yet most
of his perfect poems manifest, as we have tried to show above, that
very objective imagination in the rarest form of strength. Hungarian
literary criticism is still, we regret to say, in a stage of development
considerably lower than Hungarian literary composition. Hence such
judgments on Petőfi. Can we pronounce otherwise on the literary critics
of Hungary, who have so far produced no single comprehensive study on the
works of a poet who is at once their greatest and most famous genius?
Genius has this peculiarity that its works are easy to enjoy but hard
to criticise. In reality, it takes another genius, a critical one, to
appreciate it adequately. In this respect, foreign literary criticism has
been relatively more just to Petőfi. In all the countries of Europe and
America, Petőfi’s name has been steadily spreading, and numerous attempts
at translations of his works have been made in both hemispheres. We do
not think that Petőfi is untranslatable. His very objectiveness renders
him more fit for free and yet faithful translations than, for instance,
Arany (see page 194). Another reason is that Petőfi lays less stress on
form and metre than other poets of an equal rank. He who fully seizes
the beauty of the poetic subject-matter in Petőfi’s poems can render
them more or less adequately in any language. More, however, than by
translation might be achieved by Hungarian artists who by picturing the
paintable features of Petőfi’s poems, would contribute most potently
to a general appreciation of his genius. There are hundreds of perfect
pictures to be taken from his works, provided the painter takes them from
him in the way in which Petőfi took them from nature.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Outside Hungary, the name of John Arany is seldom heard; and western
readers will be astonished to hear that Arany is considered by many
of the best known Magyar critics the greatest of the Hungarian poets.
Petőfi has never quite pleased the professors of æsthetics and poetry
in the various universities and “_academies_” of Hungary; and there
being no Magyar Saint Beuves or August Schlegels, to guide, with tact
sustained by learning, and learning eased by tact, the tastes and
literary opinions of the professorial minds in Hungary, it is not rare
to hear and read of Arany as the greatest poetic genius of the Magyars.
We hasten to add, that we readily bow to the greatness and charm, and
still more to the merits of Arany. He is a great poet indeed. Nearly
every one of his numerous ballads, epics and smaller poems is replete
with the glamour of true poetry. In point of language he is, no doubt,
the most idiomatic and richest of all Hungarian writers. Yet, with all
these gifts and excellencies, he is not equal to Petőfi. Reaching, as he
did, an age nearly three times as protracted as that of Petőfi, he could
yet not, through any stretch of time or effort, attain to powers which
have been bestowed upon very few poets. Petőfi ranks with the world’s
greatest poets; Arany ranks only with the great poets of Hungary. To the
strictly Magyar Jingo, as well as to the Magyar professor, Arany may
appear greater even than Petőfi; we hope to show that his genius is of a
nature at once different from and smaller than that of the incomparable
Alexander.
The reader will, we trust, permit us to premise a short remark which,
especially for English readers, seems indispensable for a right
appreciation of Arany. In England there has long ceased to be a peasantry
proper; at any rate, there has for now over 400 years been no such
peasantry in England, as may still be seen on the continent generally,
and in Hungary in particular. The type “peasant” is at once the
arch-type of narrow-mindedness, sordidness, _naïveté_, and spontaneous
poetry. He is conservative in the extreme and slow, yet frequently the
source of great upheavals and revolutions. His speech is concrete and
“_terre-à-terre_,” yet at the same time full of quaint metaphors and
conceits. His thoughts are all on the line of synthesis; and analysis
is as strange to him as generalization. He loves Nature; but he is too
much at one with it, part of it, to feel poetically the gulf between
Nature and Man. Honour and respect for himself and his ancient customs
are as the life-atmosphere of his existence; and thus in the social
architecture of the continental state to him is allotted the staying
force of the pillars, beams and rafters of the building.[3] This, the
general picture of the continental peasant, has to be touched up here and
there when meant to represent the Hungarian peasant proper. For, luckily
for Hungarian poets, the Magyar peasant, while fully as conservative
and old-fashioned as his Austrian or German brother, is considerably
less sordid, more frank, and altogether more “gentlemanly.” Yet he is
a peasant, a part both of Hungary’s civic and natural complexion. Now
it is this Hungarian peasant, and his social complement, the rural
nobleman, who are the centre of Arany’s poetry. We say “complement,” for
it is at present well understood by all close students of continental
nobility, that the latter is, in essence and sociological drift, if
not in appearance, one and the same phenomenon as the peasantry. Both
classes form the conservative or static forces of continental states,
and both are necessary conditions for the existence of a _bourgeois_
proper. Without them, or without one of them, the medium or _bourgeois_
element is altogether wanting, or, as in England, of a complexion
totally at variance with the continental middle class. Now in Hungary,
and more especially still, in the Hungary of Arany’s youth and first
manhood (1840-1870), there was no numerous _bourgeois_ proper; and Arany,
singing in tones and images flowing from and meant for the two other
classes only, is for that very reason _toto coelo_ different from most
of the German and French and also from English poets. Modern western
literature, in Austria and Germany exclusively; in France almost, and in
England largely so, is _bourgeois_ poetry; poetry written by and for the
middle and central classes of the community; or at any rate expressive
of sentiments and mental states growing in the atmosphere of _bourgeois_
life. The poems of Arany, on the other hand, were growing in the fields
and farms of the peasant, and in the manors of the landed nobility; even
more in the former than in the latter. Theirs is a spirit charming in
its rural breeziness and compact humour; fascinating in its _naïveté_
and coyness; but somewhat out of tune with the modern or _bourgeois_
sentiment. The more the middle or _bourgeois_ class develops in Hungary,
the less the fame of Arany will continue unimpaired. His works will be
unable to satisfy the poetic needs of a class which he did not know, and
with which he had but scant sympathy. His very _naïveté_, his greatest
poetic charm, will be found wanting. _Naïveté_, like all other tempers
of the heart or mind, has its geography, its _locus_. It does not grow
anywhere or everywhere. It requires a peculiar borderland situated where
two social classes meet. In that borderland it grows willingly. Such
lands are of course to be found only where classes do meet socially. In
England, for instance, classes carefully avoid meeting intimately in a
social manner; although they do so frequently in a manner political,
commercial and religious. Hence, _naïveté_ is scarcely to be found,
either in English life or in English poetry. By a parity of reasoning,
American poetry, based on a life with practically no classes whatever,
can boast still fewer of the blossoms of naïve types or naïve style.
Arany’s world, it is true, is one where the two classes, the nobleman
and the peasant, do meet intimately, and thus the flowers of _naïveté_
are plentiful. It is a _naïveté_ shy of display and timid; a _naïveté_
in deeds more than in words; and finally, a _naïveté_ of men rather
than of women. It has, when enjoyed in Arany’s own exquisite Magyar, a
flavour so pure and hearty, so thoroughly true and poetic as to endear
everything it touches. Yet it is the _naïveté_ of the peasant, not of the
_bourgeois_. It is poor in types, and restricted in emotions. It does
not respond to the psychical atmosphere of the ever growing _bourgeois_
class in Hungary, and accordingly the numerous readers of that class look
for their reading somewhere else. The peasant and the rural nobleman
are both captivating types for poets; they do not, however, represent
more than a minor aspect of that broad humanity which has so far found
its noblest expression in tales, dramas and poems grafted on events or
sentiments of individuals outside the clans and septs of peasants and
noblemen. The Germans, who have the excellent term of “_bürgerliches
Drama_” (_bourgeois_ drama), have felt that profound change coming over
western literature very keenly; and the greatness of their literature is
owing to that circumstance in no small degree. As in Hungary, nearly all
great writers were, first magnates, and then noblemen (even Petőfi was a
nobleman, although he set no value on that fact), so in Germany all the
great writers have been without an exception, “_Bürger_” (_bourgeois_)
proper. Now it is the peculiar greatness of Petőfi that many of his
poems appeal to the sentiments and mental attitudes of that specifically
modern public, the _bourgeois_ readers, with a force and sympathy as
strong as is the charm of many others to the “common people” or peasants
of Hungary. It is said of Pico de Mirandola that while he excited the
awe and admiration of the most learned and thoughtful men at the end of
the fifteenth century Rome and Florence, the maidens and young men of
the beautiful city on the Arno were singing with delight his exquisite
love-songs. Such is Petőfi; such is not Arany. He cannot properly be
enjoyed except in his own Magyar, and by readers intimately acquainted
with the two classes he belongs to. Not even when he selects, as he
sometimes does, foreign subjects, as in his “_The Bards of Wales_,” does
he become less “clannish.” Of the strongest of all feelings of young
humanity, of Love, he has none but epic expression; he never wrote a
love-song proper. The women in his epics are mere phantasms, angels or
fiends; and his men are peasants or heroes, or both. The point on which
he excels every other Hungarian poet, and on which will repose his
lasting fame, is his language. It has the raciness of the peasant’s
talk with the moderation of refined style. In other countries writers
introduced new elements of poetic speech by means of using words or
phrases taken or imitated from one of the dialects of their province or
county. Even in Shakespeare there are traces of the then Warwickshire
dialect, and probably still more of Warwickshire folk-lore. German
writers have legitimated innumerable provincialisms. Hungarian, on the
other hand, has no dialects, or none to speak of. The writer who wants
to find new linguistic affluents can turn only to the stock used by the
peasants in the vast plain of Hungary. Arany, replete as he was with all
the wealth of the language used by the peasants, knew how to ennoble
and purify the language of the farmers and shepherds of the _puszta_,
and to impart to it much of that Greek simplicity and beauty of which,
as a scholar, he was so competent a student. As the French language is
not rich in words but in idioms, so Hungarian is not rich in words but
in word-formations. Especially the verb admits of a variety of forms
and terminations enveloping every shade of thought or movement with the
glibness of water. It is in such linguistic feats that Arany shows his
genius; and since language in Hungary has an importance tenfold more
significant than in countries composed of less polyglot peoples, it is
quite natural that in the literary appreciation of Arany at the hands
of Magyar critics the political element has played a very considerable
part. This is, as we stated above, his great merit. Language in all
modern countries has at first been the make of the peasant classes. In
them there is that mysterious and instinctive power which has produced
the splendid series of Romance and Teutonic languages which, by literary
craft, have come to be formed into the diction of Dante, Cervantes,
Molière, Shakespeare, and Goethe. Arany, in focussing this power with the
strength of a mind at once _logopoeic_ and richly stored with knowledge,
did an inestimable service to the cause of Magyar Literature and Magyar
Nationality. In that respect he occupies in Hungarian Literature a place
undoubtedly higher than that of any other Magyar writer. In matter, he
could not fully unite the strictly Magyar with the broader European
element; in poetic language, on the other hand, he did achieve that
union; and it is in that achievement of his that we must look for his
specific genius and merit.
Unlike as was Arany’s personality to that of Petőfi: the former modest
and retiring, the latter self-assertive and dashing; their careers too
were equally different from each other. Arany’s life (1817-Oct. 22nd,
1882), was one of quiet work first as a teacher, and later on (1860),
as president of the Kisfaludy Society, and since 1864, as Secretary of
the Academy of Science. The latter part of his life was distressed by
persistent ill-health. In character Arany belonged to the select few,
who have never stooped to any baseness whatever and never lost sight
of the ideals of their youth. He was the intimate friend of Petőfi,
who at once recognized his greatness, and the tolerant patron of the
younger generation of writers. The nation mourned his death as a national
calamity.
Arany is, almost exclusively, a poet of epic songs, epics proper and
ballads. Of the former his most finished works are the Toldi Trilogy,
consisting of “_Toldi_” (the name of the hero, published in 1847);
“_Toldi szerelme_” (“The love of Toldi,” published in 1879); and “_Toldi
estéje_” (“The eve of Toldi,” published previously in 1854). These three
epics, written in rhymed six-feet stanzas of eight lines each, tell the
life-story of an historic Magyar peasant-hero of the fourteenth century,
in the times of King Lewis, justly called the “Great.” He is of herculean
strength, of violent temper, but good-hearted, simple, a loving son, and
a loyal friend and subject. His struggle against his wicked brother; his
love for Piroska, whom, in a passage at arms, he foolishly wins for
another wooer; his despair at seeing the idol of his heart the wife of
another; finally, his declining years when he finds himself out of accord
with the changed times, and retires home to be put into the grave he had
dug for himself. Such is, in the main, the contents of the three epics,
into which the wizard language of Arany has infused the charms of real
poetry. It would be idle to compare Arany’s art with that of Goethe’s
“_Hermann und Dorothea_.” Goethe’s hero too is rather a peasant farmer
than a _bourgeois_. Yet all the other figures of Goethe’s masterpiece are
endowed with life so intensely _bourgeois_, as to secure admiration for
the work in all times to come. Arany’s hero; his dear old mother; his
brother; his love, etc., scarcely leave the boundaries of peasant-world;
and while his epic will thus for ever charm the youth of Hungary, it may
in future cease to be an object of lasting admiration on the part of the
more mature classes of the nation.
The same great qualities of linguistic _verve_ and intense poetic
sentiment are to be found in the other epical poems of Arany. In the
“Death of Buda” (_Buda halála_, 1864), he sings the legendary story
of Attila’s murder of his own brother Buda (Bleda). In this exquisite
epic Attila (or Etele, as Arany calls him), is pictured as a hero of
the magnificent type, and nothing could be more removed from the poet’s
“Etele,” than the conventional or historic Attila. Tragical energy and
incomparable language render this poem one of intense charm. It was
intended for one of three great epics narrating the cycle of Hun legends;
of the other two we have only fragments. The romantic story of Wesselényi
and Mary Szécsi (see page 58), was made into a charming epic by Arany,
under the title “The capture of Murány” (“_Murány ostroma_,” 1849). In
“The Gypsies of Nagy Ida” (“_A nagyidai czigányok_,” 1852), Arany gave
vent, in form of a satirical burlesque, to his profound sorrow over his
country’s decadence, after the suppression of the liberal movement in
1848-1849. His ballads are generally considered to represent the best
specimens of Magyar ballad-writing. It must certainly be conceded that
few ballad-writers, whether in or outside Hungary, have so completely
hit the true ballad-tone, or internal ring of thought and word adapted
to subjects so utterly out of keeping with our modern sentiment. It
may be doubted whether Chopin himself in his ballad in F major has so
felicitously intuned the lay of olden romance as has Arany in his mostly
sombre ballads, such as “Duel at midnight” (“_Éjféli párbaj_”), “Knight
Pázmán” (“_Pázmán lovag_”), “Marfeast” (“_Ünneprontók_”). As in the best
English or German ballads, events are, as a rule, only indicated, not
described, and hurry on to their fatal termination with terrible speed.
All is action and fierce movement.
In addition to his activity as a creative poet, Arany also did much
for the introduction of foreign and classical literature into Hungary
by way of translations. His most successful work in that line were the
translations of several dramas of Shakespeare (_Hamlet_, _Midsummer
Night’s Dream_, _King John_), and more especially still his most
exquisite (—_pace_ all the German philologists!—) translation of the
comedies of Aristophanes.
We ought now to devote a considerable space to a poet who, in his time,
was generally associated with Petőfi and Arany. We mean Michael Tompa
(1817-1868). While it is now impossible to rank Tompa with either Petőfi
or Arany, he yet occupies a very conspicuous place in Magyar literature.
His intense love of nature, his profound religious sentiment, and his
fine humour entitle him to be considered as foremost amongst the lesser
lyrical glories of Hungary. We can only regret that we cannot give here
more than this bare indication of the peculiar individuality of the
author of the “Flower-fables” (_Virágregék_).
CHAPTER XXIX.
The dramatic literature of the Hungarians, as may be seen from the
preceding chapters, was, at the beginning of the twenties of this
century, in a most backward condition. For reasons that it is very
difficult to ascertain, some of the most dramatic nations, such as
the Italians, have rarely or never excelled in drama-writing; while
the English, who do not claim to be either conspicuously emotional or
dramatic, have given the world the incomparable dramas of Shakespeare.
In Italy, the lack of great dramatists may perhaps be ascribed to the
fact, that female parts were, at least down to the end of the last
century, played by boys. Yet a glance at the Attic theatre deprives this
reason of much of its value. Be this as it may, the great influence of
theatres and acting on dramatists can scarcely be denied. In Hungary,
at any rate, the very indifferent condition of the theatre in the first
three decades of the century bulks large amongst the causes producing
a dearth of good Magyar dramas. This becomes evident when we consider
that the first really great drama of a Magyar writer, “Banus Bánk”
(“_Bánk bán_”), by Katona, passed unnoticed for over fourteen years
(1818-1834), until a great actor, Gabriel Egressy, made it popular. The
Hungarians are naturally good actors, and very fond of theatre-going.
It will perhaps scarcely be believed in the enlightened west, where so
late as November, 1897, one of the leading daily papers of England was
permitted to speak of English and French literature as the only two
great literatures of the modern world, that in Hungary there has been,
and for some time too, a wealth of dramas of an intrinsic value at least
as great as that of any British drama written within the last hundred
and fifty years, and played by actors and actresses fully the equals of
their colleagues at the _Comédie Française_. This remarkable growth of
dramatic literature in Hungary did not, however, begin before the fourth
decade of the present century. The epics and ballads of Vörösmarty,
Garay, Czuczor, etc., seemed to captivate the public to the exclusion
of all other forms of poetry. The patriotic tune ringing, and expected
to ring through all popular works previous to the Revolution of 1848,
threw their authors into the worship of the heroic past and thus into
Romanticism. It was, accordingly, quite natural that dramatists, in
order to catch the public ear, indulged rather in heroic ranting and
tirades, than in dramatic characterization. The heroes of the tragedies
of Charles Kisfaludy (see page 116), for instance, are rhetoric blown
into the shape of persons. Everything Magyar is perfect; the Magyars are
delicately reminded, in pages full of endless adulation, that they are,
to use an American phrase, “the greatest, the best fed, and the best
clad nation on the face of the globe.” Their heroes are the greatest;
their past the most glorious. This sort of jingoism may be tolerated in
epics and ballads, where other redeeming features may save the literary
value of the work. In dramas it is fatal. Yet it is in the drama where
Romanticism may attain to really perfect works. The writer of romantic
ballads must, in the end, fall into the snares of an exaggerated
patriotism, and thus vitiate his work, rendering it less acceptable to
a sober and unchauvinistic posterity. The dramatic writer, on the other
hand, need not necessarily run the same risk. If he has power to chisel
out of the given material of a nation’s past one or the other truly
human character in all its grandeur, and in all its shortcomings, then
the historic staging and bygone emotional atmosphere of the past will
serve only to set off the dramatic beauties of the work all the more
plastically. Arany’s Edward I. in the “Bards of Wales” (see page 200), is
a ruthless and senseless tyrant that must pall on us in the end. Richard
III., on the other hand, can never pall on us; for in him we recognize
many an unavowed demon ravaging our own souls. Arany’s Edward I. is a
ballad-figure; Shakespeare’s Richard III. is a piece of true humanity. To
the dramatic poet it is indifferent from what part of the globe he takes
his material; for humanity is spread all over the planet. So a nation’s
heroic past too may be quite welcome to him, provided he is a real
dramatist. Katona was such. He is rough and inharmonious in language,
but there is real dramatic life in his men and women. For the first time
in Hungarian Literature the true tone of tragedy was heard. The terrible
fate of the Banus comes home to hearers, Hungarian or otherwise; it is
yawning out of the abyss of conflicts to which all of us are liable. He
is a loyal subject of his king, and yet bursts out in open rebellion; nay
worse, he kills his queen. He is a great patriot; yet finally makes a
rebellious plot with a foreign adventurer. He is a perfect nobleman; yet
ultimately breaks all the laws of true nobility. He is a loving husband;
yet contemplates assassinating his beautiful wife. And as he is, so are
the other persons of the drama. In them is pictured the conflicting
nature of the human heart and character as it really is: rough,
unbending, false, yet capable of sublime self-abnegation. Or as Petőfi
says: “Rain from heaven turning mud on earth.” The plot is as follows:
Bánk, in the absence of King Andrew II. of Hungary justiciar of the
country, has reason to believe that Gertrude, the haughty and unpopular
queen, countenances the vile designs of her brother Otto on Bánk’s
beautiful wife Melinda. A rebellion of the malcontent nobles under Petur
is breaking out. Bánk, who ought to quell it by virtue of his office, is
thrown out of his moral equilibrium by the news that Melinda has been
seduced by Otto. Forgetful of his position, he obeys only the behests of
his outraged soul and kills Gertrude. The king returns, the rebellion is
put down, and Bánk perishes. In Katona’s drama there is more power than
form. It will easily be understood that his chief model was Shakespeare.
He himself did not live to see the great success of his only masterpiece;
he died broken-spirited in 1830 at Kecskemét, in the thirty-eighth year
of his luckless life.
The first remarkable Hungarian dramatist after Katona is Edward
Szigligeti (his real name was Joseph Szatmáry), 1814-1878. From an early
date he was in constant contact with the theatre and with actors, and so
acquired great practical knowledge of stage-lore. He had deeply studied
the art of stage effect, and all his very numerous dramatic works testify
to an extraordinary stage-craft. It would, however, be unfair to compare
him to writers like Kotzebue in Germany, or Labiche in France. His
routine, no doubt, was pre-eminent in many of his pieces; yet, beside and
beyond the mere cleverness of the playwright, he had real _vis comica_
and a profound knowledge of Hungarian society. During his life-time that
society was slowly but steadily emerging from the semi-civilized state
of the former patriarchalism to the forms and usages of modern life. In
such periods of transition there is ample material for anyone gifted
with a keen sense of humour. The aping of western manners (ridiculed in
“_Marna_,” 1857; “Female Rule” [“_Nőuralom_” 1862], etc.); the humour
of the altered family-life (“Three Matrimonial Commands” [“_Házassági
három parancs_,”] 1850; “Stephen Dalos” [_Dalos Pista_], 1855; etc.);
odd remnants of the former social state, such as tramping actors, the
still-life of small towns; all this Szigligeti knew how to dramatize
with great effect. Like Charles Kisfaludy he drew with great felicity on
the stores of drastic humour pervading a conservative society composed
of many a discrepant element and moving onwards on entirely new lines
of development. He tried his skilful hand at tragedies too, and “The
Shadows of Light” (“_A fény árnyai_,” 1865,) and “The Pretender” (“_A
trónkereső_”, 1868,) are said to be meritorious. His rare stage-craft
and witty dialogue alone, however, could not have raised his name to
the height on which it rests, and where in all probability it will
continue to rest. Szigligeti’s name is justly famous for being the real
founder of what, for lack of a better name in English, must be called
the Hungarian folk-drama. In England there is no such thing, and no such
word. Already in our remarks on Arany (see page 195), we essayed to show
that the continental peasantry is generically different from any class
of small farmers in England. That peasantry is, in reality, a world of
its own. It is as much a world of its own, as is the well-known world
of the “upper ten.” He who has never been in what the knowing call “_le
monde_,” will easily confound the sentiments and thoughts of his own
world with those of the “_monde_.” Yet the two worlds are two worlds
indeed. Their whole tone and rhythm of life is different. They are
written not only in different scales but also for different instruments.
It is even so with the world of peasantry in Hungary or in Austria. How
silly of some painfully enlightened people to ascribe, for instance, the
mass of prejudice and superstition in the Hungarian or German peasantry
to a lack of that “_Bildung_” or school-knowledge which is acquired
through books and bookmen! The current belief in witches, fairies, imps
and such-like elf-folk, good and bad, grows with the peasantry of those
countries, out of the same roots that nourish in the “higher classes”
the craving for and the delight in fairy operas and fantastic novels.
Each social “world” demands pleasures and distractions of the same kind;
each satisfying that craving in a different manner. The urban gentleman
and lady while away tedious winter evenings by visits to theatres, where
unlikely, demoniac and over-exciting pieces are an everyday occurrence.
The peasants in Hungary have no such theatres; yet long winter evenings
hang just as heavily on their hands. They therefore while away their
leisure-hours by stories fantastic and demoniac, the literal belief
in which must needs grow in direct proportion to the lack of all
theatrical stage environment. As with superstitions, so it is with all
the other great social needs. The Hungarian peasant, when outraged in
his sentiments, does not, it is true, fight a duel like the gentleman.
Yet he, too, becomes a duellist, retiring into the woods, and fighting
society at large as a “_szegény legény_” or brigand. _Plus cela change,
plus c’est la même chose._
It will now be perhaps somewhat clearer that the Hungarian peasantry,
_qua_ peasantry, lends itself to dramatization in the same way as
does any other of the “worlds of men.” The common humanity of men is
to be found in that peasantry too; but it is modified, coloured, and
discoloured, “timbred” and attuned in a different mood. It admits of
tragedies proper; of comedies; and of burlesques. It is Szigligeti’s
great merit to have discovered this new dramatic ore. Without in the
least trying to diminish his glory, we cannot but add, that through the
great revolution coming over Hungary as over the rest of Europe, in the
period from the third to the seventh decade of this century, a revolution
social no less than political, the peculiar and distinct character of
the world of peasants became, by contrast to the rising _bourgeoisie_
and the changing nobility, much more easily discernible than it had been
ever before in Hungary. Yet Szigligeti was the first to seize on that
dramatic _res nullius_; and both for this discovery and the excellent
specimens of folk-dramas which he wrote, he deserves all credit. His most
remarkable folk-dramas are: “The Deserter” (“_Szökött Katona_,” 1843);
“The _Csikós_” (1846); and “The Foundling” (“_Lelencz_,” 1863).
We can here only mention the dramas of Sigismund Czakó, who for some time
before his voluntary death in 1847, was very popular; of Charles Obernyik
(1816-1855); and of Ignatius Nagy; the two latter being very popular
before the Revolution of 1848, owing to their excessively “patriotic”
dialogues. A far higher place in Hungarian dramatic literature is due
to the noble Count Ladislas Teleky, who also died by his own hand. His
“The Favourite” (“_A Kegyencz_,” 1841), the subject of which is taken
from the time of the Roman Emperor Valentinian III., is credited with
great force of irony, dramatic truth and power of imagination. In Charles
Hugo (_recte_ Charles Hugo Bernstein), 1817-1877, the Hungarian drama
might have gained a dramatic power of rare quality, had the overweening
self-infatuation of the author, together with his poor knowledge of
Magyar, not rendered him a victim to his first success. He is one of the
numerous Titans of the Hungarian capital, who cannot do anything half-way
creditable unless they fail to gain reputation. No sooner do they become
“famous,” than they cease to be either interesting or productive. Hugo’s
“Banker and Baron” (“_Bankár és Báró_”) had not only a great, but an
extraordinary success. Not only incense was strewn before the poet,
but, to use Lessing’s phrase, the very censer was hurled at his head.
The enthusiastic crowd carried the author bodily from the theatre to
his favourite _Café_. This unhinged poor Hugo’s mental equilibrium. He
considered himself a second Victor Hugo; and so never wrote any other
great drama. The merit of “Banker and Baron” is very considerable. It
is one of the then few attempts at writing a real _bourgeois_ drama, in
which the common human heritage of virtues and vices, affections and
passions, is presented with great force and dramatic vivacity.
Of a style and tone quite different from the preceding dramas is the
“dramatic poem,” as the author calls it, entitled “The Tragedy of Man,”
by Emericus Madách (1829-1864). In that great poem there is revealed
all the sombreness of profound melancholy, wailing over the bootless
struggle of Man since the unlucky moment of his creation. As the reader
may have noticed in the course of the present work, the Hungarians, as
a nation, are strongly inclined to pathos; just as the English are to
satire and the French to irony. In the youthful members of the Magyar
nation that bent is at times so strong as to dominate all the other modes
and faculties of the soul. Hence the astounding wealth of grave Largos in
Hungarian music, and the melancholy and despondent tone in many a great
work of Hungarian poetry. Few poems can compare in unaffected sadness
and thus twice saddening effect with Arany’s “_Epilogus_.” Madách’s
“Tragedy of Man” (“_Az ember tragédiája_”) is, as it were, the funeral
march of humanity. It would be utterly wrong to compare it to Goethe’s
“Faust.” Although there is a general similarity in the drift of the two
works, yet the poem of the luckless and suffering county official of
an obscure Hungarian province is essentially different from the drama
of the Jupiter of German literature. Madách’s poem is, reduced to its
skeleton, a philosophy of History. He takes us from the hour when Adam
and Eve were innocently walking in the Garden of Eden, to the times of
the Egyptian Pharaohs; then to the Athens of Miltiades; to sinking
Rome; to the adventurous period of the Crusaders; into the study of the
astronomer Kepler in the seventeenth century; thence into the horrors
of the French Revolution; into greed-eaten and commerce-ridden modern
London; nay, into the ultra-socialist state of the future, in which there
will be no family, no nation, and no individuality amongst the countless
individuals; and where the ideas of the preceding ages, such as Religion,
Art, Literature, will, by means of scientific formulæ, be shown up in all
their absurdity; still further, the poet shows the future of the earth,
when ice will cover the whole of its surface, and Europeans and other
human beings will be reduced to the state of a degraded brute dragging on
the misery of existence in some cave. In all these scenes, Adam, Eve and
the arch-fiend (Lucifer) are the chief and constantly recurring _personæ
dramatis_. In fact, all these scenes are meant to be prophetic dreams
of Adam, which Lucifer causes him to have in order to disgust him with
humanity in advance, and so, by driving him to suicide, to discontinue
humanity. In paradise, Adam learns and teaches the lesson of man’s
incapability of enduring bliss; in Egypt, Adam, as Pharaoh, experiences
the bottomless wretchedness of tyranny, where “millions live for the sake
of one;” in Athens he is made to shudder at the contemptible fickleness
of man when part of a crowd; in sinking Rome he stands aghast at the
corruptibility of mankind, and in the Crusades at their fanaticism; in
the study of Kepler he comprehends the sickening vanity of all attempts
at real knowledge, and in Paris he is shown the godless fury of a people
fighting for the dream called Liberty. So in the end, Adam, despairing
of his race, wants to commit suicide, when, in the critical moment, Eve
tells him that she is going to be a mother by him; whereby his intention
of discontinuing his race by suicide is baffled. Adam then prostrates
himself before God, who encourages him to hope and trust, making him
feel that man is part of an infinite and indestructible power, and will
struggle not quite in vain. Like Goethe’s Faust, the great poem of Madách
was not meant for the stage; yet, like Faust, it has proved of intense
effect on the stage too. It is, as may be seen, a philosophic poem
excelling rather in the beauty and loftiness of the thoughts conveyed
or suggested than by power of characterization or dramatic vigour. In
general literature we should like to compare it most to the “_De rerum
natura_” of Lucretius. The powerful melancholy of the Roman is of a kind
with the gloom of the Hungarian; and while the former dwells more on the
material and religious aspect of man, and the latter on social phenomena
in all their width and breadth, yet both sing the same tempestuous
_nocturne_ of Man’s sufferings and shortcomings, illuminating the night
of their despondency by stars of luminous thought. Madách died at too
early an age to finish more than this one masterpiece. His other poems
are inferior.
Dramatic literature in Hungary in the last thirty years has been growing
very rapidly; and both the drama of the “world” _folk_, and that of
the “world” _monde_ has met with very gifted, nay, in some cases,
exceedingly gifted writers. During that period, Hungary has completely
regained its absolute autonomy, and the Hungarian State, from having
had an annual revenue of not quite sixteen millions in 1867, has now a
revenue of over forty million pounds a year. Budapest has grown to be a
town of over six hundred thousand inhabitants; and the general progress
of Hungary, material as well as intellectual, social and political, has
been such as, relatively, that of no other country in Europe in the
same period. In the midst of the dramatic movement of all organs of
the Hungarian commonwealth, the drama proper could not but make great
strides too. It is here impossible to do justice to each of the very
numerous and talented Hungarian dramatists of our day. We should only
like, in treating of a necessarily small number of modern Hungarian
writers of dramatic works, to premise a remark in the interest of a
better understanding of their literary value. The English or American
public are, as a rule, very much inclined to think little of things
of which they have “never heard.” We are not blaming them for that.
Reading as they do great newspapers every day, they naturally come to
think that, to alter the old legal phrase, “what is not to be found in
the ‘paper,’ that does not exist.” Hungarian dramas are seldom or never
translated for the English stage; they are never talked about in the
press; hence, the general public will tacitly assume that they can be
worth but little. However, it is with Hungarian dramas as with Hungarian
fruit. Although Hungary produces exquisite fruit of all kinds, and in
enormous quantities too, the English consumer of fruit has never heard of
“Hungarian apples” or “Hungarian grapes,” while he is quite familiar with
American or Tasmanian apples of an inferior quality. The reason of that
is simple: the Hungarians are still in the infancy of the great art of
export. It is even so with the Hungarian drama. It is not being cleverly
enough exported; it wants active agents and middlemen to bruit it about.
We venture to say that the western nations are the losers by ignoring
or overlooking, as they do, the modern Hungarian drama. In taking the
trouble to make the acquaintance of the dramas of Eugene Rákosi, Edward
Tóth, Gregory Csiky, Lewis Dóczi, Lewis Dobsa, Joseph Szigeti, John
Vajda, Árpád Berczik, Stephen Toldy, Anton Várady, Lewis Bartók, etc.,
etc., they would find that together with the greatest European mines
for ore proper, Hungary has also many a profound mine of ore dramatic,
no less than fine specimens of coins minted out of that ore. There is
now a “tradition” of no inconsiderable duration in the art of acting;
and several actors of the very first quality, such as Rose Laborfalvy
(the late Mrs. Jókai), Louise Blaha, Lendvay, Egressy, etc., have set
examples and models, inspiring both the poet and the actor. The theatres
at Budapest are magnificently equipped, and being, as they are, part of
the great national treasure, they partake to a great extent of the nature
of a temple, and are visited, not as places of sheer distraction, but as
localities of national rallying and spiritual elevation.
Most of the leading dramatists of the last five-and-twenty years are
still alive, and it is, therefore, twice difficult to pass a final
judgment on their works. Mr. Eugene Rákosi, both as a journalist and a
drama-writer, occupies a very conspicuous place, and if better known in
the west of Europe, would certainly be read, and his pieces seen, with
marked interest. Like Mr. Dóczi, who is a high official in the common
department of Austria-Hungary, he has that subtle and unanalyzable force
of surrounding his scenes, and also frequently his persons, with the
splendour of poetic suggestiveness. In his “Endre and Johanna,” “Wars
of Queens” (“_Királynék harcza_”), “The School of Love” (“_Szerelem
iskolája_”), he does not make it his chief point to create, entangle,
still more embroil, and then finally solve a “problem,” although he is
a master of scene and situation-making. Nor do he and Mr. Dóczi care to
be “realists.” They are satisfied with being poets. Mr. Dóczi has in his
“The Kiss” (“_Csók_”) ventured on writing in words what hitherto has only
been a success in the tones of Mendelssohn: a drama moving in mid-air,
in midsummer night, with gossamery persons and fairy-ideas, away, far
away from our time and land. In that he has been signally successful, and
Mendelssohn’s overture to the “Midsummer Night’s Dream” is not sweeter
and airier than Mr. Dóczi’s “Kiss.” Like Mr. Rákosi, Mr. Dóczi is a
master of Hungarian and he wields the German idiom too with the same
grace and energy.
In our opinion Gregory Csiky (born 1842, died recently) was the strongest
dramatic talent amongst the modern dramatists in Hungary. He is what
people are pleased to call a “realist;” that is, his shafts are sunk into
the dramatic mines of the society in the midst of which he lives. His
strong satire and broad humour, his finely-chiselled language and the
bold and true way of his dramatization raise him to the level of the
best of contemporary dramatists in any country. In his “The Proletarians”
(“_A Proletárok_”) he has seized on a large class of _déclassés_ in
Hungary, who by the precipitated legislative reforms after 1867 were
deprived of their previous means of living, and so turned to parasitic
methods of eking out an existence. That class is brought to dramatic
life full of humorous, sad, and striking phenomena. There is not in this
drama, any more than in Csiky’s other dramas (“Bubbles” [“_Buborékok_”],
“Two Loves” [“_Két szerelem_”], “The Timid” [“_A szégyenlős_”],
“Athalia,” etc.) the slightest trace of that morbid psychologism which
has made the fortune of Ibsen. It is all sound, fresh, penetrating
and vibrating with true dramatic life. Last, not least, there is much
beauty of form and construction. Csiky, who has published very valuable
translations of Sophocles and Plautus, is thoroughly imbued with the
classic sense of form and with the real vocation of the drama as the
art-work showing the emotional and mental movements of _social_ types,
and not of some pathologic excrescence of society. In other words, he
does not muddle up, as Ibsen does, the novel with the drama.
Amongst the writers of “folk-dramas,” Edward Tóth (1844-1876), occupies
a very high place. His “The Village Scamp” (“_A falu rossza_”) tells
the touching story of a young peasant who, disappointed in love, loses
all moral backbone and is finally saved by the fidelity of a woman. The
drama is full of scenes taken from Hungarian peasant life, which is far
more dramatic than peasant life in Germany. The Hungarians have, till
quite recently, never had a Berthold Auerbach, or a novelist taking
the subject of his novels from peasant life. They have dramatists of
peasant life instead; and a short comparison with the peasant dramas
written by Austrians, such as those of Anzengruber, will show the decided
superiority of the Hungarians. One strong element in the folk-dramas
of Tóth and of Francis Csepreghy (1842-1880, author of “The Yellow
Colt” [“_A sárga csikó_”], “The Red Purse” [“_Piros bugyelláris_”]),
is the folk-poems and folk-songs, sung and danced. By this incidental
element of tone and verse, which, as a sort of inarticulate commentary
on the dramatic scenes does duty for the philosophic reflections of the
non-peasant drama, the hearer is brought into intimate touch with the
very innermost pulsation of the life of the “folk.”
CHAPTER XXX.
In now approaching the modern novel in Hungary we are at once met,
touched, almost overwhelmed by the dazzling light and lustre of one
commanding genius of the Magyar novel, Maurus Jókai. His name is at
present well-known all over the world, and his novels are eagerly read
by Hungarians and non-Hungarians alike. The number of his works is very
great, and although over fifty years have elapsed since the appearance of
his first novel (in 1846), he is still enriching Hungarian and European
literature with ever new works. Nearly everything has changed in Hungary
during the last forty years; but the love and admiration for the genius
of Jókai has never suffered diminution. In his checkered life there is
not a blot, and in his long career there is not a single dark spot.
Pure, manly, upright as a patriot, faithful and loving as a husband,
loyal as a subject, kind as a patron, an indefatigable worker, and,
highest of all, a true friend both to men, fatherland, and literature,
he has given his nation not only great literary works to gladden and
enlighten them, but also a sterling example of Magyar virtue and Magyar
honour. It is, especially in Hungary, no common thing to meet with men of
Jókai’s immense power and love of work. His journalistic articles alone
would fill many a folio volume. His political activity in the Hungarian
Parliament, in the Lower House of which he was up to January, 1897,
when the king called him to the House of Magnates, was likewise very
extensive. And in addition to that, he was constantly writing novels,
turning out volume after volume, until the total exceeded two hundred
and fifty. In fact, as has been already hinted at, from an historic
point of view he has, by his unparalleled productiveness, done some harm
less to himself than to other Hungarian novelists. He himself, although
not equally at his best in every one of his novels, has in the course
of fifty-one years of creative authorship scarcely lost anything of the
distinctly individual greatness of his genius; and even the later and
sometimes hurried productions of his pen are, to say the least, most
excellent, because intensely interesting reading. On the other hand,
his very popularity rendered it almost impossible for any other Magyar
novelist to publish novels other than small sketches or essays. The
reading public in Hungary is not numerous enough to demand lengthy novels
from more than one favourite author. Jókai almost supplanted Jósika (see
page 140) and all other writers of lengthy novels.
His novels and sketches treat of nearly every aspect of Magyar life,
in the past and in the present. The heroic deeds of the ancient or
mediæval Magyars are subjects of his novels as well as the doings and
thoughts of official and non-official Hungary of the present century.
It would, however, be quite incorrect to ascribe to him any intention
of writing the “_Comédie humaine_” of Hungary. No such vast system
underlies his countless stories. He has no system; in reality, nothing
is more removed from his mind than any such big structure of ideas and
facts. He has frequently chosen non-Magyar subjects; and when treating
of Magyar events or institutions, he has no philosophical aim to pursue,
and no patriotic theory to uphold. He writes novels out of sheer love of
telling tales. In the feeblest of his works the reader cannot but notice
that singular alertness and freshness of an author hugely enamoured
of his profession—and gaily at work. The narrating is of much the
greater interest to him; the tale itself does not always claim his full
attention. Whether or no, the plot is consistently thought out to the
end; or, whether or no, the persons always proceed on the lines of their
characters; all that does not too much ruffle Jókai’s joyous composure
of authorship. For, to put it in one word, he is an improvisatore; in
fact, the greatest of all known improvisatori. This is the key to all his
excellencies, as well as to his alleged failings. The Teutonic nations,
and amongst the Latin ones the French are, as a rule, entirely unfamiliar
with that most fascinating of talking virtuosi, the _improvisatore_.
Even in the wild excitement of the French Revolution there was only one
orator, Danton, who improvised his speeches; the rest, even Mirabeau,
read them. The vast amount of _parlature_ done in Hungary, to which we
called attention at the very outset of this work, has given rise both
to marvellous artists of the living word, and to audiences passionately
fond of listening to good talk, and on all possible occasions too. The
good talker in America is a man who _à propos_ of any occurrence, is
reminded of a story that happened “in Denver, Colorado, or Columbus,
Ohio.” No such individual would be endured in Hungary. The good talker
there is an improvisatore proper. He is never “reminded” of an old story;
he invents on the spot or extracts from the actual topic of conversation
all the sparks of wit and humour that fall upon the prose of life like
dew upon dry flowers. The gift and long habit of improvisation thus
makes some of those mostly unknown artists most charming companions
and astoundingly clever talkers. He who has not lived amongst them,
cannot possibly imagine their ease of invention, their humour, their
power of description and their imagination. They are not, as in Italy,
professional improvisatori; and perhaps nobody would be more astounded
than themselves at the application of that term to them. Yet, a
comparison with the man in France, who is “_bon causeur_,” and with the
man in London, who has “remarkable conversational powers,” will show any
unprejudiced observer the truth of the above characterization of the
Magyar talker. Just as Mark Twain’s humour is only the improved and,
by print, fixed humour noticeable in many an American, even so Jókai’s
narrative genius is the highest form of that genius for improvisation
which in Hungary may be met with frequently in lesser perfection. This
explains Jókai’s permanent hold on the Hungarian nation. He has carried
one great gift of his nation to the heights of real greatness. We repeat
it: he is the greatest of all improvisatori in prose. Nothing can
approach his miraculous facility in building up a fascinating scene;
in irradiating the heaviest and most cumbrous subject with light and
humour; and in wafting over the whole tale the Fata Morganas of an
exuberant imagination. Young and old; Hungarian, Englishman or German;
man or woman; they must all stand still and listen to the charmer. That
Jókai is the best exponent of the Hungarian genius for improvisation
in words will be readily believed and accepted, when we point out his
startling similarity, almost identity, with another famous Hungarian,
who excelled in works of the same quality but written in tones instead
of in words. We mean Liszt. Jókai is the Liszt of Hungarian Literature;
we might almost say, of European literature. The marvellous musician,
who, both as a pianist and as a composer, held the civilized world under
his spell for far over seventy years—(Liszt was born in 1811 and died in
1887)—was the king of all musical improvisatori. When he played Beethoven
or Chopin, Bach or Schumann, he impressed the most cool-headed hearers
as if he had just improvised the pieces he played; that one circumstance
being at the same time the secret of his unrivalled powers as a pianist.
When he composed—and many, very many of his compositions are works of
lasting merit—the result was almost invariably an improvisation. It
has that indefinable charm of rapturous glow kindled at the fire of
the moment, which endows improvisations with a character unique and
exceptional. It excels in major keys far more than minor moods; it has
much unity of character and _Stimmung_ rather than unity of form; it
always borders on the _Fantasia_, and never crystallizes into a sonata
proper; it cultivates side-issues, such as flourishes and _fioriture_
with startling skill and vast effect, while the bass, or the underlying
element of thought, is not laboured nor significant; it appeals to happy
people rather than to such as bear heavy burdens; and it works for
brilliancy more than for reticent beauty. Liszt’s E flat major concerto,
for instance, is an absolutely faithful replica of some of Jókai’s best
novels. Both authors excel in brilliancy, technical routine, wealth of
imagination, sparkling rhythms and rapturous descriptiveness. There is
nothing majestic in them, nothing grave, nothing truly sad or melancholy.
Jókai disposes of an inexhaustible humour. This, as will be admitted,
cannot be readily imitated in music. In Liszt, humour becomes irony and
demoniac scorn. His Polonaise in E major, for example, with its appalling
irony at Polish excessiveness, is the musical counterpart to Jókai’s
humour. But where Liszt comes nearest to Jókai is in his Rhapsodies. As
in Jókai, so in Liszt, there is a constant change of panoramic views;
an exquisite wealth of tinkling, sparring and glistening rhythms; a
shower of glittering dewdrops and an iridescence of sheets of coloured
lights. In a measure, all Jókai’s novels are placed in fairy-land; as all
Liszt’s music is on the heights of exultation. And, likewise, the final
secret of Jókai’s irresistible charm is in the improvisatory character
of his novels. Jókai’s reader does not feel that he is being lectured
or moralized or instructed. On the contrary, he feels that he himself,
in inspiring, as it were, the author, is co-operating with him in the
work, just as the listeners to an improvisatore are doing. The reader is
accorded part of the exquisite delight of literary creation and so feels
twice happy.
This peculiar and inimitable feature and excellence of Jókai is but
another manifestation of the rhapsodic character of the Magyars. Petőfi,
and he alone, was in his best poems, both rhapsodic and classical.
He not only expressed Magyar rhapsodism lyrically, as has Jókai
novelistically and Liszt musically, but he also imparted to it that
inner form of moderation and harmonious beauty which, if coupled with
perfect expression and metre, renders poetry classical. It will now be
easily seen why Jókai must needs have the failings of his virtues. The
very nature of rhapsodic improvisations works chiefly for effect: it
is subjective art, not objective. The production of the artist is not
severed from his personality; it is intimately allied with and dependent
on it. In Liszt, whose art admits of combining both production and
presentation of the work at one and the same time, the subjective or
personal factors became so strong as to render him without any doubt
the most fascinating artistic individuality of this century. It is,
therefore, in vain to expect in Jókai that patient and self-denying
care of the objective artist for the structural beauty of his work.
It is not the great number of his novels that has prevented him from
giving them as much objective proportion and consistency as they have
lustre and charm. Mozart died at five-and-thirty, and left more works
than Jókai has written; yet nearly every one of the better ones was
objectively faultless. It is Jókai’s very art that necessitates that
failing in Art. If he had tried to mend it, he would have stunted some
of that peerless profusion of fancy which has endeared him to untold
millions. He may displease a few hundreds; he will always transport
the millions. Yet one remark cannot be suppressed. Hungary, we are
convinced, has not yet arrived at the stage of literary development
when critics and the public look backwards for the best efforts of the
nation’s intellect. There are still immense possibilities for Hungarian
Literature; and all the constellations of literary greatness have not
yet risen above the horizon. It will thus not be surprising when we here
venture to urge the necessity of viewing even a genius such as Jókai’s
historically. His merits are as boundless as his charm. The judgment
of all Europe has confirmed that. For Hungarians, however, it will be
wise to remember, that Jókai in literature, as Liszt in music, are the
highest types indeed, but of one phase only of the many-souled national
genius of the Hungarian people. Their work is great and inimitable; we
hasten to add: nor should it be imitated. It is the work, not of the
last, but of one of the early stages in Hungarian Literature. It has,
when over-estimated, a tendency to do harm to the nation. People, who
in music are taught to expect the maddening accents of rhapsodies, will
rarely calm down to the enjoyment of less spiced, if more perfect music.
It is even so with novels. Who now reads the novels of Kemény (see page
157); and who ought not to read them? Readers intoxicated with Jókai, we
readily admit, cannot fairly rally to enjoy Kemény. Yet Hungary is badly
in need of a more modern Kemény, as she is of a Brahms. Or has it not
been noticed yet, that while Hungarians are proverbially musical, and
known to be so in all countries, they have so far—if we for the moment
disregard Liszt—not produced a single creative musician of European fame
or considerable magnitude? There can be little doubt that Liszt himself
is one of the chief causes of the sterilization of musical talent in
Hungary. Vainly endeavouring to imitate him, the composers failed to
proceed on different lines. Desiring to hear Hungarian music in no other
form than in that of Lisztian rhapsodies, the public failed to encourage
the production of new musical works. And so the vast treasure of
Hungarian music has not yet been done full justice. The Bohemians, also
a very musical nation, have had no Liszt; but they have, at least, their
Smetanas and their Dvořáks. As a reader and patriot, no less than as a
student of poetry and art, we joyfully recognize the surpassing talent
of both Jókai and Liszt. As historian of the literature of our nation,
we cannot but make the remark that it will no longer do for Hungarians
to leave the historical position of these two great authors entirely out
of consideration. It is different with countries outside Hungary. They
may and shall read Jókai unmolested by any such reflections. For them he
is delight pure and unequalled; and we beg their pardon for not having
suppressed the above remark. But as to the interests of Hungary we dare
to assume that Jókai himself, great in modesty as he is in so many other
ways, will not disavow our idea, but gladly acknowledge that, great as he
may be, there ought to be room for novelistic greatness of another kind
in Hungarian Literature, and appreciation of other modes of novelistic
art in the Hungarian public.
Jókai was born on the nineteenth of February, 1825, at Komárom (Komorn).
At Pápa, when still a student, he made the acquaintance of Petőfi, whose
intimate friend he became. He took an active, if moderate part, in the
revolution, and came near falling into the hands of the victorious
Austrians, from which fatal predicament, however, he was saved by his
lovely wife Rose Laborfalvy, one of the greatest of Hungarian actresses.
From that time onward he has devoted his life partly to parliamentary
activity, but chiefly to literature and the political press. In the
latter field he has acted as editor of, and frequent contributor to,
several of the leading journals of Hungary; and, moreover, as founder and
editor of the “_Üstökös_,” the Hungarian “_Punch_.” In Hungary, where
political and parliamentary life has long been in existence, a paper _à
la_ “_Punch_” was a natural and much needed literary product. Nor do we
hesitate to assert that several of such papers—for instance, Jókai’s
“_Üstökös_” (“The Comet”), and the incomparable Porzó’s (Dr. Adolf Ágai)
“_Borszem Jankó_” (a name) not only equal, but, as a rule, decidedly
surpass German or French “_Punches_,” and not infrequently the London
paper too. Wit in Hungary is of a peculiar kind, and Jókai is one of its
most gifted devotees. It is wit, not only of situations, or humorous
contrasts, but also of linguistic contortionism, if we may so express
it; so that none but a master of the language can handle it with real
success. On the other hand, it is fertile in humorous types, and does not
indulge—unwillingly at least—in caricature.
Amongst Jókai’s novels, “An Hungarian Nabob” (“_Egy magyar nábob_,”
1856, translated into English) is one of his earlier masterworks. It
tells the story of one of those immensely wealthy Hungarian noblemen who,
in pre-revolutionary times, lived like small potentates on their vast
estates, surrounded by wassailing companions, women, gamblers, fools,
gypsies, and an indefinite crowd of hangers-on. The old Kárpáthy, the
nabob, in spite of habitual excesses of all kinds, is, at bottom, an
upright and proud man. The intrigues made against him by a profligate
nephew, hitherto his only heir, and who wants to precipitate his death,
are baffled by the nabob’s marriage with a young and innocent girl,
who makes him the father of a boy, Zoltán. Within this apparently very
simple framework what a wealth of scenes, of types, of humour, and
descriptive gems! We are taken from the half-savage manor-life of the
old nabob to brilliant Paris, then again to Pozsony and to Pest. The
language is winged, winning, and gorgeously varied. The continuation of
the “Nabob” is given in “_Kárpáthy Zoltán_,” a novel which, both in its
pathos and in its humour, is one of the most engaging pieces of modern
narrative literature. Full of historic interest are Jókai’s “The Golden
Era of Transylvania” (“_Erdély arany kora_,” translated into English by
Mr. Nisbet Bain); “The Sins of the Heartless Man” (“_A kőszivü ember
fiai_”); “Political Fashions” (“_Politikai divatok_”); “The Lady with
the Sea-Eyes” (“_A tengerszemü hölgy_”); and in “The New Landlord” (“_Az
új földesúr_”) Jókai has, without so much as posing as a political
moralist, achieved one of the best effects of patriotic moralizing. “The
New Landlord” is perhaps one of the most finished and architectonically
perfect of the Hungarian master’s works, although the workmanship of
“What we are growing old for” (“_Mire megvénűlünk_”) is also remarkable.
Other novels in which Jókai’s splendour of imagination and narrative
genius may be enjoyed at their best are: “Love’s Fools” (“_Szerelem
bolondjai_”); “Black Diamonds” (“_Fekete gyémántok_,” translated into
English); “There is no Devil” (“_Nincsen ördög_”); “The Son of Rákóczy”
(“_Rákóczy fia_”); “Twice Two is Four” (“_Kétszer kettő négy_”), etc.
Besides works of fiction, exceeding two hundred and fifty volumes, Jókai
has written an interesting History of Hungary; his memoirs; the Hungarian
part of the late Crown Prince Rudolf’s great work on Austria-Hungary,
etc. He is still enriching Hungarian Literature with ever new works of
fiction.
CHAPTER XXXI.
In the preceding chapters we have essayed to give some idea of the
work of the leading poets and writers of Magyar literature. The very
narrow limits of this sketch of the literary life of the Hungarians have
prevented us from giving more than mere outlines; and in now approaching
the activity of modern Hungarian poets and writers of less prominent
position, although not infrequently of very considerable value, we are
forced to restrict ourselves to still more limited appreciation.
Amongst the _Novel-writers_ we cannot omit to mention Louis Kúthy
(1813-1864), Ignatius Nagy (1810-1856), and Gustavus Lauka. The two
latter excelled in light, humorous novels. In the humoristic sketches and
tales of Gereben Vas (_nom de plume_ for Joseph Radákovics, 1823-1867)
there is a continuous and, as to its language, admirable display of the
fireworks of folk-wit and racy fun. Amongst his best works are “Great
Times—Great Men” (“_Nagy idők nagy emberek_”); “Law-Students’ Bohemian
Life” (“_Jurátus élet_”). Albert Pálffy (born in 1823), after a long
career as an influential politician and journalist, has published, since
1892, a great number of sound, readable novels. Aloisius Degré (born
in 1820), of French extraction, has always been a popular writer with
readers of society-novels. Charles Bérczy (1823-1867) is the founder of
sport-literature in Hungary; in his novels he follows chiefly English
models. A peculiar position is occupied by Ladislas Beöthy who, in the
evil decade of Austrian reaction (1850-1860) amused and consoled his
despondent countrymen by his eccentric humour and originality. In the
historic novels of Charles Szathmáry (1830-1891) there is more patriotism
than literary power. Both as a journalist (as editor of the “_Fővárosi
Lapok_”) and as an author of elegant and thoughtful novels, Charles
Vadna (born 1832) has won a conspicuous place for himself. Alexander
Balázs (1830-1887); Arnold Vértesi (born 1836); Lewis Tolnai (born
1837); William Győry (1838-1885); Miss Stephania Wohl (1848-1889); Emil
Kazár (born in 1843); have in numerous novels, many of which would merit
particular attention, painted the sad or gay aspects of life. Louis
Abonyi (born in 1833), Alexander Baksay (born in 1832), Ödön Jakab, and
Bertalan Szalóczy count among the best Hungarian novelists whose subjects
are taken from the life of the Magyar peasantry. As we have already
suggested, the number of Hungarian writers venturing on a novelistic
_poetisation_ of life on a grand scale, is not very great at present.
Most of the modern novelists just mentioned work on a smaller scale; and
thus the Hungarian Bret Harte did not fail to make his appearance. His
name is Coloman Mikszáth (born in 1849). His short and thoroughly poetic
tales from the folk-life of Hungary are in more than one respect superior
to those of the American writer. For, to the latter’s sweet conciseness
of plan and dialogue, Mikszáth adds the charm of _naïveté_. Some of his
works have been translated into German, French and English; and the
enthusiasm for his art will no doubt spread from Hungary to all other
countries where the graces of true simplicity can still be enjoyed.
Amongst the numerous writers of _genre_-sketches and _feuilletons_,
“Porzó” or Dr. Ágai is _facile princeps_; not only in Hungary, but also,
we venture to add, in all Europe. He is quite unique.
CHAPTER XXXII.
The number of _lyrical poets_ is very great in modern Hungary. It may
be stated that, as a rule, a Magyar poet has more chances of attracting
public attention by a good lyrical poem than by a good novel. Perhaps
the female portion of Hungary are not as anxious for novel-reading, as
are their sisters in more western countries; and thus the balance of
attention to poetic works is spent on the drama and on lyrics. This fact
is on a line with the predilection of the Hungarian public for songs and
airs, as against native musical works of a more extensive description.
The great Hungarian lyrical poets of modern times may properly be divided
into several groups, of which the first is the school of poets with
whom the beauty and purity of Form is the principal concern of their
art. Considering the innate Magyar tendency to rhapsodic and shapeless
exuberance, the relative value of the works of that group is very great.
The Hungarian language, just on account of its large share of musical
elements, has somewhat of that indistinctness and vague emotionality
which, like that of music, must be strictly kept within the bounds of
Form. Even in the more advanced poetry of the Teutonic nations, whether
German or English, the significance of poets cultivating pre-eminently
the chaste beauty of Form, is still very considerable. Fortunately for
Hungary, both Paul Gyulai (born in 1826) and Charles Szász (born in
1829) have, especially the latter, untiringly worked at providing their
countrymen with works of poetry, original or otherwise, in which the
law and beauty of Form predominate over emotionalism. Szász has thus
deserved very highly of Hungarian Literature. His delicate sense of
metre, rhythm and architectonics, in his original epics and lyrics, as
well as in his exceedingly numerous translations from the works of great
western poets, is on a par with the wealth of his linguistic resources;
and while English poetry may perhaps afford to be less encouraging to the
adepts of Form, Magyar literature is to be congratulated upon having at
once recognized and thereby not missed the numerous works of her Richard
Garnett.
To this group belongs also Joseph Lévay (born in 1825), whose popular
works move in the sphere of elevated serenity.
Another group of lyrical poets is formed by the nationalists, who vied
with one another in sounding exclusively the note of Magyar sentiments
and ideas proper. Local colour seemed to be everything, and in language
and subject nothing was used outside the purely Magyar elements. The most
gifted of that class was Coloman Tóth (1831-1881); next to him ranks
perhaps Andrew Tóth (1824-1885); nor must Coloman Lisznyay (1823-1863),
Joseph Zalár (born in 1827), and Joseph Székely (born in 1825) be omitted.
Quite by himself stands John Vajda (born in 1827). He is to Hungarian
poetry proper, what Kemény (see pp. 153, etc.) is to Hungarian novelistic
literature. His is the gloom and power of pessimism; and in his fight
with Destiny he conjures up all the furies of scorn, despair, rage and
hatred: see especially his “_Szerelem átka_” and “_Gina emléke_.”
The lyrical poets of the sixties and seventies of this century tried to
avoid excessive nationalism, true to the spirit of the time when Hungary
through the final regulation of her constitution as an autonomous state,
assumed a European attitude herself. The more prominent names are Béla
Szász; Victor Dalmady; Joseph Komócsy; Lewis Tolnai; Ladislas Arany,
Alexander Endrődi, Julius Reviczky, etc. In Joseph Kiss there is much of
that power of discovering poetic riches in subjects hitherto ignored by
poets, which goes to make the really great poet. The emotional conflicts
between orthodox Jews and Christian peasants living in the same village,
conflicts of love and hatred alike, have been worked into powerful
ballads by Kiss.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
It would be impossible, to write even the shortest sketch of Hungarian
Literature without dwelling on one of the less conspicuous, yet chief
sources of suggestion and inspiration of Hungarian poets. We mean the
_folk-poetry_ of the Hungarian people. Now that we can study that poetry
in numerous and comprehensive collections, published by John Erdélyi
(1848), Paul Gyulai and Ladislas Arany, John Kriza (1863), Lewis Kálmány,
Coloman Thaly (in English, the collection of L. Kropf and W. Jones,
“Magyar Folk-tales,” 1884), etc., etc., we cannot but acknowledge the
profound effect that these countless poems, ballads, songs, fables,
epics, and ditties must have had on the minds of Hungarian poets who
spent their youth in the midst of people singing, reciting or improvising
them. In intensity of colour, in fire and varied picturesqueness,
Hungarian folk-poetry is certainly not inferior to that of the people
of Italy. In humour and exuberant audacity it is probably its equal.
But while Italian folk-poetry frequently stoops to the indecent and
obscene, it may be said without fear of contradiction, that such stains
are unknown to the folk-poetry of the Magyars. In it lives the whole life
of that nation, its sorrows and humiliations, as well as its moments of
triumph and victory. The complete ethnography, historic and present,
of the Magyars could be gleaned from that poetry. Nay, so intense is
the poetic feeling of those lowly and obscure peasant-poets, that every
object of the rich nature of Hungary has been framed and illumined
by them. The _puszta_, and the two mighty rivers of the country; the
snow-clad Carpathians, and the immense lake of the Balaton; the abundant
flora and fauna of their land—all is there, instinct with poetic life
of its own, and embracing, sympathizing or mourning the life of the
shepherd, the outlaw (_betyár_), the lover, the priest, the trader, the
Jew, the constable, the squire, the maiden, the widow, the child. There
is in that folk-poetry a tinkling, ringing and pealing of all the bells
and organs of life. Like the music that almost invariably accompanies
it, it is teeming with intense power, and hurries on over the cascades
of acute rhythms, and the rapids of gusts of passion. As if every object
of Nature had revealed to it the last, brief secret of its being, it
describes scenes and situations in two or three words. Its wit is
harmless or cruel, just as it chooses; and in its humour the laughing
tear is not wanting. Chief of all, as the great pundits of Cairo or
Bagdad, whenever they are at sea about some of the enigmas of the idiom
of the Koran and the Makamat, send for advice to the roving Bedouins of
the Arabian deserts: so the Hungarian poets have gathered their best
knowledge of the recondite lore of the Magyar idiom, in the _pusztas_ of
the _Alföld_, between the Danube and the Theiss, where the true Magyar
peasant is living.
Hungarian folk-poetry is not a thing of the past. Almost day by day,
new and ever new “_nóták_” or songs are rising from the fields and
forests—nobody knows who composed them—and as if carried by the winds of
east and west, they quickly find their way into the heart of the whole
nation. There is thus an inexhaustible fountain of poetry and poetic
suggestiveness in the very nation of the Magyars. Great as some of the
Hungarian lyrical poets have been, it is fair to assume, that with such
an undercurrent of perennial folk-poetry to draw upon, there are, for
this reason alone, still many more great poets in store for us.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
In conclusion, a few words on the Hungarian literary productions outside
_belles-lettres_ proper. From the pre-eminently political character of
the Magyars, it may be inferred almost _a priori_ that questions bearing
on legal and constitutional matters have at all times been a favourite
subject with the writers and statesmen of Hungary. Previous to 1830,
in round numbers, these questions were treated mostly in Latin works.
Since then, however, a very considerable number of politico-legal and
politico-historical writers in Magyar has arisen. The most important
amongst them, both for the authority they commanded in practical
politics, and for the weight and power of their arguments, are Count
Stephen Széchenyi; Baron Nicolas Wesselényi; Count Aurelius Dessewffy;
Baron Joseph Eötvös (see pp. 142, etc.); the famous Lewis Kossúth,
probably the greatest political orator of the century; and Francis
Deák. They were all practical statesmen, and not mere scholars. Yet
most of their works on the constitution of Hungary, and especially on
the constitutional relation of Hungary to Austria, are also valuable
as sources of solid and scholarly information. Thus Deák showed the
extensiveness of his legal and politico-historical erudition in his
famous controversy with the Austrian professor Lustkandl, in no lesser
degree than his tact and wisdom in the conclusion of the final treaty
between Austria and Hungary in 1867. Eötvös enriched Magyar political
literature with an elaborate and thoughtful work on “The Influence of
the Dominant Ideas of the Nineteenth Century on the State” (“_A xix.
század uralkodó eszméinek befolyása az álladalomra_,” 1851-1854). In
more recent times a very great number of politico-legal monographs has
been published in Hungary. The student will find lists of them in the
works of Stephen Kiss and E. Nagy, both entitled “Constitutional Law of
Hungary” (“_Magyarország közjoga_,” the former in 1888, the latter, third
edition, 1896). Of older works on the constitutional law of Hungary,
the most useful are those of count Cziráky (1851, in Latin), and of
Professor Virozsil (also in Hungarian and German, 1865). Amongst the
numerous Magyar writers on _Jurisprudence_, Professor Augustus Pulszky is
well-known in England through his able work, written in English, on “The
Theory of Law and Civil Society” (1888).
In the department of _History_, and especially the history of Hungary,
the activity of the Magyars has been one of astounding intensity. In the
well-known annual bibliography of history, edited by Jastrow, in Berlin
(_Jahresberichte_, etc.), the annual report on the historical literature
published in Hungary, occupies a conspicuous space. The older historians
of Hungary, such as G. Pray (1774, 3 vols. fol.), Katona (1779-1817,
42 vols.), who wrote in Latin; and Engel (1814), Fessler (1825, 10
vols.), count John Majláth (1853, 5 vols.), who wrote in German, can
now be used only for occasional reference. Of Magyar writers on the
history of Hungary, Bishop Michael Horváth (1809-1878), and Ladislas
Szalay (1813-1864), have had the greatest influence on the reading
public and Magyar historiography up to the end of the seventies. The
bishop treats history in the style of fine and dignified ecclesiastical
allocutions. Szalay’s is a talent for the political and legal aspects
of history rather than for the personal and military element thereof.
In both historians there is a noble patriotism, and their works, even
if discarded as wanting in systematic research, will always claim a
high rank as literary productions. Hungary is still waiting for the
true historian of the whole of her history; but what other country is
not? Writers of historic monographs there are many, and they have done
excellent work. Some of the most prominent are Count Joseph Teleki
(1790-1855); Francis Salomon (born 1825); Anton Csengery (1822-1880);
Charles Szabó (1824-1890); Alexander Szilágyi (born 1830), the historian
of Transylvania; William Fraknói (born 1843, died recently), on Pázmány
and King Matthew; Julius Pauler (born 1841), whose great work on the
history of Hungary under the Árpáds (till 1301) is characterised by a
most careful study of all the original sources; Coloman Thaly (born
1839), whose “speciality” is the age of Francis Rákóczy II.; Emericus
Krajner (very valuable works on constitutional history); Lewis Thallóczy
(on relation to Balkan nations); Ignatius Acsády (on civilization and
finance of xvi. and xvii. cent.); Henry Marczali (on the age of Emperor
Joseph II.); Lewis Kropf, whose domicile is in London, and who, in a
long series of accurate and scholarly monographs has elucidated many
an important point of Hungarian history; G. Ladányi (constitutional
history); Sigismond Ormós (institutional history of the Árpádian
period); K. Lányi (ecclesiastical history); Alex. Nagy (institutional
history); F. Kubinyi (institutional history); S. Kolosváry and K. Óváry
(charters); L. Fejérpataky (charters); Árpád Kerékgyártó (history of
Magyar civilization); F. Balássy (institutional history); Professor
Julius Lánczy (institutional and Italian history); Baron Béla Radvánszky
(Magyar civilization); Emericus Hajnik (constitutional history);
Frederick Pesty (constitutional history); Wertner (most valuable works
on Hungarian genealogy), etc. Great also is the number of periodicals
systematically embracing all the aspects of Hungarian history; and
local societies effectively aid in the marshalling of facts, and in the
publication of ancient monuments. When the history of Austria, Poland,
and the Danubian countries has been written in a manner superior to what
we now possess in that respect, the history of Hungary too, will, we have
no doubt, find its adequate master among Magyar historians. The progress
in Magyar historiography has, in late years, been little short of that
made in any other country.
In the department of _literary history_ we notice the same lack of a
satisfactory general history of Hungarian Literature, and the same
abundance of meritorious monographs on single points. Francis Toldy
(formerly Schedel, 1805-1875), started a comprehensive history of
Hungarian Literature, which, however, he never completed. In numerous
essays and minor works he worked hard at various sections of such
a history, and his relative value as an initiator in that branch
cannot be disputed. The laborious works of K. M. Kertbény are purely
bibliographical, and as such, useful. His attempts were quite thrown
into the shade by the great works on Hungarian bibliography of Charles
Szabó, G. Petrik, and J. Szinnyei. The handiest and bibliographically
richest history of Hungarian Literature is that by Zsolt Beöthy (sixth
edition, 1892). Under Beöthy’s editorship a richly-illustrated history
of Hungarian Literature was published, in two volumes, in the year and
in honour of the Hungarian Millennium, 1896. Among the better writers of
monographs on literary history are Julius Zolnai (philology); J. Szinnyei
(biography); Sigism Simonyi (philologist); L. Négyessy (prosody); Alex.
Imre (popular humour and mediæval style); R. Radnai (history of Magyar
æsthetics); M. Csillagh (on Balassi); Sigism Bodnár (history of Hungarian
Literature); H. Lenkei (studies in Petőfi); K. Greska (on the epic of
Zrinyi); T. Szana (history of literature), etc.
The study of æsthetics has always been one of the favourite pursuits
of Magyar writers during the present century. The most conspicuous of
Hungarian students of æsthetics are Augustus Greguss and Paul Gyulai,
whose works have advanced not only Magyar views, but the study of
æsthetics in general.
The best known students of _Hungarian philology_ are John Fogarasi;
Joseph Lugossy; the late Sam. Brassai, who in his multifarious studies
reminds us of the great scholars of the seventeenth century; Paul
Hunfalvy, Joseph Budenz, Ferdinand Barna (Finnish philology); Gabriel
Szarvas and Sigismund Simonyi; and the well-known Arminius Vámbéry.
In the departments of _Science proper_ there has been very considerable
progress in Hungary during the last thirty years. Reports of the
general results of scientific researches made by Hungarians are also
published, for the greater convenience of the western nations, in special
periodicals written in German.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] The above statistics are taken from the _Régi Magyar Könyvtár_.
[2] We may mention, that Bessenyei was, to a certain extent, preceded by
two amiable and cultivated writers; Baron Lawrence Orczy (1718-1789), and
Count Gedeon Ráday (1713-1792).
[3] No continental writer has described and analysed the social status
of the continental peasant with so much charm and truth as has the late
Wilhelm Riehl, the Justus Möser of our century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
For general and accurate information about Hungary:
“_Pallas_” Encyclopædia (in Hungarian) in sixteen volumes, just
(March, 1898) completed.
History of Hungarian Literature:
See the chapter at the end of the present work. In German there
is the able work of Professor J. H. Schwicker (“_Geschichte der
ungarischen Litteratur_,” Leipsic, 1889). In Italian we have
the short history of G. A. Zigány, “_Letteratura Ungherese_”
(Milan, 1892, one of Hoepli’s “Manuals.”)
Selections from Hungarian poets:
Paul Erdélyi, _A magyar költészet kincsesháza_ (Budapest, 1895).
Complete Catalogues of Hungarian books since the invention of typography:
Charles Szabó and Árpád Hellebrant “_Régi Magyar Könyvtár_”
(1879-1896, 3 vols.), comprising the books printed down to 1711.
Géza Petrik, _Bibliographia Hungariæ 1712-1860, catalogus
librorum in Hungaria, et de rebus patriam nostram attingentibus
extra Hungariam editorum_ (Budapest, 1888-1892), with subject
and author’s indexes.
Periodical Literature; index to Hungarian:
Szinnyei József, “_Hazai és külföldi folyóiratok magyar
tudományos repertoriuma_,” 3 vols. (1874-1885), two of which
give the list of articles, both in Hungarian and foreign
periodicals, on Hungarian history, and the third, articles
on mathematical and natural sciences. This excellent work
comprises even most of the political daily papers.
Periodical devoted to the study of the history of Hungarian Literature:
“_Irodalomtörténeti közlemények_,” edited first by Aladár
Ballagi, and now by Aron Szilády (since 1891; full, well
edited, with careful indexes).
Literary biography:
Joseph Szinnyei, the younger, “_Magyar irók élete és munkái_.”
Most exhaustive, with complete bibliographies to each writer
and his works, comprising even articles written in daily
papers. (Budapest, since 1891, still unfinished).
The Magyar Language:
The most comprehensive work is by Professor Sigismund Simonyi,
“_A magyar nyelv_” (2 vols., Budapest, 1889, 8vo).
INDEX
Abonyi, Louis. (Folk-Novelist), 241
Academy of Science, founded by Széchenyi and others, 112
its publications, 112
Acsády, Ignatius. (Historian), 253
Alvinczi, Peter. (Controversialist), 55
Amadé, Baron Ladislas. (Poet), 67
America has no epic; the reason of this, 123
American literature hampered by their language, 14
has no _naïveté_, reasons, 198
Andrássy, Count George, a founder of the Academy, 112
Andrew II., King of Hungary, 19
Ányos, Paul. (Poet), 80
Anzengruber. (Austrian Dramatist), 225
Apor, Peter. (Historian), 68
Arany, John—his Hungarian reputation, 194
compared with Petőfi, 195
reason why his work is not bourgeois poetry, 197
a Magyar and a class poet, 200
his charm of language, 200, 201
his position in Magyar literature, 202
his life, 202
his work, 204, 209
Arany, Ladislas. (Poet), 245
his collection of folk-poetry, 247
Árpád Dynasty of Hungary, 18, 124, 126, 129
in the epic, 40, 41
_Athenæum_, Hungarian periodical, 134
Auerbach, Berthold. (German Folk-Novelist), 225
_Aurora_, periodical, 116
Austrian Empire, its heterogeneity, 76
Bacsányi, John. (Poet), 86
Bajza, Joseph. (Critic and Poet), 133
Baksay, Alexander. (Folk-Novelist), 241
Balássy, F. (Historian), 253
Balassi, Baron Valentin. (Poet) (I.), 49
(II.), 58
Balassi stanza, the, 50
Balázs, Alexander. (Novelist), 241
Balzac. His genius not fully recognized, 157
Kemény compared to him, 157, 161
compared to Shakespeare, 158
Baranyi, Ladislas. (Poet), 80
Barcsai, Abraham. (Translator), 80
Bards, 40
Barna, Ferdinand. (Philologist), 256
Báróczi, Alexander. (Translator), 80
Bartók, Lewis. (Dramatist), 222
Batizi, Andreas. (Poet), 46
Beck, Charles. (Poet), 12
Bél, Matthew. His view of Magyar, 37
Bellarmin influences Pázmány, 54
Bem, General, and Petőfi, 190
Beniczky de Benicze, Peter. (Poet), 58
Beöthy, Ladislas. (Humorist), 241
Beöthy, Sigismund. (Poet), 135
Beöthy, Zsolt. His History of Hungarian Literature, 255
Béranger compared to Petőfi, 181
Berczik, Árpád. (Dramatist), 222
Bérczy, Charles. (Novelist), 241
Bernstein, Charles Hugo, _see_ Hugo, Charles
Berzsenyi, Daniel. (Poet), 81, 103, 109, 121
Bessenyei, Alexander. (Translator), 80
Bessenyei, George. (Dramatist, &c.), 79
Bethlens, the, 51, 164
Bible, the, published in Magyar, 46, 55
Bibliography, 254, 255, 257
Biró de Déva, Matthew. (Lutheran “pope”), 46
Blaha, Louise. (Hungarian Actress), 222
Bod, Peter. (Literary Historian), 69
Bodnár, Sigismund. (Literary Historian), 255
Bohemian Music, 236
Bonfini, Anton, at work in Hungary, 43
Brassai, Samuel. (Philologist), 255
Brutus, Michael. (Historian), 164
Budenz, Joseph. (Philologist), 36, 255
Bürger’s influence on Csokonai, 89
Burns compared to Petőfi, 180
Butler, E. D., of the British Museum (the foremost amongst British
students of Magyar philology and literature), _Preface_
Cesinge, John. (Hungarian Scholar), 44
Cowley compared to Virág, 80
Critical genius, its part in literature, 92
Crusaders, unfit heroes of epics, 42
Csengery, Anton. (Historian), 253
Csepreghy, Francis. (Dramatist), 225
Cséri de Apáca, John. (Author of Encyclopædia), 62
Cserei, Michael. (Historian), 68
Csiky, Gregory. (Dramatist), 221, 223
Csillagh, M. (Historian), 255
Csipkés, George Komáromi. (Translator of the Bible), 55
Csokonai, Michael Vitéz. (Poet), 88, 211
Csoma de Kőrős, Alexander. (Philologist), 36
Czakó, Sigismund. (Dramatist), 215
Cziráky, Count. (Authority on Hungarian Constitutional Law), 251
Czuczor, Gregory. (Poet and Philologist), 112, 129
Czwittinger, David, his list of Hungarian writers, 68
Dalmady, Victor. (Poet), 245
Dayka, Gabriel. (Poet), 86
Deák, Francis. (Statesman and Author), 26, 27, 250, 251
Debreczen, the Geneva of Hungary, 46
Decsi de Baranya, John. His collection of proverbs, 48
Degré, Aloisius. (Novelist), 241
Dessewffy, Count Aurelius. (Political Writer), 250
Dialects provide new elements of poetic speech, 201
Dobsa, Lewis. (Dramatist), 222
Dóczi, Lewis. (Dramatist), 222, 223
Drama, the, 46, 67, 116, 117, 127
opening of the National Theatre, 113
in the nineteenth century, 207
want of good actors, 207
Hungarian dramas unknown outside Hungary, 221
Dugonics, Andreas. (Novelist), 83
Édes, Gregory. (Versifier), 84
Education in Hungary, _see under_ Hungary
Egressy, Gabriel. (Actor), 208
Ekkehard’s Chronicles record Magyar epics, 41
Endrődi, Alexander. (Poet), 245
Engel. (Historian), 252
England and Hungary, their histories parallel, 19, 21
Eötvös, Joseph. (Novelist), 140, 146, 250, 251
character of his work, 149
his power as an orator, 156
Epic poetry, its character, 122, 126
Erdősi, or Sylvester, John. (Grammarian), 48
Faludi, Francis. (Poet), 67
_Faust_, its points of resemblance with Madách’s “Tragedy of Man”, 219
Fazekas, Michael. (Author of a chap-book), 84
Fejérpataky, L. (Historian), 253
Felix of Ragusa, at work in Hungary, 44
Fessler. (Historian), 12, 252
Fiction in the sixteenth century, 47
in the eighteenth century, 88
in the nineteenth century, 118, 137, 226, 240
(_see also_ Novels)
Fischart, as virtuoso of language, 45
Flygare-Carlén, Mme, her popularity in Hungary, 137
Fogarasi, John. (Philologist), 112, 255
Földi, John. (Writer on Prosody), 84
Folk-Drama in Hungary, 213, 224
compared with the folk-drama in Austria, 225
Folk-Novels and Tales, 241, 242
Folk-Poems of Hungary, 134
the chief inspiration of Hungarian poets, 247
published collections, 247
Fontius, Bartholinus, at work in Hungary, 44
Forgách, Francis. (Hungarian Author), 164
Fraknói, William. (Historian), 253
France, her constitution, 153
her national homogeneity, 159
France, Anatole, his veiled pessimism, 168
Fata Morgana of the Pusztas, 176
French literature compared with Hungarian, 31
its influence on Hungarian, 117
has enjoyed advantages of criticism, 133
Galeotto, Marzio, at work in Hungary, 43
Garay, John. (Poet), 131
Garnett, Richard; the work of Szász resembles his, 244
Gáti, Stephán. (Eighteenth century writer), 83
Gergei, Albert. (Poet), 47
German literature at the Reformation, 45
its influence on Hungarian, 78, 94, 117
influenced by Greek ideas, 96
its _bourgeois_ character, 199
Goethe’s _Hermann und Dorothea_, 204
Golden Bull, the—the Hungarian Magna Charta, 19
Greek not studied in the eighteenth century, 65
Kazinczy’s labours to introduce Greek models, 95
Literature, born of Greek parents, 96
influence on German literature, 96
Hungarian Literature, 128
Greek literature comparatively unknown in Hungary, 132
Greguss, Augustus. (Writer on Æsthetics), 255
Greska, K. (Literary Critic), 255
Grünwald, Béla. (Political Historian), 152
Gvadányi, Count Joseph. (Poet and Novelist), 83
Gyöngyössi, Stephen. (Poet), 58
Győry, William. (Novelist), 241
Gyulai, Paul. (Poet), 244
his collection of folk-poetry, 247
as a writer on Æsthetics, 255
Habsburg Dynasty, their work in Hungary, 21, 24, 43, 51, 52, 64, 66,
74, 115
Hajnik, Emericus. (Historian), 254
Haner. (Hungarian Author), 164
Heine compared to Petőfi, 177, 180
Heltai, Caspar. (Chronicler and Translator), 47, 48, 164
Hölty, the Hungarian—Dayka, 86
Horvát de Pázmánd, Andreas. (Poet), 129
Horváth, Ádám. (Poet), 82, 109
Horváth, Bishop Michael. (Historian), 252
Hugo, Charles. (Dramatist), 216
Hunfalvy, Paul. (Philologist), 36, 256
Hungarian bards, 40
constitution, 19, 21
language, its origin, 10, 34
its influence on native literature, 13
its capabilities, 15
made the official language, 25
agglutinative, 33
its characteristics, 34, 201, 245
cultivated by Protestants, 54
its decadence in the eighteenth century, 63
cultivated as national palladium, 77, 87
the labours of Kazinczy, 93
schools of philology, 97
foundation of the Hungarian Academy, 112
the Academy Dictionary, 112
Széchenyi’s work, 113
the vehicle of instruction, 114, 136
used in Parliament, 115
in Vörösmarty’s hands, 126
has no dialects, 201
the influence of Arany, 202
Literature of recent growth, 11
its extent, 11, 12
influenced by want of middle-class, 24, 30
its parallel in Hungarian music, 29
compared with French, 31
its originality impaired, 32
its four periods, 38
its most ancient products, 38
its epics and legends, 39
receives an impulse at the Reformation, 43
influenced by the Renascence, 43, 45
impeding causes at the Reformation, 45
controversial literature, 46
Magyar Bible published, 46
sixteenth century poets, 46, 49
the first drama, 46
early fiction, 47, 48
chronicles, 47
obstacles to progress in the seventeenth century, 51
produced by the nobles only, then, 53
controversial, 54
seventeenth century poets, 56
Kurucz poetry, 60
1711-1772, a period of decline, 63
reason of this decline, 64
poets, 67
historians, 68
revival of 1772, 70
causes of revival, 72
Magyar periodicals, 77, 88
the three “schools”, 79, 85
awakening individuality, 85
a patriotic bulwark against Austria, 87
Kazinczy’s work, 94
the romantic school, 100, 117
loses by patriotism of its exponents, 107
of slow growth, 1772-1825, 108
effect of want of literary centres, 109
hampered by political fetters, 110
brilliant revival, 1825-1850, 110
foundation of the Academy, 112
the “Kisfaludy Society”, 113
epics produced, 124
ballads, 131
want of effective criticism, 132
Bajza’s work, 134
reasons of late development of prose, 136
Petőfi’s pre-eminent work, 169
Hungary’s contribution to typical poetry, 185
literary criticism still crude, 192
rise of the drama in the nineteenth century, 207, 220
recent fiction, 226, 240
recent poetry, 245
folk-poems, 247
political works, 250
history, 252
historical societies, 254
history of, 254, 255
music, 10, 28, 29, 61, 103, 114, 231, 236
its influence on the nation, 30
pedigrees, 36, 254
wit, 237
writers in other languages, 11, 12, 68, 109, 250, 251
Hungarians establish themselves in Hungary, 18
their national character, 28, 147, 217
influenced by their music, 30
Hungary, its natural situation, 17
occupied by divers tribes, 17
the Hungarians establish themselves there, 18
her history resembles English history, 19
her constitution, 19, 153
preserves her liberties, 21
the Turks expelled, 22, 23
effect of their dominion, 22, 23
her want of a middle-class, 23, 30
her history in the eighteenth century, 24
rebellion against Austria, 26
incorporated with the Austrian Empire, 26
national reaction of 1860, 26
her present relations with Austria, 27
her _Parlature_ as compared with her literature, 31, 229
custom of speaking in several languages, 32
detached from the Eastern Church, 41
the Virgin, her patron saint, 41
the Reformation there, 43, 45, 46
the Renascence, 43-45
Universities in, 44, 52
schools, 52, 53, 63, 66
literature left to the nobles, 53
influence of the revolution, 72
character of its population, 72
abolition of serfdom and expansion of civic life, 73
dissolution of monasteries, 75
policy of Joseph II., 76
its effect in awaking Hungarian patriotism, 77
the national stage, 77
lacked literary centres, 109
the Academy supplies this want, 112
Pesth becomes a centre, 113
local learned societies spring up, 114
Parliament, the soul of its body-politic, 115
diversity of types of character, 118, 137
her need of an epic as an incitement, 123
character of the youth, 147
independence of local government, 150
the political training of her people, 153
her national heterogeneity, 159
the horse, the national animal, 176
the rebellion of 1848, 189
the Hungarian peasant, 195
has no _bourgeoisie_ proper, 197
transitional state of society, 1850-1860, 212
the national tendency to pathos, 217
its political strides since 1870, 220
the theatres in Budapest, 222
popularity of lyrical poems, 245
Huszár, Gál. (Poet), 46
Hutten, as an author, 45
Ibsen’s morbid psychology unknown in Csiky’s plays, 224
İlosvai, Peter. (Poet), 48
Improvisation unknown to Teutons and French, 229
in Hungarian, 229
its dangers in literature, 233
Imre, Alexander. (Literary Historian), 255
Istvánffy, Nicolas. (Hungarian Author), 164
Jakab, Ödön. (Folk-Novelist), 241
Jesuits in Hungary, 52
concerned in education, 52, 66
“Jingoism” in Hungary; its influence on literature, 209
Jókai, Maurus. (Novelist), 140
his reputation, 226
his character, 226
his power of work, 227
character of his work, 228
the Liszt of literature, 231
his life, 236
Jones, W. His “Magyar Folk-Tales”, 247
Joseph II. of Austria, 25, 73, 75, 77
Jósika, Nicolas. (Novelist), 44, 140, 228
character of his work, 144
Juhász, Peter. (Pope of the Magyar Calvinists), 46
Kalevala, the Finnish epic, 40
Kálmány, Lewis. His collection of Folk-Poetry, 247
Kármán, Joseph. (Novelist), 86
Károlyi, Caspar. (Translator of the Bible), 46
Károlyi, Count George, a founder of the Academy, 112
Katona. (Dramatist), 210
Katona. (Historian), 252
Kazár, Emil. (Novelist), 241
Kazinczy, Francis. (Translator and Critic), 93, 109
his influence and work, 94, 97
Kemény, Sigismund. (Novelist), 140, 157, 235
his Balzacian genius, 157, 158
his pessimism, 161
his erudition, 163
as an historian, 163, 164
his work as a novelist, 164, 166, 168
his journalistic work, 165
Kerékgyártó, Árpád. (Historian), 253
Kerényi, Frederick. (Poet), 135
Kertbény, K. M. (Literary Bibliographer), 254
Kis, John, founds Magyar Literary Society, 77
Kisfaludy, Alexander. (Poet), 101, 109
Kisfaludy, Charles. (Poet), 116, 121, 209, 212
his dramas, 116, 117
Kisfaludy Society, the, 113
Kiss, Joseph. (Poet), 245
Kiss, Stephen. His “Constitutional Law of Hungary”, 251
Klein, J. L. (The Historian of the Drama), a Hungarian, 12
Klopstock’s _Messias_, 123
Kohári, Count Stephen. (Poet), 58
Kölcsey, Francis. (Orator and Poet), 98, 104, 107, 121
Kolosváry, S. (Historian), 253
Komócsy, Joseph. (Poet), 245
Königsberg Fragment, the, 39
Kónyi, John. (Eighteenth Century Writer), 83
Kossúth, Lewis, 250
Krajner, Emericus. (Historian), 253
Kraus. (Hungarian Historian), 164
Kriza, John. His collection of Folk-Poetry, 247
Kropf, Lewis. His “Magyar Folk-Tales”, 247
(Historian), 253
Kubinyi, F. (Historian), 253
Kurucz Poetry, patriotic ditties, 60
Kúthy, Louis, 240
Laborfalvy, Rose. Hungarian actress, wife of M. Jókai, 222, 237
Ladányi, G. (Historian), 253
Lánczy, Julius. (Historian), 253
Language, its influence on literature, 14, 15, 136
Lányi, K. (Historian), 253
Latin used in Hungary, 12, 52, 63, 64, 66, 68, 109, 250
Lauka, Gustavus. (Novelist), 240
Lenau, Nicolaus. (Hungarian-German Author), 12
Lendvay. (Actor), 222
Lenkei, H. (Literary Critic), 255
Leopold II. of Austria, 25
Lessing, a genius both critical and creative, 93, 216
Lévay, Joseph. (Poet), 244
Lewis the Great, of Hungary, 44
Liberty affected by Reformation, 20
Listhy, Baron Ladislas. (Poet), 58
Lisznyay, Coloman. (Poet), 245
Liszt, Francis, 114, 128, 231, 236
Literature of a nation, as compared with its _parlature_, 31
influenced by language, 14
can only thrive in a republic of minds, 52
an urban growth, 72, 109
the influence of critical genius upon, 92
born of Greek parents, 96
universality of great writers, 107
Lugossy, Joseph. (Philologist), 255
Lucretius’ “_De rerum natura_” compared with Madách’s “Tragedy of
Man”, 219
Lustkandl. (Austrian Professor), 251
Luther, Martin, as an author, 45
Lytton’s novels, their popularity in Germany and Austria, 137
Madách, Emericus. (Poet), 217
Maeterlinck, his veiled pessimism, 168
Magyar, _see_ Hungarian
Majláth, Count John. (Historian), 252
Marczali, Henry. (Historian), 253
Margit, Saint, daughter of Béla IV., 42
her life extant, 42
Maria Theresa, her government of Hungary, 73, 75
Matthew Corvinus, King of Hungary, 43, 143
Metastasio’s influence on Csokonai, 89
Metres used in Hungarian Poetry, 50, 59, 78, 81, 84, 97, 101, 103,
104, 119, 130
Metternich, Prince, his work in Hungary, 25, 100
Middle Classes, a product of Feudalism, 24
Mikes, Clement, his “Letters”, 67
Mikó, Francis. (Hungarian Author), 164
Mikszáth, Coloman. (The Hungarian Bret Harte), 242
Mirandola, Pico della, 200
Molnár de Szencz, Albert. (Grammarian), 55
“Moralities,” Hungarian, 47
Music, _see_ Hungarian Music
Nagy, Alexander. (Historian), 253
Nagy, E., his “Constitutional Law of Hungary”, 251
Nagy, Emeric. (Poet), 135
Nagy, Francis. (Translator), 83
Nagy, Ignatius. (Novelist), 215, 240
Nagy de Bánka, Matthew. (Poetical Chronicler), 47
_Naïveté_, its origin and _locus_ in life and literature. None in
America, little in England, reasons, _ib._, 198
Naláczi, Joseph, (Poet), 80
Nature’s “Laws,” a convenient fiction, 170
Négyessy, L. (Author on Prosody), 255
Neo-Latin poets, the reason of their failure, 14
Novelists of Hungary, 137, 138, 140
popularity of foreign in Hungary, 137
Novels, Hungarian, their peculiarities, 139
reviews of individual works. (_See also_ Fiction), 141, 146, 149,
166, 237
Obernyik, Charles. (Dramatist), 215
Oláh, Nicholas. (Hungarian Author), 164
Orczy, Baron Lawrence. (Eighteenth century writer), 79
Ormós, Sigismond. (Historian), 253
Óváry, K. (Historian), 253
Pálffy, Albert. (Journalist and Novelist), 241
Pannonius, Janus, _see_ Cesinge, John
Pap, Andreas. (Poet), 135
Páriz-Pápai, Francis. (Lexicographer), 62
_Parlature_, as contrasted with Literature, 31, 229
Parliament, the soul of political life in Hungary and England, 115
Pathos, the Hungarian tendency to, 217
Pauler, Julius. (Historian), 253
Pázmány, Peter. (Cardinal and controversialist), 54
Peasantry of Hungary, 195, 213, 225
Pécs University, 44
Pessimism, the outcome of thought, 163
Pesth, suspension bridge connecting it with Buda, 127
Pesty, Frederick. (Historian), 254
Pesti, Gabriel. (Lexicographer and Translator), 47, 48
Péczeli, Joseph. (Translator), 80
Periodical literature in the eighteenth century, 77, 88
the periodical press in the nineteenth century, 113, 116, 134, 237
Petthő, Gregory. (Hungarian History), 164
Petőfi, Alexander, the greatness of his poetry, 169, 172
its spontaneity, 173
character of his work, 177, 181, 183, 190, 200, 233
his objectivity, 177, 183
his humour, 179
ill-judged comparisons with Burns and Béranger, 180
his patriotic poems distributed by Government, 183
appreciated in America, 185, 192
his poetry, the exponent of Hungarian nationality, 185
sketch of his life, 186
his growing European reputation, 192
compared with Arany, 195
Petrarch’s influence on Kisfaludy, 101
Petrik, Géza. (Bibliographer), 255
Petrőczi, Baroness Catherine S. (Poetess), 58
Platen compared to Berzsenyi, as writer of odes, 104
Podhorszky, his view of Magyar, 37
Poetry not inherent in Nature, but a human creation, 171
its greatness to be gauged by objective beauty, 184
Poetry and Poets of Hungary, sixteenth century, 47, 49
seventeenth century, 56
eighteenth century, 67, 79, 80, 84
nineteenth century, 116, 127, 129, 135, 169, 245
Poland, continuity of its liberties, 21
Pope’s influence on Csokonai, 89
European character of his work, 106
Porzó (Dr. Adolph Ágai), prince of feuilletonists, 237
Pozsony University, 44
Pray, G. (Historian), 252
Printing in Hungary, 44
Priscus, the Byzantine, records Magyar epics, 41
Prosody, _see_ Metres
Pulszky, Augustus. (Hungarian Jurist), 251
“Punch,” the Hungarian, 237
Pusztas the, of Hungary, 174
types of the dwellers there, 175
the Fata Morgana, 176
Pyrker, Ladislaus. (Hungarian-German Author), 12
Radákovics, Joseph, _see_ Vas, Gereben
Ráday, Count Gedeon. (Eighteenth century writer), 79
Radnai, R. (Art-historian), 255
Radvánszky, Béla. (Historian), 254
Rajnis, Joseph. (Poet), 80
_Rákóczy March_, the, 60
Rákóczy Francis, II., 23, 144
Rákosi, Eugene. (Dramatist), 221, 223
Ramler compared to Virág, 80
Ranzanus, Peter, at work in Hungary, 43
Realism inimical to art, 165
Reformation, the, in Hungary, 43, 45, 46
Reguly, Anton, his views on Magyar, 36
Reicherstorffer. (Hungarian Author), 164
Renascence, the, its influence in Hungary, 43, 45
Révai, Nicolas. (Philologist), 80, 97
Reviczky, Julius. (Poet), 245
Revivals in dead languages, a failure, 14
Revolutionary spirit in Europe, 70
Hungary, 72
Rhapsody in the music and poetry of Hungary, 185
its dangers, 233
Riehl, Wilhelm, his writings on continental peasantry, 196
Rimay de Rima, John. (Poet), 58
Romantic School, the, in England, France, and Germany, 100
“Sabbatarians,” their religious poetry, 55
in Transylvania, 167
Sajnovics, John. (Philologist, 1770), 36
Sárosy, Julius. (Poet), 135
Salomon, Francis. (Historian), 253
Sand, George, her popularity in Hungary, 137
Schesaeus. (Hungarian Historian), 164
Scott compared to Jósika, 144
Shakespeare better known in Austria than England, 107
his influence on Katona, 211
Shelley studied by Petőfi, 181
Simonyi, Sigismund. (Philologist), 35, 255
Sobieski, John, King of Poland, 22
Somogyi (Ambrosius). (Hungarian Author), 164
Sonnets first written by Kazinczy, 97
Stephen, Saint, King of Hungary, 18, 41
Sylvester, John, _see_ Erdősi
Szabó, Baróti David. (Poet), 80, 81
Szabó, Charles. (Historian), 253, 255
Szalárdi, John. (Chronicler), 62
Szalay, Ladislas. (Historian), 252
Szalóczy, Bertalan. (Folk-Novelist), 241
Szamosközy, Stephen. (Hungarian Historian), 164
Szana, T. (Literary Historian), 255
Szarvas, Gabriel. (Philologist), 256
Szász, Béla. (Poet), 245
Szász, Charles. (Poet). (The Hungarian Richard Garnett), _ib._, 244
Szathmáry, Charles. (Novelist), 241
Szatmáry, Joseph, _see his assumed name_, Szigligeti, Edward
Széchenyi, Count Stephen, 37, 250
his patriotism and political views, 111
a founder of the Academy of Science, 112
connects Buda and Pesth with a suspension bridge, 127
Székely, Alexander. (Preacher and Poet), 122
Székely, Joseph. (Poet), 245
Székely de Bencéd, Stephen. (Chronicler), 48
Szekér, Joachim. (Educationalist), 83
Szemere. (Joint Author of _Felelet_), 98
Szendrey, Juliet, wife of Petőfi, 188
Szigeti, Joseph. (Dramatist), 222
Szigligeti, Edward. (Dramatist), 211
Szilády’s Collection of Hungarian Poets, 39
Szilágyi, Alexander. (Historian), 253
Szinnyei, József. (Bibliographer), 255
Sztárai, Michael. (Dramatist), 47
Teleki, Count Joseph. (Historian), 99, 253
first President of the Academy, 112
Teleky, Count Ladislas. (Dramatist), 215
Temesváry, Stephen. (Poetical Chronicler), 47
Tennyson, not popular abroad, 139
Thackeray, not popular abroad, 139
Thallóczy, Lewis. (Historian), 253
Thaly, Coloman. (Historian), 253
his collection of Folk-poetry, 247
Tinódy, Sebastian, his “Chronicle”, 47, 164
Toldy, Francis. (Historian of Literature), 134, 254
Toldy, Stephen. (Dramatist), 222
Tolnai, Lewis. (Novelist and Poet), 241, 245
Tompa, Michael. (Poet), 206
Tóth, Andrew. (Poet), 245
Tóth, Coloman. (Poet), 245
Tóth, Edward. (Dramatist), 221, 224
Tóth de Ungvárnémet, Ladislas. (Poet), 105
Town life necessary to develop a literature, 72, 109
Translations from Magyar, 192, 238, 239, 242, 247
into Magyar, 47, 48, 55, 80, 81, 82, 83, 86, 94, 112, 128, 206, 244
Transylvania, her efforts for independence, 51
the home of patriotism, 140
her history in Kemény’s novels, 163
Turks driven out of Hungary, 22, 23, 56
effect of their dominion, 22, 23, 51
Ugoletus, Thaddeus, at work in Hungary, 44
Ugrian group of languages, 35
United States, its constitution, 152
Vachott, Alexander, 135
Vadna, Charles. (Novelist), 241
Vajda, John. (Dramatist and Poet), 222, 245
Vámbéry, Arminius. (Philologist), 36, 256
Várady, Anton. (Dramatist), 222
Varjas, John. (Versifier), 84
Vas, Gereben (Joseph Radákovics). (Humorist), 240
Vay, Baron Abraham, a founder of the Academy, 112
Verantius. (Hungarian Historian), 164
Verseghy, Francis. (Poet), 85, 98
Vértesi, Arnold. (Novelist), 241
Vienna, siege of, 1683, 22
Viennese, character, 87
Virág, Benedictus, 80
Virozsil, Professor. (Authority on Hungarian Constitutional Law), 251
Vitkovics, (Folk-Poet), 109
Vörösmarty, Michael, his character as a poet, 120, 127
his epic poem, 124
his power of language, 126, 127
his dramas, 127
contributor to the _Athenæum_, 134
Wertner. (Genealogist), 254
Wesselényi, Baron Nicolas. (Political Writer), 250
Wit of Hungary, 237
Wohl, Stephania. (Novelist), 241
Zalár, Joseph. (Poet), 245
Zichy, Count Peter. (Poet), 58
Zolnai, Julius. (Philologist), 255
Zrinyi, Count Michael. (Poet and Patriot), 56
“Zrinyiad,” the, 56
its national influence, 57
Zsámboky. (Hungarian Author), 164
_Jarrold and Sons, Printers, Norwich, Yarmouth, and London._
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