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.