HUNGARIAN STUDIES 11. No. 1. NemzetkÃ¶zi Magyar ... - EPA

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20 MIHÁLY SZEGEDY-MASZÁK"Wozu Dichter in dürftiger Zeit?" The question asked in the seventh stanzaof Brot und Wein made both Radnóti and Celan reassess the function ofpoetry. The Hungarian poet translated and his German colleague often citedHölderlin. While the author of Wie wenn am Feiertage... seemed to suggest acritique of the highest traditional values of Western culture by emphasizing theambivalence in the relationship between the Classical and Christian worlds,Celan reached a more radical conclusion. Zürich, zum Storchen, an imaginarydialogue with Nelly Sachs, is a harsh attack on God:Vom Zuviel war die Rede, vomZuwenig. Von Duund Aber-Du, vonder Trübung durch Helles, vonJüdischem, vondeinem Gott.The rage against the Creator is replaced by the interpretation of God asunnamcable and unidentifiable in Psalm:Niemand knetet uns wieder aus Erde und Lehm,niemand bespricht unsern Staub.Niemand.Gelobt seist du, Niemand.This is a far cry from Radnoti's growing fascination with a Christian God.The Hungarian poet found relief in the New Testament, having reached theconclusion that what seemed absurd from a human perspective had a deepermeaning for God. This paradox is the key to the understanding both of thepeculiar place of Radnoti's verse in the canon of Holocaust literature and ofhis later influence on Pilinszky, the leading Catholic poet of the subsequentgeneration in Hungary.The realization that for a Christian there is nothing suprising in the Sermonon the Mount appeared in Radnoti's work at precisely the time when hislanguage became less turgid. The first signs of a stylistic development can beseen in Keep Walking, Condemned to Death (1936). It is perfectly understandablethat for his fifth volume Radnóti was awarded the Baumgarten prize byBabits, who was the most severe critic of his earlier work. This collection ismarked by images of winter and death, as well as by an interesting discrepancy.While there is a growing emphasis on the preservation of poeticconventions, some of the imagery is highly innovative. The short lyric Praise(27 January 1936), consisting of two four-line stanzas, can be taken as a
NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS 21characteristic example of this ambiguity. The title refers to the pieces of thesection supplementing the psalms in the official song-books of the HungarianReformed Church, but the closure is in conflict with the archaic stylecharacteristic of Protestant songs:Ha meghalsz, meghalok; porainkbólegyszerre sodor majd forgó tornyot a szél.The verbal economy is new in Radnóti's verse and dependent upon thegrammar of a non-Indoeuropean language. Accordingly, the degree of translatabilityis rather low. The first three words make two ways of readingpossible: "If you die, I shall also die" and "If you and I perish." <strong>No</strong> lesscompressed is the meaning of the next sentence: "our ashes are suddenly,simultaneously and violently transformed - literally 'twisted' - into a tower orspire that is turned around by the wind." The emphasis is on an adverbsuggesting temporality and modality ("egyszerre") that is lost in the Englishtranslation:When you die, I'll die; out of our dust the windwill twirl a single spinning tower.Experimentation with imagery and intertextuality was continued in SteepRoad (1938). Once again, if the original poems are read side by side with theEnglish versions, it is difficult not to observe that not all of the complexity ispreserved in translation. Here is the crucial passage of the First Eclogue (1938)as rendered by Emery George:Still, I write, and I live in the midst of this mad-dog world, aslives that oak: it knows they'll be cutting it down; that white crosson it signals: tomorrow the tree men will buzz-saw the region;calmly it waits for that fate, yet it sprouts new leaves in the meantime.In a few cases the English text is somewhat mannered: for the adjective"kerge" - usually associated with "sheep" - the compound "mad-dog" issubstituted. In the version by Emery George the original understatement isreplaced by an exaggeration; in the other translations the solution is even lesssatisfactory, because the allusion to the world of animals is missing from sachwords as "insanity," "frenzied," or "crazy." On other occasions the grammaticalvalue of the English word is too weak: the rhetorical strength of the verb"fehérlik" is absent not only from the simple adjective "white" used by George
Page 1 and 2: Papers of the Radnóti Memorial Con
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Page 8 and 9: 6 GEORGE GÖMÖRIprobably Fürst an
Page 10 and 11: 8 GEORGE GÖMÖRIof the utmost impo
Page 12 and 13: 10 GEORGE GÖMÖRIén e földön...
Page 14 and 15: 12 GEORGE GÖMÖRINotes1. Miklós R
Page 16 and 17: 14 MIHÁLY SZEGEDY-MASZÁKself alwa
Page 18 and 19: 16 MIHÁLY SZEGEDY-MASZÁKtype is r
Page 20 and 21: 18 MIHÁLY SZEGEDY-MASZÁKpose, the
Page 24 and 25: 22 MIHÁLY SZEGEDY-MASZÁKand Wilme
Page 26 and 27: 24 MIHÁLY SZEGEDY-MASZÁKbeen the
Page 28 and 29: 26 MIHÁLY SZEGEDY-MASZÁKBolond, k
Page 30 and 31: 28 MIHÁLY SZEGEDY-MASZÁK6. Emery
Page 32 and 33: 30 ZSUZSANNA OZSVÁTHand breaks as
Page 34 and 35: 32 ZSUZSANNA OZSVÁTHThe drama echo
Page 36: 34 ZSUZSANNA OZSVÁTHcontinents at
Page 39 and 40: FROM CAIN TO NAHUM 37which, as Csap
Page 41 and 42: \FROM CAIN TO NAHUM 39and bears and
Page 43 and 44: FROM CAIN TO NAHUM 41who sees what
Page 45 and 46: FROM CAIN TO NAHUM 438. "A félelme
Page 47 and 48: HELP ME, PASTORAL MUSE:THE VIRGELIA
Page 49 and 50: HELP ME, PASTORAL MUSE 47compete! W
Page 51 and 52: HELP ME, PASTORAL MUSE 49of a priva
Page 53 and 54: HELP ME, PASTORAL MUSE 51Once again
Page 55 and 56: HELP ME, PASTORAL MUSE 53Eighth Ecl
Page 57 and 58: HELP ME, PASTORAL MUSE 55have that
Page 59: HELP ME, PASTORAL MUSE 57Paul de Ma
Page 62 and 63: 60 SAMUEL J. WILSONWe did, however,
Page 64 and 65: 62 SAMUEL J. WILSONbeings and contr
Page 66 and 67: 64 SAMUEL J. WILSONHungarians would
Page 68 and 69: 66 SAMUEL J. WILSONthe Austrians. G
Page 70 and 71: 68 SAMUEL J. WILSONnorth-eastern Zi
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70 SAMUEL J. WILSONoriginally pursu
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72 SAMUEL J. WILSONGörgey's decisi
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74 SAMUEL J. WILSONfrom occurring,
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76 SAMUEL J. WILSON8. Artúr Görge
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78 STEVEN TÖTÖSY de ZEPETNEKtört
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80 STEVEN TÖTÖSY de ZEPETNEKThe c
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82 STEVEN TÖTÖSY de ZEPETNEKher u
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84 STEVEN TÖTÖSY de ZEPETNEKthe b
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86 STEVEN TÖTÖSY de ZEPETNEKrooti
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88 STEVEN TÖTÖSY de ZEPETNEKcriti
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90 STEVEN TÖTÖSY de ZEPETNEK'My f
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92 STEVEN TÖTÖSY de ZEPETNEKshe d
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94 STEVEN TÖTÖSY de ZEPETNEKNotes
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BERLIN ET PARIS DE LAJOS TIHANYIVAL
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BERLIN ET PARIS DE LAJOS TIHANYI 99
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116 KEVIN E. KELLYfilms Lugosi made
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118 KEVIN E. KELLYthe provinces, no
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120 KEVIN E. KELLYWith his brief an
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122 KEVIN E. KELLYboth his and Dean
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124 KEVIN E. KELLYfollowed it into
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126 KEVIN E. KELLYvampiric nobleman
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128 KEVIN E. KELLYThe film also boo
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130 KEVIN E. KELLYWood remained one
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132 KEVIN E. KELLYLugosi, convinced
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134 KEVIN E. KELLY19. Lennig, 112-1
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THE AGON OF IRONY AND SATIREIN GYÖ
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THE AGON OF IRONY AND SATIRE 139poe
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THE AGON OF IRONY AND SATIRE 141tra
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THE AGON OF IRONY AND SATIRE 143fek
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THE AGON OF IRONY AND SATIRE 145ner
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THE AGON OF IRONY AND SATIRE 147whi
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THE AGON OF IRONY AND SATIRE 149mov
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THE AGON OF IRONY AND SATIRE 151for
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THE AGON OF IRONY AND SATIREA harma
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MURDER IN THE MOUNTAINSTranslated b
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MURDER IN THE MOUNTAINS 157"Afraid?
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MURDER IN THE MOUNTAINS 159Abády,
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MURDER IN THE MOUNTAINS 161"The mar
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MURDER IN THE MOUNTAINS 163Bálint
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MURDER IN THE MOUNTAINS 165"That is
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MURDER IN THE MOUNTAINS 167at hand,
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CONTRIBUTORSMiklós BÁNFFYLászló
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HUNGARIAN STUDIES 11. No. 1. NemzetkÃ¶zi Magyar ... - EPA

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