HUNGARIAN STUDIES 11. No. 1. Nemzetközi Magyar ... - EPA
HUNGARIAN STUDIES 11. No. 1. Nemzetközi Magyar ... - EPA HUNGARIAN STUDIES 11. No. 1. Nemzetközi Magyar ... - EPA
42 ZSUZSANNA OZSVÁTHawareness of the specter of war and his fear of global annihilation. Throughthem, he could also convey his psychic need to conflate both his personal lifeand global history with myth. This mode of seeing the world and composingpoetry define his work during his repeated call-ups as a Jewish slave laborer,even in Bor. As a matter of fact, more intense than ever before, in "The EighthEclogue," he still molds his words into the amazing beat of the classicalhexameter and suffuses them with the stories of two books: that of the Lawand that of the Miracles. And despite his pain and vulnerability, he still makessense of the world through myths, juxtaposing the Poet and the Prophet, bothof whom would find the "solution" in the light kindled by "the /rabbi whocame to fulfill the Law." 29Radnóti's hold on myths weakens only during the last few weeks of thedeath march. The idyll appears for the last time in his second "Razglednica,"projecting "a lake ruffled only by the step/ of a tiny shepherdess,/ where awhite cloud is what the ruffled sheep/ drink in their lowliness." 30But thisimage is elusive and distant, more a miniature that can hardly be seen ascontrasting with the burning countryside, and, as we know, the corpses ofmore than a thousand Jews murdered at Cservenka. 31 The voice of the prophetis mute in the third and the fourth of these "Picture Postcards"; but that ofthe poet is not yet. On the edge of life and death, heart-wrenchingly near themass grave, the stinking mountain of the dead, he still uses classical measures,rhymes, and the ancient art of alliteration to express the power of myth inpoetry.Notes1. See his recall of the scene in "Ikrek hava: napló a gyerekkorról" [Gemini: A Diary aboutChildhood] in Radnóti Miklós Művei [The Works of Miklós Radnóti] (Budapest: SzépirodalmiKönyvkiadó, 1978), 536-542 (cited hereafter as "Gemini," and the volume as Works and pagenumbers).2. In another context, see the universal significance of the Cain-Abel theme in the Westerncultural tradition: Ricardo J. Quinones, The Changes of Cain: Violence and the Lost Brotherin Cain and Abel Literature (Princeton: UP, 1991) (cited hereafter as Cain and page numbers).3. "Gemini," Works, 541.4. Miklós Radnóti, "Nem volt anyám" (I had No Mother), in "Kék fűzet" (Blue Book),unpublished.5. "És szólt és beszélt vala Káin Ábellel," Works, 18-19 ['And Cain Spoke unto Abel HisBrother'] Foamy Sky, trans. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth and Frederich Turner (Princeton: UniversityPress, 1992), 8-10 (volume cited hereafter as FS and page numbers).6. "Csöndes sorok lehajtott fejjel," Works, 26, FS, 10.7. "Huszonnyolc év," Works, 119, FS, 25-6.
FROM CAIN TO NAHUM 438. "A félelmetes angyal," Works, 192-93, FS, 87-«.9. "Razglednicák," 1, Works, 214, FS, 117.10. "Emlék," Works, 44, FS, 13.11. "Mint a bika," Works, 73, FS, 16.12. See the discussion of Rudolph Binion, though, who observed a fomenting aggression inGerman society during the interwar period: "Ketzerisches zur Kriegsfrage" [HereticalThoughts on the Problem of War], in "So ist der Mensch... ": 80 Jahre Erster Weltkrieg ["Suchis Man... ": 80 Years after World War I], 195 Sonderausteilung (Vienna: Historisches Museumder Stadt Wien, 1994), 122.13. Louis Aragon, "Front Rouge" [Red Front] in Maurice Nadeau, The History of Surrealism,trans. Richard Howard (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1965), 288.14. See David H. Hirsch's seminal work, Deconstruction of Literature: Criticism after Auschwitz(Hanover-London: Brown UP, 1991) (cited hereafter as Deconstruction and page numbers),elaborating on the futility of applying the "new critical approaches" to the works written byauthors who lived under the pressure of endless humiliation and the threat of slaughter posedby the Holocaust.15. See on this topic the discussions of such scholars as Alvin H. Rosenfeld, A Double Dying:Reflections on Holocaust Literature (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), 19;Lawrence Langer, The Holocaust and the Literary Imagination (New Haven: UP, 1975), 1-30;Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, By Words Alone: The Holocaust in Literature (Chicago: UP, 1980),1-23; and, of course, David H. Hirsch's outstanding treatment of the topic: Deconstruction,23-68.16. E.g. Raphael Patai, Apprentice in Budapest: Memories of a World That Is No More (Salt LakeCity: Bigham Young UP, 1988), 256-64.17. E.g. Ferenc Csaplár, A Szegedi Fiatalok Művészeti Kollégiuma [The Art Forum of SzegedYouth], Irodalomtörténeti Füzetek [Notes on Literary History], 52 (Budapest: AkadémiaiKiadó, 1967), 123-25. To understand the extent and the impact of these beatings, one muststudy the weekly issues of Egyenlőség [Quality], which give detailed account on the ongoingatrocities.18. Later, when he learns to transform the experience of violence and humilation into mythicalideations and visions that allow him to identify with "all of humanity," he can write aboutthese things. See the poems "A Meredek út egyik példányára" Works, 158, FS, 43; "Dal"Works, 159-60, FS, 44; "Talán", Works, 165-66, FS, 52-53; "Ó, régi börtönök," Works, 202,FS, 98; "Zsivalygó pálmafán," Works, 203, FS, 99, etc.19. "Istenhegyi kert," Works, 93, FS, 17.20. "Őrizz és védj," Works, 138-39, FS, 33.21. "Első ekloga," Works, 141, FS, 34-35.22. Anguish for the suffering of the innocent is a dominant theme in Radnóti's work. See the"First Eclogue," in which "armies/ of women, the child and the aged, run with theirtightly-tied/ bundles," (see Endnote 21), or "Thursday," (Csütörtök), Works, 157, FS, 42,capturing blood as running "... from the lamb's white teeth," and "... the raw flesh [that] feedsthe snow-white turtledove"; or 'The Third Eclogue," (Harmadik Ecloga), Works, 175, FS,60-61, with its speaker's lament: "... this age must murder its poets" or the poem of 1944January "I Know Not What..." (Nem tudhatom...), Works, 196-97, FS, 96-97, with its imagesof the "old granny" weeping "in the graveyard," the "trembling laborers," the "innocentpoets," and the "breast-feeding infants," all of whom emerge as juxtaposed to the "Robot-Pilot" on mission.23. Cain, 44.
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42 ZSUZSANNA OZSVÁTHawareness of the specter of war and his fear of global annihilation. Throughthem, he could also convey his psychic need to conflate both his personal lifeand global history with myth. This mode of seeing the world and composingpoetry define his work during his repeated call-ups as a Jewish slave laborer,even in Bor. As a matter of fact, more intense than ever before, in "The EighthEclogue," he still molds his words into the amazing beat of the classicalhexameter and suffuses them with the stories of two books: that of the Lawand that of the Miracles. And despite his pain and vulnerability, he still makessense of the world through myths, juxtaposing the Poet and the Prophet, bothof whom would find the "solution" in the light kindled by "the /rabbi whocame to fulfill the Law." 29Radnóti's hold on myths weakens only during the last few weeks of thedeath march. The idyll appears for the last time in his second "Razglednica,"projecting "a lake ruffled only by the step/ of a tiny shepherdess,/ where awhite cloud is what the ruffled sheep/ drink in their lowliness." 30But thisimage is elusive and distant, more a miniature that can hardly be seen ascontrasting with the burning countryside, and, as we know, the corpses ofmore than a thousand Jews murdered at Cservenka. 31 The voice of the prophetis mute in the third and the fourth of these "Picture Postcards"; but that ofthe poet is not yet. On the edge of life and death, heart-wrenchingly near themass grave, the stinking mountain of the dead, he still uses classical measures,rhymes, and the ancient art of alliteration to express the power of myth inpoetry.<strong>No</strong>tes<strong>1.</strong> See his recall of the scene in "Ikrek hava: napló a gyerekkorról" [Gemini: A Diary aboutChildhood] in Radnóti Miklós Művei [The Works of Miklós Radnóti] (Budapest: SzépirodalmiKönyvkiadó, 1978), 536-542 (cited hereafter as "Gemini," and the volume as Works and pagenumbers).2. In another context, see the universal significance of the Cain-Abel theme in the Westerncultural tradition: Ricardo J. Quinones, The Changes of Cain: Violence and the Lost Brotherin Cain and Abel Literature (Princeton: UP, 1991) (cited hereafter as Cain and page numbers).3. "Gemini," Works, 54<strong>1.</strong>4. Miklós Radnóti, "Nem volt anyám" (I had <strong>No</strong> Mother), in "Kék fűzet" (Blue Book),unpublished.5. "És szólt és beszélt vala Káin Ábellel," Works, 18-19 ['And Cain Spoke unto Abel HisBrother'] Foamy Sky, trans. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth and Frederich Turner (Princeton: UniversityPress, 1992), 8-10 (volume cited hereafter as FS and page numbers).6. "Csöndes sorok lehajtott fejjel," Works, 26, FS, 10.7. "Huszonnyolc év," Works, 119, FS, 25-6.
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