Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)

Studies - Mária Kurdi: "Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain." On the Scholarly Heritage of Péter Egri (1932-2002)

in the history of aesthetic speculation (110). While this in itself is a clear indication of the depth of the study, the reviewer finds that Egri discusses and uses the concept of natura naturalis

, which dates back to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, but does not redefine or develop it any further (109). Presumably not intending to set an aim of such proportions for his work, he does, however, examine the implications of the concept through the analyses of literary works written by authors of several countries ranging from Renaissance to modernism. Due to its nature, and to Egri's deep-rooted interest as well as inspired education in music, A költészet valósága treats the manifold subject and its ramifications by identifying and utilizing the subtle parallels and affinities between poetry and music. The third chapter is remarkable for following the journey of the sonnet in English from Shakespeare and John Donne to William Wordsworth and Elizabeth Barrett Browning through the Metaphysical poets and John Milton, introduced to generic transformations from Renaissance plasticity to emotional integration through contrapuntal tension, here the reader is presented with a collection of both informed and sensitive closereadings of individual sonnets, whose analyses reveal their respective stylistic variations on this particular lyrical form. Addressing Wordsworth's "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802," Egri maintains that it clearly distinguishes itself from the Petrarchan tradition. He accounts for the powerful emotional paradox at the heart of the sonnet as an effect produced by the pictorial description of the impression that the city wears the "beauty of the morning" and is "silent and bare" at the same time (139-41). The reader finds that Egri's A költészet valósága

, because of its analytical scope and use of a functional method, can boast of a radiating impact on many of the critic's later studies, especially those dealing with Shakespeare. "Whose Immortality Is It Anyway? The Hungarian Translations of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18," an essay first published in volume 17 of the Shakespeare Yearbook series in 1996, harks back to, draws from and relies on the observations concerning the development of poetic genres in the much earlier book. Doing so, the essay offers a both detailed and exciting comparative study of fifteen attempts to render Sonnet 18 into Hungarian, demonstrating through this representative series also the shifting ideas and ideals 19