Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 3. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 29)

Attila Debreceni: The Notion of the "Sublime" in Contemporary English, French and Hungarian Literary Criticism

8 ATTILA DEBRECZENI notion of grace, which, when regarded as related to the beautiful and the sublime, offers us to grasp the neoclassicist notion of the sublime in a more plastic way (and to name it too). The notions sublime and grace interpreted in terms of neoclassicism was primarily applied in literary history while analysing the life-work of Ferenc Kazinczy. It was László Gergye, who observed the myth of grace from the 1780s till the end of his career," while Lajos Csetri revealed the depths of contexts of "higher style" playing a crucial role in the formation of Kazinczy's stylistic endeavours.

1" What is very significant in its interpretation is that the system of comparison of "higher style" could be found in the highly rhetoric literary consciousness of contemporary Hungary, and it was not the aesthetic contexts of the sublime themselves which had been thoroughly elaborated in Europe that were applied."

1 The notion of the sublime arose theoretically not only with Kazinczy but with Csokonai and Berzsnyi as well, the former in a study by József Szauder,

3

2 while the latter in that of Lajos Csetri,

1

3 related to the concept of neoclassicism in both cases. Furthermore, works dating back to earlier times rather highlight the emotionalist sublime interpretation. Andor Tarnai

1

4 analysed the debate on Milton between Batsányi and József Rajnis at the end of the 1780s, Márta Mezei gave an overview of theoretical works on the sublime by János Batsányi, János Földi and }ózsef Péczeli.

1 This is all the material available at present. Other philosophical and aesthetical works can be mentioned as well (like books by Agnes Heller and Éva Kocziszky,

3

6 a study by Zsolt Pálfalusi,

1

7 etc.) but they naturally do not enforce the aspects of literary history. No book has been written 2

9 Múzsák és Gráciák köpött, (Between Muses and Graces) Budapest, 1998. 30 Egység vagy különbözőség? (Unity or Diversity?) Budapest, 1990. 3

1 Op. cit., 55-56. 3

2 "Csokonai poétikájahoz," (The Poetic of Csokonai) in A

^ éj és a csillagok, (The Night and the Stars) Budapest, 1980, 339-367. 3

3 Nem sokaság hanem lélek, (Not Crowd but Soul) Budapest, 1986, 24—42. 3

4 "A deákos klasszicizmus és a Milton-vita," (Latinisdc Classicism and the Miltondebate) in Irodalomtörténeti Költemények 1959, 67—83. 3

3 Felvilágosodás kori líránk Csokonai előtt, (Hungarian Enlightenment Poetry before Csokonai) Budapest, 1974, 18-19, 47-50. 3

6 Agnes Heller, A s^ép fogalma

, (The notion of the Beauty) Budapest 1998; Eva Kocziszky, Pán, a gondolkodók istene

, (Pan, the God of the Philosophers) Budapest, 1998. 3

7 "A fenséges és fölényes," (The Sublime and the Supercilious) in Enigma 1995, No. 2, 90-106.