Tóth Arnold: Vőfélykönyvek és vőfélyversek a 19. században - Officina Musei 22. (Miskolc, 2015)

Summary

These manuscripts were becoming increasingly uniform in terms of appearance, spelling and punctuation - as a direct outcome of compulsory schooling becoming universal. While showing varied levels of literacy, the authors normally write well and all take a conscious authorial position. Their writings are marked by an endeavour to achieve uniqueness and individuality, with emphasis being placed on their own creative contribution — even when they include in their collections widely-known rhymes copied and adopted from chapbooks into folklore.

Attached to this book is a comprehensive Collection of Texts with 215 wedding usher verses. The method of publishing and commenting texts is in line with the principles set out in Volume 2 Public Poetry of the Repository of Old Hungarian Poetry (RMKT XVIII/8.). The Comments to the texts, arranged in groups according to content and topic, include information on manuscript sources of variants, the analogies identified, the explanation of vernacular expressions found in the texts, as well as the results of related research into traditional customs, material ethnography and cultural history.

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