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

Summary

2) Findings relating to the history of the genre and motifs

Approximately 5 to 10 per cent of the over 500 texts covered by this research have proved to be directly related to works of 18th-cenrury public poetry, or, at least sharing a few textually identical lines or stanzas. These analogies are often so close as to raise a serious need for further detailed investigation into the history of and connections between these manuscripts, as well as into the lives of authors. It should be briefly noted that it is primarily The Kisgyör Manuscript, János Pántzél’s Song Book and The Taktabdj Wedding Usher Book that contain text families surviving from the 18th century.

These sometimes surprising analogies typically occur among the examples of wedding-time jesting poetry. Derisive rhymes and lying verses, as well as related examples of adhortatory and educative poetry tend to be missing from the repertoire of chapbooks, but are found in several variants in manuscript public poetry. This phenomenon suggests that chapbooks contain only a specific portion of vőfély verses in common use in the 19th century — the portion that was regarded as completely socially acceptable and ‘presentable’. At the same time, works, such as the Masquerade Verse [185.], which were not adopted into the recognised, standard repertoire of wedding usher books because of containing obsolete, archaic or just unprintable passages, did certainly survive either in oral tradition or manuscripts. However, The Taktabdj Wedding Usher Book from the late 19th century and The Pacsér Wedding Usher Book, identical in many respects with its Taktabáj counterpart, provide evidence of pieces of public poetry surviving 100 to 150 years.

In addition to textual analogies, a considerable number of themes, topoi, motifs and phrases analogous with those used in public poetry can be identified. The tone and style of the entire genre are determined by solemn congratulatory verses that are inserted, often as single stanzas, into chains of jesting stanzas or stanzas explaining a particular custom. Addresses, congratulations, greetings, blessings, farewells and gift requests expressed in these verses originate in 18th century wedding poetry.

The often-quoted neoclassical style of vőfély verses is rooted in biblical and classical mythological themes of public poetry. Biblical features clearly prevail, which is due to the authors’ religious background and the religious education of rural intellectuals behind wedding usher verses. Prose texts follow the practice of protestant preaching. Biblical themes, figures and motifs present in verse always have the practical function of providing education in religious morals. In contrast, classical mythological figures appear with misquoted, misheard, misunderstood or just fictitious names, very often in texts aimed to entertain. Further research could be undertaken into biblical references to make comparisons to preaching literature and protestant liturgical books (i.e. agenda).

The diversity of verse forms in public poetry did not pass down to vőfély verses, the latter generally using monorhymed quatrains with twelve-syllable lines, divided by a caesura in the middle (i.e. the so-called Gyöngyösi stanza, which was the most frequently used stanza in poetry by college students and noblemen in the 18th century).

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