Szőcs Péter Levente (szerk.): Complexul Memorial Ady Endre. Ghid (Satu Mare, 2020)
Ars poetica
ARS POETICA “I wanted to say everything that might emerge from a Hungarian man today, and that makes the man of today move, like transmission belts move engines. Now I can confess: I consider myself the conscience of the Hungarians of today, of the Hungarian culture - and this conscience cannot be always clean. I know what I have done and I know as well what I could do in the future - if it were possible. For the time being, I don’t expect anyone to see me as I am, and I wouldn’t like to become a famous or well-known Ady Endre because of my real values. For the time being I would like to force life into offering me some three-four more acceptable years, I would like to be able to sleep and to write a few things that can be written only by me ă...â And I would like to have further stimuli from my enemies, whom I can thank the most, because they fed me with pride, defiance and with almost superhuman powers.” Ady Endre: Autobiography. Nyugat, 1st of June 1909. “I tried to live a lot that is to pay more attention to my strong, suffering experiences. My writings, especially my poems, simply aroused indignation: I was called a fool, a clown, a senseless person, a non-Hungarian, a traitor, so I achieved everything a new poet can achieve in Hungary, but I did not die. My poems and persecutions gathered some manful, good followers also, and the four-five years I spent in Budapest and Paris passed by with beautiful struggling and hectic work Although it may have been better if I died sooner, as a misunderstood poet, I was overwhelmed by the obsession of my calling, by that superstition that I have to continue writing. And maybe it wasn’t that bad, because when I passed the threshold of 33 years of age, set for Hungarian poets, suddenly adolescent, young and very young writers began to come to me. Every year that passed by was one that I survived, that brought to me dozens of students, boys and girls. This is what makes it worth living beyond the usual Hungarian age limit of poets and staying young as long as possible. No one, however kind they may be, can call me a productive genius, but I am an active poet and writer, I write poems, short stories, political and other types of articles, because I could not put an end to my love for journalism. Nowadays, I travel less in my former wandering places: in the triangle Vienna, Paris and Rome, but unfortunately I have to be hospitalized more often in order to take care of my health. I have plans for a great novel, drama, but I don’t know if these great plans can become more than that. I will be a thirty-six-year-old bachelor this year, for the last nine years I have written a volume of poems every year, I live mostly in Budapest and in my village and although it’s quite sad, I have no real home, no place to call my own.” Ady Endre: Autobiography. Decameron, I, Az Érdekes Újság, September 1913. 27
