Fraternity-Testvériség, 1959 (37. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1959-04-01 / 4. szám

4

FRATERNITY

DR. BÉLA TALBOT KARDOS:

DEZSŐ SZABÓ — 1879=1945

THE WORKS OF A HUNGARIAN LITERARY GENIUS THE HUNGARIAN PASTERNAK AFFAIR

(Conclusion)

In Group III, Dezső Szabó rises to the level of universal human, even metaphysical spheres: existence and death, the present and eternity, freewill and destiny, love, power, science, suffering and redemption. From his individual and from the Hungarian national life he now enters the spheres where Calderon’s “Life a Dream”, Shakespeare’s “Tempest”, Goethe’s “Faust” and Wagner’s “Parcival” move. To this group belongs his novel, “Wonderful Life”, already referred to, and his later books: “Woe”, “Kill!”, “Ocean and Cemetery”. Frequently time and place of the tale are purposely undetermined, as in “The Truest Story of Blue Beard” or “The Legend of Happy Love”. Others start in Hungarian surroundings, e. g. in Transylvania, as the beautiful tale of a wanderer, “The Knapsack”, or in upper Hungary, as “The Legend of Lőcse”. These ascend to metaphysical heights where the greatest masterpieces of literature end.

To say that social realism is the highest in art, as do the Communists, is a great mistake of our age. They say the writer should stick closely to bare reality, to the dregs of society, to the drab facts of everyday life. Dezső Szabó was a great master of “social realism” (see Group II) but did not end there. The greatest artists in painting, music and literature (Homer, the Greek tragedians, Dante, the Renaissance painters, Calderon, Goethe, Wagner) ascended either to mythological or Christian symbolism, soaring high above the Here and Now, the mondámé, individual and national surroundings and fleeting reality.

The first and third groups contain the writings of Dezső Szabó which are the closest to world literature. Here we see him like a master whom the Bhagavad-Gita (Songs of God) praises in these lines:

“Who burns with the bliss,

And suffers the sorrow of every creature within his own heart,

Making his own

each bliss and each sorrow:

Him I hold highest.”

Yet even the second group, the political novels, will rise also in significance as their actual political meaning and background wanes. The fine symbolism of his art will then emerge.

There was a period in the life of Dezső Szabó when he was too closely allied to the daily events of life and politics in Budapest Each