Fraternity-Testvériség, 1952 (30. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1952-12-01 / 12. szám
TESTVÉRISÉG 7 half of the nineteenth century, found aesthetic support in Petofi’s poetry and prose. His prose, like his poetic language, was free of mannerisms; lucidity was its chief feature. It was distinctly his own, and it served his analytical judgment as well as his wit and his intuitive approach to people, things, events and incidents. His short stories with a rural background have artistic quality, although they are primarily didactic, but he failed as a novelist and playwright. His only novel is an echo of gruesome western romanticism, and his so-called historical play shows similar defects. He wrote another play which he destroyed after refusal for production. Neither in content nor in method do these works do justice to Petofi’s greatness. They perhaps explain his admiration for Dumas pere. But as the translator of Coriolanus he was quite distinguished. Critics agree that the value of the translation is fundamentally poetic. As Mihály Babits, the noted Hungarian poet and critic, aptly states, “in his Shakespeare translation, Petőfi was guided not by theories, but by his poetic instinct.” 19 It is difficult to single out the “best lyrics” of Petőfi, as many of them are “the best”. Many are short pieces; many are set to music and are now sung as folk-songs. As a matter of fact, in rhythm and sentiment many of his poems seem to spring from the oral tradition of Hungarian folk melodies. There is a lyrical tone in his descriptive poems which, however, does not weaken the plasticity of their lively movement. They show some consistency with the principle of the Hora- tian ut pictura poesis, although Petőfi was the voice of nature rather than the imitation of nature. In other words, it is not the Renaissance application of the Horatian maxim that one observes in his descriptive poetry, but nature reflecting her own image without the artful stratagem of verbal embellishment. Notwithstanding his less perfect lyrical and descriptive poems, one may speak about the uniform greatness of his work. Judging his work, it must be seen in the light of its entire range. His poems of conjugal love prove the tender qualities of his devotion. As “Szeptember végen” (September’s end), written in rhymed anapaests, is one of Petofi’s most deeply moving elegiac poems, inspired by the gentle and anxious love of a young husband for his wife, it seems desirable to present the whole poem.20 19 Mihály Babits, Az Európai Irodalom Története. Budapest, 1937. pp. 245. 20 Sixty Poems by Alexander Petőfi. Translated by E. B. Pierce and E. Delmár. With an introduction by Joseph Reményi. Budapest-New York, 1948. pp. 61. 21 Watson Kirkconnell, A Little Treasury of Hungarian Verse. Washington, D. C. 1947. pp. 52. Still bloom in the valley the blooms of the garden, Still green is the aspen before the doorsill, But see you not there the chill world of the winter? The first fall of snow crowns the crest of the hill. Still young in my heart is the firelighted Summer, Still there live the blooms of a Spring never fled, But lo! now my dark hair is mingled with silver, The hoarfrost of Winter hits white at my head. The flower is falling, the hour is fleeting... Sit here, dearest wife, sit you here on my knee. Who knows if the head you lay now on my bosom May not, on the morrow, be bowed over me? Oh tell me: if death be my portion before you, Will you, in your sorrow, throw on me a shroud? And may you one day for the love of a young lad Abandon my name of which you are now proud? If one day you throw off the veil of the widow, Hang it—a dark flag—on my marker of wood, And I shall come up from the world of the shadow At midnight and bear it below there for good. To wipe off the tears that I shed for you only Who lightly abandoned your lover so true, To bandage the wounds of this heart that will only, Still then, even-there, even-ever love you. Petofi’s wife wrote lyric poetry of some merit. She bore him a son, Zoltán, who grew into a wayward youth and died young. He was an actor for a short time. The widow of the poet married again. Her second husband was Árpád Horvát, a university professor in Pest. They had three children. She later divorced him. Petofi’s social and political poems, such as “A magyar nemes” (The Hungarian nobleman), “Pató Pál ur” (Mr. Paul Pató), “A kutyák dala” (The song of the dogs), “A farkasok dala” (The song of the wolves), “A XIX. század költői” (XIX-th century poets), “Európa csendes, újra csendes” (Europe is still, still again), and many other poems show that his interests were focused on a view which resented the panem et circenses solution of public issues, and stressed a need for a drastic social and political change. He could be terse, firm, satirical, and sing with frenzy. Didacticism is noticeable in his epic poems; some of his views stemmed from a kind of Rousseauesque fervor of social and political justice. Within the range of his world, to which Petofi’s medium of expression was well adapted and which in its atmospherical qualities was in perfect accord with the metrical patterns he used, one is always conscious of the immediate and the intimate; that is to say, the experience seems real, because the image is so concrete. His peasants, shepherds, soldiers, gypsies, Hungarian Robin Hoods, brag- gadoccio characters, indolent gentry, hospitable folk, old and young people and lovers—one may say Hungarians types-—are as true to life through their artistic and not photographic presentation as his genre-pictures of orchards, gardens, woods, pastures, weeping willows, rivers and dusty village roads. “A négy ökrös szekér” (The four ox-cart) is one of his typical poems: 21
