Fraternity-Testvériség, 1952 (30. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1952-12-01 / 12. szám
6 TESTVÉRISÉG period of four years the following lyric volumes were published: Cipruslombok Etelka Sírjáról (Cypress Boughs from the Grave of Etelka), Szerelem Gyöngyei (Pearls of Love), Versek, II. (Poems, second volume), Felhők (Clouds). This volume, a collection of brief, reflective poems, reminds one somewhat of Shelley. 1847 saw the publication of Petőfi Sándor Összes Költeményei (Sándor Petőfi’s Collected Poems), a volume of five narrative poems and close to five hundred lyric and epigrammatic verses. The volume was dedicated to Mihály Vörösmarty. Aside from these books, he published other nai*rative poems, six short stories, JJtilevelek (Travel-Journals) in the manner of Heine’s Reisebilder, but with the originality of his own spirit, letters, written to his friend, the poet Frigyes Kerényi (who died as a political exile in America in 1852) ; he wrote a diary, translated some English, French and German poems into his native tongue, and Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, produced a novel, entitled A Hóhér Kötele (The Hangman’s Rope), and a play, Tigris és Hiéna (Tiger and Hyena). He kept up a lively correspondence with friends, such as Albert Pákh, Mihály Vörösmarty, József Bajza, Mihály Tompa, Sándor Vachott, Gábor Egressy, Pál Szemere, Károly Obernyik, Albert Pálffy, Mór Jókai, and especially János Arany. Most of his work appeared in Életképek, Honderű and Pesti Divatlap. In 1848 he was co-editor with Mór Jókai of Életképek, a widely read periodical. In addition to his writing and editing activities, his interest in public life broadened. The integrity of his words and actions justified his self-esteem when he wrote: “Honesty was placed in my cradle at the time of my birth, and when I die I shall take it along with me as my shroud.” In 1842, prior to his published works in book form, he changed the family name to Petőfi. “Hazámban” (In my native land) was his first poem signed with his adopted name. The first line of the poem is revealing of the leitmotiv of many of his later poems: “Dear lowland plain with golden ears resplendent . . .” There were those who entertained doubts about his exceptional lyrical gift or who were unwilling to acknowledge it, despite the fact that Vörösmarty hailed him as a true poet. But the rapid appearance of his next volumes silenced the opposition, except those whom he antagonized with his “political radicalism” or “excessive folkishness”, or who were actuated by enmity. He is never monotonous, turgid, aloof or eccentric. “For Hungarian readers he made lyricism a real experience. His diction, his technique, his unstilted rhythm, 18 Jenő Pintér, A Magyar Irodalom Története. Budapest, 1938. pp. 258. the Hungarian beat of his verse, and his strict observance of western quantitative metrical laws represented unique qualities in Hungarian poetry.” 18 His love poems, inspired mainly by Zsuzsika Nagy, Etelka Csapó, Berta Mednyánszky and Julia Szendrey, his patriotic, political and meditative verses, his elegies, drinking songs, family poems and descriptive verses, show him to be the pure singer that he was. Instead of conversing with nature in an Emersonian sense, he was a part of nature. He could draw a precise verbal picture of sharp contours, or create a mood of soft or vibrant color. The majority of his poems reveal harmony between inspiration and technique. This spiritually and emotionally unfettered poet was instinctively an artistic disciplinarian. The impression of extemporaneousness that many of his poems give, even their minor discords, do not harm their artistic authenticity. There was no glibness in his manner of writing, although he wrote with ease. The choice of subject matter seemed always instinctual. This holds true of his longer poems as well as of the short ones. His poems are clean in the best sense of the word; he never uses offensive language. Even in his anti-reactionary expressions, abundant in blunt and blistering terms, he remains a poet. He did not write for the “learned” reader, but the learned reader could learn a great deal from him. There is a beautiful blending of musical vowels and suggestive consonants in his poems; his language illustrates the w'ealth of the Hungarian people’s idiom. Except in his early verses, in which some archaic or contrived terms are noticeable, in their essence and perspective his words correspond with the living vocabulary of the common people. His extensive use of simple words, his rhyme-schemes, his stressed and unstressed syllables, are as fresh today as they w7ere a hundred years ago. His images make the intangible tangible; they are concise in manner, vivid in presentation, impressive in their effect. Petőfi’s narrative poetry, with a strong lyrical undertone, makes of him as much a celebrated poet as his lyric wrork. His narrative poems are products of a fertile imagination or have an ironic purpose; in some the theme is remote from our present day problems. The frankness that characterized his lyric poems characterized his narrative poetry. How pertinent are his remarks regarding hypocrisy: “It is an easy craft, every villain can practice it; but to speak openly, from the depth of the soul is what only a noble heart can and dares.” The literary classicism (“classicism” here means mature creative expression independent of the writer’s romantic or realistic bent) which developed in Hungary in the second
