The New Hungarian Quarterly, 1973 (14. évfolyam, 49. szám)

György Radó: Petőfi Abroad

PETŐFI ABROAD by GYÖRGY RADÓ A ccording to the article on Sándor Petőfi in the 1968 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Vol. 17, pp. 450-451), “His poetry is characterized by realism, humour and descriptive power and imbued with a peculiar vigour.” And further “. . .were it not for the barrier of the language his name would probably take its place with those of Burns and Heine in world literature.” There is an ambiguity in these statements, of a sort which is prevalent wherever the Hungarian poet Sándor Petőfi is known. His name, a few critical words, the principal facts of his life and a short review of his major works may be found in every decent lexicon and handbook of literary history; but what makes a poet a poet—his works—are almost entirely shut off from the world by “the barrier of language.” Nevertheless, in spite of the language barrier, and beyond the lexicons and handbooks, something of Petőfi's work, however little, has succeeded in getting abroad. The picture provided within the framework of this short survey cannot, of course, be complete; but I shall endeavour to summarize the most interesting and significant facts. * The 1972 edition of the Brockhaus Lexikon (Vol 14, pp. 440-441) says of Petőfi: . . .sein bleibendes Erbe: die Kunst so einfach und natürlich %u schreiben, das die Leser seine Gedichte als Ausdruck ihrer eigenen Gedanken und Gefühle empfunden haben.(“.. .his enduring heritage: to have written so simply and naturally that his readers feel his poems to be the expression of their own feelings and thoughts.”) There are great poets who achieve their effects through a luxuriance of adjectives and colours; others, to the contrary, combine profoundity with simplicity of expression. Petőfi is one of the latter. And

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