LITERATURA - A MTA BTK Irodalomtudományi Intézetének folyóirata, 2019 (45. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)
2019 / 3. szám
SUMMARIES 365 Maya J. Lo Bello Chasing Impressions: a Comparative Cultural Analysis of Impressionistic Criticism in Hungary The aim of this article is to examine whether the comparative cultural analysis of a critical text can provide a greater understanding of why Nyugat’s editor, Miksa Fenyő, chose impressionistic criticisms highly aesthetic, yet seemingly quixotic approach to promote modern literature in Hungary, as opposed to selecting more conventional means. Applying a comparative cultural approach also opens this analysis to an exploration of the broader connotations implied by Fenyő’s Jewish origins and his position at an industrial lobby association, GyOSz. László Bengi Sequentiality and Calculability in Modern Literature The famous idea of „two cultures” supposes a deep rupture between quantitative sciences and the humanities. In this polarized situation, it seems highly important if the reading of modernist literary works confirms the dichotomy between quantification and aesthetic experience. The essay argues to broaden the relationship between calculation and literature beyond the mere realm of numbers and to pay attention to the various forms of discursive embeddedness of calculation in modern literature. There are several models through which calculation enters the field of literature and thus the relation of numerical reasoning and literary expression, as well as being full of tension, significantly varies in accordance with the cultural function of calculation. Péter Hajdú The Asian utopia of Mór Jókai in The Novel of the Next Century This is a case study in cross-cultural imagology. Mór Jókai’s utopian novel titled The Novel of the Next Century (1872-1874) offers a colourful and often repulsive panorama of national and racial stereotypes (not to mention gender stereotypes), but the Chinese part is particularly interesting. Most utopias devote significant space to describing the sexual life of the imagined better (or in the case of dystopias, worse) society, which is hardly surprising, since they have to say something about the possible transformation of the family as nucleus of the society, and also because there are so many social constrains around sexuality in the Western world. Decorum did not allow Jókai to imagine a basically different sexual practice in the future, but he inserted a Chinese source about Kin-Tseu, a hidden country among the mountains of Central Asia without any significant social control of sexuality. Although the