1772-1825.
The great campaigns fought by Austria against the French Revolution and
Napoleon were in reality the prelude of the subsequent warfare of the
Conservative and reactionary classes against the rising Liberalism of
modern times. In literature, that mighty duel of night and light was
reiterated by the struggle between the romantic and the national schools
of poetry. The romantic writers, whether Byron in England, Chateaubriand
in France, or Eichendorff in Germany, were all perfect in form, and
morbid in subject. They were to poetry what Prince Metternich was to
politics, a genius of twilight. So natural was this connection between
the French Revolution on the one hand, and national, or sound literature
on the other, that they who personally fought in the wars against the
Convention and the Directory (1792-1799), as later on against Napoleon
(1799-1815), invariably inclined to the romantic or the reactionary
school. This will explain the rise of romantic works in Hungary at a
time when their classical and national school had scarcely begun to
appear. The first great romantic Hungarian poet is Alexander Kisfaludy
(1772-1844). He had fought in the Austrian army in Italy and Germany
against the revolutionary armies of France, and so naturally considered
the gentry of his country as the true representatives of his nation. In
1801 he published the first part of a series of lyrical poems called
“_Himfy Szerelmei_,” through which runs the uniting link of luckless love
for one and the same maiden. Kisfaludy lived for some time in the country
of Petrarch, and the influence of the great singer of hopeless love is
clearly visible in the Magyar poet’s work. It is written in stanzas of
twelve lines, and is full of that shapeless but sweet sentimentality
which so characterizes the romantic writers. It is like a landscape in
which the most attractive part is the fleeting clouds: mountains, rivers,
houses, and persons being all blurred and vague. It is atmospheric
poetry, full of sweet words and sounds, as if coming from distant music.
In 1807 Kisfaludy published another part of his _Himfy_, this time
singing the joys of requited love, as the first did its sorrows. The
work was received with great enthusiasm, more especially, of course, by
the unmarried population of the country; and Kisfaludy was encouraged to
write novels, dramas and ballads in great number. All these works are
meant to form an apotheosis of mediæval times in Hungary; just as the
German and French romantic writers revelled in the charms of chateaux
and knights and crusades. Some of his ballads are really good, such as
_Csobáncz_. His dramas are worthless.