1772-1825.
The romanticism started by Kisfaludy did not, however, retard the other
literary movements in Hungary. The Hungarian language is in many ways
too closely akin to the classic languages, if not in body, at least
in prosody, to have easily forsaken the classic forms which had long
been used by writers of this period, for the sake of romanticism. The
Hungarian language is in that respect like Hungarian music. Although
apparently nothing can be more remote from the strict moderation and
stately respectability of classical music than Hungarian music, yet the
strictest of the forms of classical music, viz., the fugue, has a curious
internal resemblance to Magyar airs, in that the latter easily yield
magnificent fugue themes, and preludes to fugues. Likewise the Hungarian
language lends itself with surprising felicitousness to the expression of
the highest form of classic metrical poetry: the ode.
Daniel Berzsenyi (1776-1826) was the poet who fully realized the
riches of the classical veins in the mines of the Hungarian language,
and who gave his country a number of perfect odes written in the metre
and in the spirit of the best of antique odes. His patriotic odes, most
famous of which is the one beginning “Perishing is now the once strong
Magyar” (“_Romlásnak indult hajdan erős Magyar_” in alcaic metre); his
religious odes, most perfect of which is “God-seeking” (“_Fohászkodás_”
in alcaic metre); show the chief quality of classical poetry: perfect
form wedded to hale and true subjects. He moves on the Alpine roads and
in the ravines of the antique arduous metres with natural ease; for the
real subjects of his poetry are akin and similar to Alpine sunsets and
sunrises, majestic glaciers, and despondent abysses. He is sublime and
natural; and amongst modern writers of odes in antique metres only the
German Platen, when at his best, can compare with him. His poems were
listened to with rapturous attention by the old warriors and politicians
of the National Assembly, and read with equal enthusiasm and admiration
by the youth of Hungary. From the height whereon he places himself with
his lyre, there is no difference of size or age in his listeners. Nor
has time abated one tittle of the glory of his best poems. Some of the
best critics of his epoch (amongst them Kölcsey) did not appreciate him
adequately. At present we cannot sufficiently wonder at their blindness.
We must console ourselves with the thought that poets, like the sun,
are, as a rule, not noticed for some time after their appearance on the
horizon. In the time of Berzsenyi there died at Vienna (in 1820) a young
Hungarian, probably by his own hand, in utter distress; his name was
Ladislas Tóth de Ungvárnémet. His mind, living in the regions of the
Greek ideals (he even wrote Greek poetry), could not endure the sordid
materialism of his surroundings. He left, in Hungarian, a tragedy after
the Hellenic model, “_Narcisz_.” Hungary has, by the premature death of
Tóth, probably lost her chance of having her Shelley.