The _rôle_ of Kazinczy as mentor and model for the younger generation
of his time was now allotted to a very gifted poet, Charles Kisfaludy,
brother of Alexander (see page 101). He was born in 1788, and like his
brother, became a soldier in the Austrian army. His proud father, on
learning that he had, in 1811, thrown up his military career, disowned
him; and Charles had to rough it in wild wanderings over Europe amidst
great privations. Yet his mind, singularly widened by the view and study
of European civilization, was thereby so strengthened and developed, that
on his return to his country (1817), he contrived to rise from abject
poverty to comparative comfort by his own literary exertions. His dramas,
some of which he wrote in the course of a few days, were at once so
intensely relished by the public, that Kisfaludy, who produced with equal
ease poetic works of lyric or epic character, quickly became the centre
of the literary life of Hungary. The “_Aurora_,” a literary periodical
founded by him in 1822, was enriched by the contributions of the
foremost writers, mostly his followers; and he himself was the rallying
personality for the new literary movement. Alas! his body, less elastic
than his mind, could never overcome the effects of his wanderings, and he
died of consumption in 1830.
In Kisfaludy the influence of the literary ideals of the French
and Germans is easily traceable. Like his models he was steeped in
romanticism and worship of the distant past. Yet he was saved from the
sickliness and namby-pambiness of many a German or French romantic poet
by his strong sense of humour. In his dramas (“_Stibor Vaida_,” “_Irén_,”
etc.) he frequently manifests strong dramatic vitality. It is in his
comedies and gay stories, that he excels. His humour is broad, subtle,
sympathetic and well worded. In his tragedies he did not succeed in
creating a type, this, one of the safest criteria of a poet’s genius.
In his comedies (“_Csalódások_” [“Disappointments”]; “_Kérők_” [“The
Wooers”]; “_Leányőrző_” [“Girl’s Guard”], etc.) on the other hand, he
has given types of undying vitality; such as “_Mokány_,” the rough,
humorous and honest young country squire. If we consider the fact here
so frequently alluded to, that social life in Hungary was up to the
thirties of this century exclusively life among the county-families in
the country, or in small towns; if, moreover, we remember that such
life on a small scale, where each person stands out in bold relief and
unencumbered by the numerous social mediocrities of large towns, is
the proper foster-earth of rich personalities: it will be easy to see,
that social life in Hungary in Kisfaludy’s youth was bristling with
delightfully original types of men and women. They only waited for the
hand of the poet to spring into their frames, and form valuable pictures.
Country-life and small towns in Hungary, to the present day, are full
of the most delightful types, both men and women; and the reputation
of a Dickens might have been acquired by him who would have told the
“adventures” and freaks of, for instance, the quaint, many-tongued sires
of the county of Sáros. Kisfaludy, with the true poet’s eye _saw_ those
types, and put them bodily on his canvas. They talk on his pages that
very language, full of savoury adjectives and verbal somersaults, that
they used when meeting at the halls of their friends, at the “Casino”
of the place or at the table in front of the Swiss _Confiserie_, in the
sleepy streets of their county capital. In his novels, “_Tollagi János_”
[a proper name]; “_Sulyosdi Simon_” [a proper name], etc., Kisfaludy has
recorded many a precious feature of the life of these sturdy, amiable,
enthusiastic, shrewd and simple country-gentry, in the midst of whom
moved the pathetic and lofty young girl; the coquettish and charming
young wife (or “little heaven,” “_mennyecske_” as the Hungarian word
has it); the quaint old maid, and the still quainter old bachelor. Here
Kisfaludy is at his best; and in showing his fellow-writers some of the
wealth to be found in their own country, he did Hungarian Literature and
Hungarian nationality an immense service. In some of his lyrical poems,
and especially in his truly majestic ode to the memory of the disaster
of Mohács (1526), written in dystichs, Kisfaludy is frequently more than
clever; in that ode he soars to the sublime. His “_Eprészleány_” (“Girl
Gleaning Strawberries”) is a charming idyll.