The work of Kisfaludy was great. He charmed his readers, and thus
awakened an interest in Hungarian Literature in circles that had hitherto
been callous to the intellectual revival of their country. His vocation,
however, was limited. The Hungarians, by nature grave and given to
ponderous sentiments, needed, for a full awakening of their literary
life, more than the perfume of flowers. The rhythmic thunder of the
war-clarion; the majesty of the organ was needed. And the right man came.
The man, in whose sublime poems was heard the turmoil of the old glorious
wars, the symphony of love and patriotism, in tones of unprecedented
beauty. That man was Michael Vörösmarty (1800-1855). His life was devoted
entirely to the pursuit of literature, and in his soul there was only
one grand thought: to become Hungary’s troubadour, to kindle the holy
light of patriotism on the altar, and with the aid of the muses. In this
he was successful beyond all his predecessors. His were some of the
rarest qualities, the union of which goes to make the great poet. In
beauty and truly Magyar rhythm of language he was and largely still is
unsurpassed. His diction is, like his country, full of the majesty of
vast mountains, and the loveliness of flower-clad meadows sloping down to
melodious rivers. Without being a reckless innovator of words, his works
read at the first appearance as if written in a new language. As when
the student of Hellenic antiquity, after years spent with engravings of
old Greek art, comes for the first time to see one of the still extant
remains of that art itself: so felt the contemporaries of Vörösmarty
when the glorious hexameters of his epic, “_Zalán futása_” first struck
their ears. There was at last, not only this or that instrument of the
orchestra of Hungarian language; there was heard, not only the wails of
the ’cello of Kölcsey; the musical cascades of the clarinet of Charles
Kisfaludy; the wafting chords of the harp of Berzsenyi; or the gossamer
oboe of Csokonai: there was heard the unison and harmonious struggle
of all the instruments of the great idiom. Like the composers of the
immortal symphonies, Vörösmarty wielded the resources of the Magyar
language, intensifying the effect of each instrument by the parallel or
counter-quires of the other instruments. In his love-songs you hear
not only the notes of the melody, but also, as in the songs of his
Austrian contemporary, Schubert, the undercurrents of the melody in the
accompaniment. The wealth of poetic figures in Vörösmarty is surprising;
yet a chaste moderation tempers all undue exuberance. He is powerful,
not violent; imposing, not fierce. He writes mostly Largos; but there
are very few _longeurs_ in them. The quick pulsation of the drama does
not suit him; the epic and ode are his favourite forms. For, in him is
much of the priest, of the seer of a nation. In the depth of his reticent
heart he feels the whole life of his nation, and smarts unspeakably from
its then degradation. Too proud to indulge in constant moanings, he is
yet in an agony of rage and indignation at the oppression of his people.
But this holy anger goes forth from him sculptured in songs, swelling
with abiding life of beauty and power.
Vörösmarty’s poetic vocation was, if not aroused, yet, undoubtedly,
guided into the right direction by an epic of one Alexander Székely, a
Unitarian preacher, entitled “The Szekler in Transylvania” (“_A Székelyek
Erdélyországban_”), in which a not infelicitous attempt was made to work
into one national song the ancient Magyar legends and mythology. An
epic is the song of a nation whose critical dangers are not yet over.
It may be said, without exaggeration, that heroic Wolfe in driving the
French out of Canada (1759), drove out the last chance of the Americans
for anything like a great national epic. In gaining their independence
a few years after Wolfe’s success, the Americans also obtained perfect
security. There was no serious enemy left to jeopardize their existence.
The Indians could and did annoy them much; they could not seriously call
their very existence in question. Hence the Indian tales of Fenimore
Cooper are the only epics of the Americans. In Hungary matters stood
quite differently. There the very existence of the nation was doubtful.
A catastrophe might occur at any time. And in the terrible anguish of
that “gigantic death” (“_nagyszerü halál_”), of which Vörösmarty sings
in his “_Szózat_” (national hymn), the people of Hungary needed more
than a drama or an ode can give. It needed a national poem of large
dimensions in which the glories of the past were held up to the people
as an incitement to the conquest of the trophies of the future; in which
the powers of the Divine were shown to have a personal interest in the
destinies of the nation; and in which the sacred language of thirty
generations of patriots glows in all the victorious beauty of perfection.
When in 1748 Klopstock published his great epic, the “_Messias_,” he too
desired to do his country a patriotic service. His aim was, however,
at once larger and smaller than that of Vörösmarty. He meant chiefly
to weld for the Germans the weapon of a better language. Beyond this
he meant his epic for any nation whatever, its subject-matter being of
universal acceptance amongst Christian nations. Not so Vörösmarty. He
meant to write a Messianic epic, in which the Messiah was the Hungarian
nation itself. He wanted to raise up a particular nation, his nation,
to the consciousness of its force, of its vocation. And thus, while the
intellectual scope of his poem was much more limited than that of either
Milton or Klopstock, the intensity of its purport far exceeded both.
The name of the epic was, “The Flight of Zalán” (“_Zalán futása_”). It
appeared in 1825, or in the year when the national Parliament reassembled
after twelve long years’ adjournment, and when the nation, at any rate,
many of the best men of the nation, were in feverish expectancy of the
rise of New Hungary. Its subject is taken from the history of Árpád the
Conqueror, and centres in the Battle of Alpár, in which Árpád defeats his
most fearful enemy, Zalán, one of the Bulgarian rulers of the territory
between the Danube and the Tisza (Theiss) rivers. There are in the poem
three parallel streams of epic deeds, which, like the three choruses of
string, reed and brass instruments in an orchestra, join in one powerful
symphony. Árpád, the great duke and father of his people, fights Zalán,
and especially his herculean general Viddin. Ete, the young and romantic
Magyar knight fights Csorna, the diabolic Bulgarian hero; and in the
heavens “_Hadúr_” (“God of the war,” a name introduced by Székely),
the national god of the Magyars, fights and conquers “_Ármány_,” the
arch-fiend. The element of love is represented by Ete, who loves Hajna,
the beautiful daughter of an old Hungarian hero. She is also courted by
a divine charmer, whose temptations, however, she rejects, and from whom
she receives an enchanted horse. A large portion of the epic is taken up
with the description of single combats between the heroes. In the end,
the Hungarians are (as in reality they were) victorious, and Zalán flees
from his country.
There is undoubtedly much Ossianic misty glamour in Vörösmarty’s great
epic; and the figures of its leading heroes do not stand out with all
the desirable plasticity from among the multitude of minor heroes and
mythologic divinities. Yet Ete and Hajna are suffused with all the
charms of youth, love and heroism; and in Hadúr and Ármány two powerful
mythological types are placed before us. Árpád himself answers very well
the chief purpose of the poem, in that he is rather the incarnation of a
nation strong, noble, God-fearing and conquering, than the representative
of any special personality. Perhaps the least endowed figure of the poem
is Zalán, in whom the poet might have represented, in contrast to Árpád,
the various enemies endangering Hungary’s existence, and of whom he
only made a proud and despairing prince. Yet, after allowing for these
shortcomings—very natural in a work written in eleven months—“_Zalán
futása_” is a truly great epic. The splendour of its language, in regard
to which it is fully the equal of “Paradise Lost,” fell upon its first
readers with the spell of the Fata Morgana of the Hungarian _pusztas_
or prairies, on the lonely traveller. There was one general feeling:
“such language had not yet risen from any Hungarian lyre!” (“_igy még
nem zenge magyar lant_!”). A nation whose past could inspire such epic
music, was a nation of imposing resourcefulness. Only great nations,
after conquering great dangers, can produce great epics. A great epic is
not alone a literary event; as such it would redound mostly to the glory
of the author. It is a national event, and redounds chiefly to the glory
of the nation. It is the symptom and warrant of national greatness; of
that noble enthusiasm—without which, numerous factories and railways can
be built indeed, but no fabric of a national commonwealth holding its own
amidst roaring seas of danger and adversity. Vörösmarty’s epic poured
into the Hungarians that Belief and Confidence, that Eternality of Hope,
which alone steels nations against fate. Széchenyi had connected Buda,
the capital of the past, with Pesth, the capital of modern Hungary, by
means of a gigantic suspension bridge. Vörösmarty now connected Hungary’s
past with her future by the rainbow of his immortal epic.
In addition to “The Flight of Zalán,” Vörösmarty enriched Hungarian
Literature with several other smaller epics, such as “_Széplak_,”
“_Cserhalom_,” and the exquisite “The Two Neighbouring Castles” (“_Két
szomszéd vár_”). After 1831 he ceased writing epics. He had a real
passion for dramatic poetry, and although in “_Csongor és Tünde_” alone
he contrived to write a drama of superior finish, yet he continually
tried his hand at that form of poetry (“_Vérnász_”) (“The Sanguinary
Wedding”); “Marótbán” (Banus Marót); “_Áldozat_” (The Sacrifice), etc.
His lyrical poetry, on the other hand, contains priceless gems. Adorning,
as he did, even the smallest of his lyrical poems with the unrivalled
splendour of his diction; he reaches in some of them, and first of all
in the majestic “National Hymn” (“_Szózat_”, 1837), the highest level
of poetic _élan_. In these select poems, while still singing nothing but
the hopes and glories of his nation, he becomes so European in tone and
chaste beauty of form, that his work will lose little of its perfection
by fair translations into other European languages. In them there is felt
the breath of that civilization of Greater Hellas, or Europe, which was
originally that of Hellas proper. Nor does his lyric muse move in grave
and solemn moods alone. In his famous “Song of Fót” (“_Fóti dal_”), he
has left the wine-drinking community of the world a model song in praise
of the noble child of Bacchus. He likewise succeeded in writing poetic
apotheoses of some of the great Hungarians of his time, such as Liszt,
the great musician, and in the composition of small narrative poems,
which prove him to have been endowed with a keen sense of humour (“_Mák
Bandi_”; “_Laboda_;” “_Petike_;” “_Gábor deák_”). His great activity as a
creative poet did not prevent him from writing a considerable number of
articles for literary periodicals, such as the “_Tudományos Gyűjtemény_,”
“_Kritikai Lapok_” (edited by Bajza), and for the new “_Aurora_,” and the
“_Athenæum_.” He was also one of the translators of the “Thousand and One
Nights,” and of some of Shakespeare’s plays.