Despite the very great advance made in the development of their
literature up to 1830, the Hungarians were still wanting in one of the
necessary elements of the growth of truly good works. Honest, just and
well-informed criticism was wanting. Kazinczy, it is true, had in his
extensive correspondence paid very careful attention to the critical
examination of the prosody and language of his friends and pupils.
Such external criticism, however, did not suffice. In a country, such
as Hungary, where Greek literature was then known only to exceedingly
few writers, the canons of criticism were easily neglected. Moreover,
literature being still considered more as a patriotic than a literary
function, poets did not, as a rule, tolerate even mild criticism. Yet
without such criticism, Hungarian Literature was likely to deteriorate.
Even men of genius are the better for good criticism. Yet they are the
exception; and to the vast number of writers with talent rather than
genius, criticism was, and always has been, the mentor whom they could
not afford to miss. It has been one of the great advantages of French
literature that its creative writers have nearly always been watched
by great critical writers. From Boileau and Diderot, to Sainte-Beuve,
the French have always had men of piercing and tasteful criticism,
who controlled the works of the purely spontaneous genius. Nor can
the literature of Germany congratulate itself on a more auspicious
circumstance than the fact of Lessing’s incomparable activity as a critic
at the very outset of the classical period. It is with regard to this
historic value of sound literary criticism, that we must appreciate the
work of the Hungarian writer forming the subject of the present chapter.
Joseph Bajza (1804-1858) had many of the qualities of a great critic. He
was courageous, especially in that courage which is perhaps the rarest,
the courage defying current opinions; he was learned; he possessed a
very keen sense of linguistic niceties and poetic forms; and, last not
least, he was no mean poet himself. Already in 1830 he gave signal
proof not only of his pure patriotism, but also of his penetrating
knowledge of the true needs of the then Hungarian Literature, by fiercely
attacking a plan, broached by a Hungarian publisher, to prepare a
Hungarian Encyclopædia (or “Conversations-Lexicon,” as, in imitation
of the well-known German publication, it was called) on lines, as Bajza
proved, unpatriotic, because unsuited to the character and stage of
Magyar literature of that time. This was the “Conversations-Lexicon
Quarrel.” In the same year, Bajza started his critical paper (“_Kritikai
Lapok_”), which was later on (1837) followed by his “_Athenæum_,” and
its appendix “_Figyelmező_.” In these periodicals he discoursed with
great verve and knowledge on the theories of various poetic forms;
and carefully criticised the works of his contemporaries. His chief
contributors were Vörösmarty and Toldy (then still Schedel), the former
a great poet, the latter (see p. 254) a great scholar. The authority of
Bajza made itself felt very soon; and the numerous polemics occasioned
by his articles only served to aggrandize his position as a critic.
Already in his essays on the epigram, the novel, the drama, etc., Bajza
had proved himself a constructive as against a purely negative critic.
In that capacity probably his chief merit is his elaboration of the
“theory” of the folk-poem. In Hungary, with her numerous peasantry,
there is an inexhaustible wealth of poems composed by unknown people,
exclusively peasants, shepherds, and similar inglorious poets. These
poems, invariably meant to be adapted to songs, are wafted over the
country like the mild breezes of spring, and like them, no one knows
their origin. In previous times, the rococo taste of enlightened pedants
had contemptuously ignored these blossoms of the wild _puszta_ (prairie).
Since Csokonai they were held in greater esteem; but it was Bajza who, by
framing them in the time-honoured formulæ of classical æsthetics, raised
them to a literary status. Since Bajza, the “_népdal_” or folk-song was
not only a matter of national delight or pride, but also of serious study.
To Bajza’s circle belonged the poets Alexander Vachott (1818-1861);
Frederick Kerényi (1822-1852), who died in America; Julius Sárosy
(1816-1861), the author of several stirring revolutionary poems; Andreas
Pap; Emeric Nagy; Sigismund Beöthy, etc.