Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/123

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ALEXANDER KISFALUDY
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once the former "classic" poets seemed cold and lifeless. There was such an overpowering southern warmth, the true Provençal atmosphere in these songs. It was not only a small circle of literary men that took an interest in the book. The whole population hailed it with enthusiasm. The character of the songs, which Kazinczy called "lyrical epigrams," is shown by the following verse:[1]

In the blue horizon's beaming, Thee, sweet maid! alone I see;In the silver wavelets streaming, Thee, sweet maiden! only thee.Thee, in day's resplendent noonlight, Glancing from the sun afar;Thee, in midnight's softer moonlight; Thee, in every trembling star.Wheresoe'er I go, I meet thee:Wheresoe'er I stay, I greet thee; Following always—everywhere: Cruel maiden! O, forbear!

The first part of the book was entitled Yearning Love, the second Blissful Love. The second part did not win so much appreciation as the first, nor did it, perhaps, deserve it. Himfy had then married Liza, and as "Himfy" is practically a pseudonym for Kisfaludy, it means that the poet himself had married, and happy married love was not so moving a subject as the sorrows of the hopeless lover.

In Kisfaludy's time a new tendency manifested itself in the selection of literary themes. Voltaire and his contemporaries had regarded the Middle Ages with contempt as a dark age of superstition and intellectual slavery, the very memory of which ought to be blotted out (écrasez l'infâme). And yet, two or three decades after the death of Voltaire, the Middle Ages became almost fashionable.

  1. ↑ Bowring, "Poetry of the Magyars."
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