László Gyapay
THE STAKE OF A RECENSION (Kölcsey’s Unfinished Recension on Gábor Dayka)
In June 1817, during his stay in Lasztóc Ferenc Kölcsey was about to break with his literary activity for ever. At the end of the month, however, he put down a two page fragment of a recension on Gábor Dayka. His contradictory behaviour can be explained by Kazinczy’s influence, who - as we suspect - persuaded him to write a literary assessment of Dayka. Kazinczy seemed to be very much concerned in the publication of an influential recension, which regarded Dayka as a great poet. Kazinczy’s intention can be understood by examining the role Dayka’s figure played in the debates on neologism in the decade.
In 1813 Kazinczy published a collection of corrected and sometimes rewritten poems of his dead friend, Dayka. A thorough biography of the poet with a lengthy digression on Kazinczy’s views on neologism was appended to the poems. Dayka was presented as a critic, who totally shared his friend’s views on neologism, and as a poet, whose works artistically met these norms. In several writings of Kazinczy Dayka was characterised as the most prominent Hungarian poet, moreover as St. Peter of the heaven of poets. This meant he was the ultimate judge in poetic affairs having the right to decide who could, and who could not enter heaven. In this sophisticated construction a certain poetic language and a concept of literature was verified by the distinguished qualities of Dayka’s oeuvre, and vice versa. In another set of writings Kazinczy expressed his views on Sándor Kisfaludy. Though he was very much respected, his works were always presented as inferior to that of Dayka’s. When Kisfaludy reflected on Kazinczy’s opinion, part of his argument was that Dayka was not a poet prominent enough to be compared to. Keeping that in mind we understand, that Dayka’s assessment became a real key issue in the debates on Hungarian neologism. In 1817 Kölcsey was of the opinion that this acrimonious debate did much harm to Hungarian literature. As we can see from his fragmentary recension Kölcsey was to make an attempt to reconcile the opponents by stating that no genius can be defined by general terms. As a consequence Dayka and Kisfaludy seemed to be of incomparable character. This general introduction made it possible for Kölcsey to describe the faults and virtues of the two poets, which might have eased tension in Hungarian literary life.