A vén cigány "háttere" az 1850-es években

Abstract

In the 1850ies a special reaction to the dreary and hopeless atmosphere of absolutism was considered characteristically Hungarian, national and poetic by most of the contemporaries: „merrymaking in tears" as it was called. Younger poets went on reading-tours in the country and after reciting their poems they sat together whole nights by the music of gipsy bands (mistaken in those times for original Hungarian folkmusic), drinking wine and lamenting over the fate of Hungary. The paper deals with the possible realiton of this phenomenon to one of the greatest Hungarian poems „A vén cigány" („The Old Gipsy") by Vöiösmarty. The ageing poet identifies himself with the paid gipsy musician and the strong self-irony is maintained throughout the whole poem not only in the first and last stanzas as it is usually understood by Vörösmarty-criticism. The wine-and-gipsy background of the 1850-ies perhaps makes a stronger impact on the poem than formerly guessed. Considering this aspect the poem gains much in unity of structure because there is no more an illogical breaking of tone in the last stanza.