From Petrarca to Szilvi – a journey around the leather shroud

Abstract

This study examines an epistle written by Gábor Fábián (1795–1877), a young lawyer, poet, and literary translator working in Arad and one of Vörösmarty's best friends, to Vörösmarty in early 1827. The main claim of the letter is that Vörösmarty, with his works already written, e.g. his epic poem Zalán futása (The Flight of Zalan), with the already published or upcoming works of his planned grand epic (e.g. Hábador) as well as his love-philosophical poetry, had raised Hungarian poetry to such heights that it could rightly boast of being on a par with the Greek poetry founded by Homer or with the Celtic poetry founded by Ossian. Among the "moderns", he only compares it to the achievements of Petrarch, but he considers Vörösmarty's lyrical works to be lighter and wiser than the Italian poet's works on love and philosophy of life (Canzoniere and Triumphi). In my paper, I demonstrate that this ranking was most influenced by the lyrical-mystical lyrics of the Persian poet Hafiz, translated into Hungarian by Fábián in 1823, and by Cesarotti's view of Petrarchism as an empty form of poetry.