‘The Tragedy of Man’ according to Madách Reconstructing the contexts

Abstract

The study briefly summarizes the antecedents and circumstances of the creation of today’s well-known text of Imre Madách’s dramatic poem The Tragedy of Man from the Art Treatise written by Madách, which theoretically establishes the work to the critical edition. In this early tender work, Madách named the moral principle as the main driving force of the drama, and the study confirms the principles of this work and Immanuel Kant’s ethical thoughts unfolding in the Tragedy. According to the author, the intended stylistic corrections to the text of the drama obscured these roots at several points, violating the drama’s ideological arc. The analysis reveals the personal and historical background of the text changes that took place from creating the manuscript to publication. In its last chapter, the paper lists the corrections that modified the content and some textual contexts, comparing them with the conceptual world of the original text. The conclusion of the analysis is that, in addition to leaving the stylistic corrections made by János Arany, it is worthwhile to take into account the original text lines and expressions quoted in the study when teaching, analysing, translating and performing the drama.