Canonical and current ’Apfelbaum’ by Pál Závada and ’The Tragedy of Man’ by Imre Madách

Abstract

Our study provides various aspects and tasks for the school adaptation of Pál Závada’s poem novel Apfelbaum. We consider the narrative poem as a historical tableau in one of our tasks, as a version of the genre of the verse novel in another, as a paraphrase of Imre Madách’s play The Tragedy of Man in a third, as a work exposing philosophical-historical-philosophical questions in a fourth, and as a study of the possibilities of human social action creation in the next. In terms of its pedagogical approach, the study stands on the ground of constructive pedagogy; methodologically, it prefers cooperative and exploratory procedures, it considers the principle of teaching details to be effective among the ways of educating readers, and it thinks the goal of teaching to confront students with essential – existential, moral and historical – questions.