HUNGARIAN STUDIES 19. No. 2. Nemzetközi Magyar Filológiai Társaság. Akadémiai Kiadó Budapest [2005]

Viktória Dian: Description as Self-Reflection in Zsigmond Justh's Művész szerelem

DESCRIPTION AS SELF-REFLECTION IN ZSIGMOND JUSTH'S MŰVÉSZ SZERELEM1 VIKTÓRIA DIÁN Eötvös Loránd University, Department of Comparative Literature, Budapest Hungary This paper focuses on a forgotten Hungarian author's forgotten novel. Zsigmond Justh's Művész szerelem [Artist's Love] was published in 1888 and considered to be a "styleroman", because a number of artistic styles meet in the landscapes it depicts, involving the basic changes in literature from realism to imressionism, Art Nou­veau, symbolism, and namralism. This study examines these descriptive parts of the novel because they provide a peculiar type of self-reflection. The analysis starts with the description of a character's appearence which can be conceived as a narrative representation of portraiture. Then two narrated landscapes reflecting on their own compositions are examined. The aim of the paper is to establish that most of the de­scriptive parts have the same function in the novel: they denaturalize the spectacle, representing a created visual structure which refers to the text itself, and builts on a narrative mechanism disavowing the realistic illusion. Finally, the analysis con­cludes that description can be regarded as mise en abyme in the novel because the descriptive parts illustrate the priority of the artist's subjectivity in art just as the whole novel realises this aesthetical idea as well. Keywords: Hungarian literature, nineteenth-century novel, Zsigmond Justh, self­reflection, description, mise en abyme, focalization Zsigmond Justh is considered as a forgotten author of nineteenth-century Hun­garian literature. His social efforts to modernize Hungarian society and his ambi­tious activity to institutionalize the cultural life of the country were appreciated by following generations, but the place of his literary works has been a subject of controversy. Some novels of Justh's planned tetralogy entitled^ kiválás genezise, edited by András Diószegi in the 1960s, illustrate the idea of his social reforms: mix together the bloodlines of the land labourers and the aristocracy. Justh's writ­ings were often criticised on account of their ideological aspects, that is, that his ideas of reform oppress the esthetical value of his novels. Zsigmond Justh wanted to be both a productive reformer and a modern writer, who tried to renew the traditional narrative forms based on Petőfi's and Arany's folkloristic language.2 As a reformer, Justh's aim was to encourage the growth of a Hungarian Studies 19/2 (2005) 0236-6568/2003/S20.00 © 2005 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest

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