ARANY AS A SHORT-STORY WRITER

The Failure of the Christian Model of Education in Egy egyszerű beszélyke (A plain story)

Abstract

The first round of the study takes into account the fact that János Arany started his career as a prose writer i.e. short story writer, and it gives a cross-section of related reactions in specialized literature. Further on, we carry out a more in-depth analysis of a work, which is examined in the context of contemporary discourse on education (“Bildung”) and improvement, in connection with Arany’s viewpoints in his first published text, the pamphlet Népnevelési ügyben (On the Case of People’s Education). This paper offers a solution in rethinking the view of folk in Toldi, which calls for a deeper involvement of the discourse of improvement in the interpretation of the main work, and the early appearance of the Arany’s fate philosophy, which plays an important role in the traditional interpretation of his later ballads.