On the Evolutionary History of Fiction Transformations of the Tragedy of Man – Particularly During the Madách Centenary Year

Abstract

Imre Madách’s dramatic poem The Tragedy of Man is the work of Hungarian literature that certainly has the greatest history of interpretation, as well as its intertextual, inter- and multimedia relevance. In my study, I examine the literary transformations written in 1923 and at the same time the peculiarities of their development history. In the development history, I highlight the free re-creations of Minka Czóbel and Frigyes Karinthy as the turning point of the departure from the basic work. In 1923, most of the poems published in the Madách commemorative issues of the magazines Nyugat and Pásztortűz in Cluj-Napoca engage in polemical discussions with the struggle-philosophy of the pretext „and yet”. This broke the tendency that included the acceptance of the pretext’s thoughts and glorification. Dezső Kosztolányi’s play Lucifer on the Teachers’ Platform (A Play in One Act) is the furthest away from the Madách pretext among the literary works I have analyzed, but it still shows the main points of connection along with its possibility to be further considered and actualized. This type of free re-creation can be considered a literary transformation that was surprisingly original a hundred years ago.