Responsibility, Similarity, Catching in the Act

Mészöly Miklós’ Prose-Ethical Experiments

Abstract

This paper analyses the concepts Mészöly uses in his essays to describe an ethical stance. Without ever reaching a true conceptual consistency in his theoreticl writings, he reformulates from time to time how the writer has to compose a responsible answer to the insult of reality. Beyond his critical essays, his short stories are the primordial experimental medium in which these answers are realized. According to Mészöly, the task of the realist is not to imitate reality but to catch it in the act by way of an experimental situation.