Strategies of name use in epigram collections at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Abstract

Strategies of name use in epigram collections at the turn of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

At the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the acceptance of criticism as a genre was controversial in Hungarian classical literature. On the one hand, contemporary interpreters debated who had the authority to write criticisms; on the other hand, the critical and pedagogical principles of the reviewer’s opinion were often questioned; and thirdly, the genres in which literary works could be criticised were also under discussion. In many instances, these questions were addressed through the conscious use of author’s names, as critics expressed their opinions anonymously, under pseudonyms, or in reviews under their own names. At that time, epigrams were considered a more acceptable form of critical expression than printed reviews. This paper is based on the collections of epigrams in Ferenc Kazinczy’s Tövisek és virágok [‘Thorns and Flowers’] and those published by the members of the Aurora Circle (József Bajza, Károly Kisfaludy, György Stettner, Ferenc Toldy, and Mihály Vörösmarty) in the journal Kritikai Lapok [‘Critical Papers’] under the titles Kritikai pálya-ágak [‘Critical Career Branches’] and Pályalombok [‘Career Leaves’]. It analyses the aesthetic, critical and rhetorical roles played by the author’s names and other proper names in the poems. By examining the author’s names in the collections of epigrams and the proper names created in the poems through various rhetorical devices, a new perspective can be taken on the aesthetic, critical, canonising and career-building aspirations behind the volumes. Furthermore, the texts examined reveal the specificities of the naming practices of the two generations of writers.