IMRE MADACH AND „THE TRAGEDY OF MAN“

By LASZLO KOSZEGI

Many translations have familiarised the world the dramatic poem. In this he was profoundly with the name of Madach and his great work, „The influenced by the „Faust” of Goethe and the „Cain” Tragedy of Man”. and „Manfred” of Byron. At the time of the Liberty War o f 1848, our poet But it is to Shakespeare more than either to was still a young man in his twenty-fifth year, but Byron or Goethe that Madach is related, especially already a youth handicapped by heart trouble and to the Shakespeare of fantasy. Madach’s Lucifer filled with laborious study was behind him, and is akin not only to Goethe’s Mephistopheles but also he had been married for three years. Owing to to Ariel and Puck. „The Tragedy of Man” , in fact illness, he had not been able to take an active part is a wonderful complex o f fairy play and dramatic in the Liberty War, but after it he sheltered a politi­ poem. Madach’s muse is sister not only to the muse cal fugitive in his house. For this he was sent to of „Faust” , but also to that of „The Tempest” and prison for a year in 1852. On his release he „A Midsummer Night’s Dream” . discovered that his wife had been unfaithful to him Turning to the work itself it is important to in her relations with one of his own friends, and remember that here we are dealing with a tragedy, he was constrained to divorce her. the manifold tragedy of man. The story of man is The return to a broken home in a broken country what concerns him; it is history much more than deepened the gloom of pessimism already present religion that is the object of his thought. in Madach’s soul. Slowly his pain came to demand Like the complete Faust, the „Tragedy of Man” expression in a great poem. From February, 1859 has a religious setting. The first three scenes deal to March, 1860, in the castle o f Sztregova, he with the challenge made by the devil to God for wrote his greatest work „The Tragedy o f Man” . the future possession of man. Lucifer receives the Four years later, in 1864, he died. apple tree in the Garden of Eden, into whose It was about 1859 also that Victor Hugo began primeval woods we are led in scene three. There to work out the plan o f his great philosophical comes the Fall and the third scene ends with the poem, „La Legende des Siecles” , the great cycle guilty pair speculating on the possible consequences dealing with the destiny of man as it is seen in the for history of their action. Lucifer, whose relation­ framework of the destinies of God and Satan. The ship to Puck and Ariel declares itself so unmistak­ unity of this work, however, is broken up into a ably just at this point, lulls them to sleep with number of loosely coordinated epic episodes. But words like these: Madach’s genius and conception are quite different from Hugo’s. His theme receives a treatment which is at once more imposing powerful and more Enchantment’s power I lay on you; compact: the fate of the human race in general as Behold the future’s distant view it is worked out in history, and the fates of In fleeting visions made known. outstanding personalities who have played leading But lest the madness of the end roles in history are set into the framework of the The hardships that your way attend dispute between God and Lucifer. The introduction Your hearts should turn to stone o f the tragic further adds to the impressiveness of And bid you craven flee, the theme, involving as it does the adoption of the A little light receive from me forms of dramatic tragedy. And of the various For comfort, hope’s persistent beam, kinds o f drama Madach chose the highest of all, Persuading you ’tis all a lying dream.

8 0 Then through eleven scenes to the conclusion is to say Adam raises the question o f questions in we are taken over the whole course ol history. religion, that of an unbroken eternal fellowship Lucifer is a marvellous stage-manager. The great with God. And God gives him no decisive answer. and complex theme of the chequered course of This brings us to a point in the poem where we human life directed by a succession of great are obliged to recall the words already quoted from personalities, is developed through one scene after Lucifer's lullaby ending in the promise of hope. another, Adam always playing the leading role. That was generous on the part of the devil; but And the almost genial batan so orders the series indeed in general, the spirit of denial shows himself of changes in the fortunes of man, as Adam views to be more positive than God, who reveals nothing them in his dream, that one extreme provokes beyond indicating to man that he should have faith. another. The leading spirit o f one time, becoming Madach’s interesting pessimism changes the roles sick of that which he stands for, is hurled into about. its opposite extreme, to represent and sicken o f that To appreciate this poem it must be taken for too, in turn. Adam is first of all Pharaoh; then, what it is, an expression of pessimism. A poet of tiring of this, Miltiades; next, a debauched Roman dejection here makes for himself a sad, beautiful of imperial times; then a crusader; and then game out of all existence. Some touch of fairy Kepler, a Kepler disgusted with his humble lot as fancy is given to it by Lucifer’s Puck-like and a scholar and dreaming himself into the character Arief-like traits, but it is its pessimism that remains and career of Danton — a dream within a dream fundamental. Here is no theodicy as some critics — only to awake disillusioned from that dream also. both at home and abroad have tried to make out. He is led on through the business world of the X IX ft is a tragedy and it ends tragically in darkness. century to the communistic societly of later And observe: other straightforward tragedies end centuries. More sick of things than ever, he leaves with death, and poetic justice lowers ower the fatal the earth and launches himself into space. In this conclusion like a black and silent sky. But the expedition, for the first time he is without the darkness of the „Tragedy of Man s” conclusion is companionship of Eve; Lucifer alone is with him. not the darkness of death. It is the darkness of a The dizzy height becomes unbearable and once hidden God who will not declare himself and more he returns with Lucifer to the earth, where lighten the gloom of the poet’s gloomy soul. And he finds the last remnants of the human race, some yet one little ray of light is permitted to pierce the Eskimos living at the equator. The shock of this thickly overhanging clouds with the concluding last discovery awakens him from his dream and so words of the Lord: we are back to the reality of the third scene. It is a striking list of extremes through which the „ O h m an, fight on, and keep thy faith! sleeping Adam has passed. From the tyranny of the one, he has passed to the tyranny of the many; It is certainly a pessimistic poem; but it is poetry from the idle pleasures of selfishness to the un­ in the highest sense of the word — and that is the selfishness of faith, a faith, however, stiffening main thing. Let us leave it then in its dark, magic into bigotry; from the quiet of scientific pursuits beauty, and spare it the distortions of an over­ to the unbridled destructiveness of free thinking; strained optimism, as it has not been spared by from the disorder of free competition to the loss some whose zeal for the brighter cause has obscured of all freedom in too much economic order; from their judgment of the plain facts of the case. If it the flight into space to the descent into the dephts is a perfect piece of pessimism, why pull it about of human degradation. to make it appear a very imperfect presentation of And now in the fifteenth scene once more we are a point of view to which it is really radically in the Garden o f Eden. Adam awake at first thinks opposed. Who would want a happy end for Hamlet? of suicide that his successors might be spared the Madach’s life as a man and a patriot sufficiently terrible and vain vicissitudes of the centuries he has explains his pessimism. And to-day, what the Hun­ viewed. But Eve whispers to him that she is with garian has had to suffer through the Treaty of child. Live on then he feels he must. But he presses Trianon gives fresh point to the black beauty of God to reveal to him whether the struggle is worth „The Tragedy of Man” . But on the other hand, the while, and if, since the wordly life is vanity, justice Hungarian, in the words o f this same poem, ’fights will be done to him through an immortal soul. That on and keeps his faith’.

81 Mihaly Zichy, the Hungarian Dore, called by In the second picture, Lucifer is extolling the Theophile Gautier a „monstre de genie” , drew twenty delights of knowledge and immortality to Adam powerful illustrations for „The Tragedy of Man” . and Eve. In the background a shining angel stands They were done in chalk and charcoal, with some by the apple tree. The whole picture breathes the pencil-work to bring up the light effects. Zichy’s scented airs of Eden. The play of light brings out poetic feeling enabled him to enter into the spirit the sweet lines of the fair Mother of All Mankind o f the poet, and give back his inner vision in line as she leans towards Lucifer as though yielding to and tone so that it is set before our eyes with its the insidious power of curiosity. Adam’s attitude features even emphasised. The human figures have shows more restraint, and in his expression one can a beauty entirely worthy o f the theme. The lands- read scrutiny in the face of the dangerous unknown. scapes and architecture against which as back­ The third picture illustrates that incident in the grounds they move, are instinct with cosmic feeling Egyptian scene, where Eve a slave-girl throws and convey to us the spaciousness of the poet’s herself between her prostrate slave-husband and the imagination. man who is beating him to death, while Adam the Pharaoh, sits upon his lofty throne pointing out the O f the pictures here shown, the first represents pyramids to Lucifer with a sweeping gesture that the dispute between God and Lucifer. The two yet contains a hint of dissatisfaction. Through them, principal figures are diagonally opposed. The though he has found glory, he has not been able Lord from the remote glory of his exaltation to find happiness. To right and left of the throne stretches out his hand in command and rebuke are beautiful slave-girls, the one by the harp with towards the Devil, who boldly ascends from the her back to the spectator, markedly beautiful. depths towards the heights of heaven, and supports Eve’s disordered hair and gleaming black eyes his feet upon the shadows. The crossed wings proclaim her deep despair, as she, boldly- eloquently express the turbulent discord of his glancing at the executioner, recklessly throws spirit. Yet the lower foot and the turning of the herself on the body of her husband, who is back powerfully suggest his insecurity and the obviously at his last gasp, with no more strength danger of an ignominious repulse. On the other in him than is required to breathe out the words side, a kneeling angel expresses the horror of inno­ which form the motto of Scene IV: „Millions cence at his presence. for one” .

82 8 3 85 Dress used for High-mass, upon which is depicted the Virgin (the Lady Patroness of Hungary), St. Istvan and St. Laszlo. XVI. century Hungarian embroidery.

From the collection of the National Museum of Industrial-Art

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