Csokonai Vitéz Mihály születésének 250. évfordulója alkalmából zajlott le 2023. november 8–9-én Debrecenben a Csokonai 250 című országos tudományos konferencia, melynek szervezői a Debreceni Egyetem Magyar Irodalom- és Kultúratudományi Intézet, a Klasszikus Magyar Irodalmi Textológiai Kutatócsoport, a Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont Irodalomtudományi Intézet, az ELTE BTK Magyar Irodalom- és Kultúratudományi Intézete, a Debreceni Református Kollégium, a Tiszántúli Református Egyházkerület és Közgyűjteményei, a Debreceni Református Hittudományi Egyetem, Debrecen Város Önkormányzata és az Alföld folyóirat voltak. A Studia Litteraria jelen lapszáma e konferencia előadásainak szerkesztett változatát tartalmazza: tíz tanulmányt és két recenziót.

In the past thirty years, there have been great changes in the philology and chronology of the Csokonai oeuvre. The consequences of which have to be applied to the whole oeuvre. This study aims to present the transformation of the fundamental aspects of interpretation. The basic groundwork for this is examining when and which works Csokonai intended to present to the public. The result of the analysis shows that the chameleon metaphor in the title not only means a multifaceted personality, but also the instinct with which Csokonai intended to adopt the cultural layers of his age, and thus representing its integrative character.

Csokonai’s A’ Tsókok ("Th™e Kisses") is a love epic in prose that borrows from the world of pastoral drama and was originally intended to comprise twelve cantos. It remained unfinished but is nevertheless often considered the greatest accomplishment of Csokonai’s early literary career. Csokonai borrowed liberally from his earlier readings and translation attempts during the creation of the text, and literary historiography has already made a detailed accounting of the exact locations and sources of such transplants. ™This study uses close textual analysis to reveal the sensitive poetical solutions employed by Csokonai to uncover parts where he inventively deviated from the patterns followed, and to point out the carefully structured network of motifs present in the finished parts.

Csokonai’s Treatise on Epopeia, written for a vague purpose, is surprisingly close to the modern approach taken in Ritchie Robertson’s monograph Mock-Epic Poetry from Pope to Heine. Neither Csokonai nor Robertson considers the serious and parodic versions of the epic as a distinct tradition, as heroic epics also contain parodic elements, and mock-epic poetry is not really a travesty of the heroic epic, but – in Aristotelian terms – a pseudo-heroic, pseudoactionary or pseudo-narrative (mock-heroic, mock-actionary or mock-narrative) discourse. Hence the canon-historical misconception – to which, of course, Csokonai himself falls victim in the Treatise on Epopeia – that only the genres belonging to the “high-brow”, heroic epic can be considered classics of national literature. But Csokonai’s poetic practice shows otherwise. Although the reception of Csokonai may see biographical reasons for this, reasons for the fragmentary nature of his oeuvre, in fact it may seem that Csokonai regarded an ironic, satirical version of the double epic tradition as his poetic ideal. At the end of this paper, I argue that in his poetic procedures of what Csokonai calls the „furtsa epopea” – which involve heroes and literary figures, and which can be linked to plot and narrative forms – female discourses, female focus, or narrative positions empathic with female perspectives also play a prominent role in most cases. This is also evident in Csokonai’s poem Dorottya.

The paper examines the Latin proposition poems of the Green Codex from a historical poetics perspective. These poems, whether written by Csokonai himself or under his direction, are representative of the poetic approach that characterised the atmosphere of the Debrecen College in the years when Csokonai studied and taught there; how the students were introduced to ancient Roman lyrical and epic poetry, as well as mythological topos and how they came to reconsider these works. They also epxlore the aesthetic approach students developed regarding the purpose and possibilities of poetry and art. The study also reveals the differences along which, by the end of the 18th century, Debrecen’s poetics education had become partially separated from the foundations of Jesuit poetics education, which had been the model for the earlier period.

The figure of Csokonai appears to both contemporaries and posterity as a genius but impoverished poet. The only known job of the ‘poor poet’ was that of a teacher’s assistant, but he did not accept any income for his work. Several similar financial events in his life raise the question: why did he not take a regular job with a steady income, why did he give up the idea of an independent civil existence? These questions shed light on a financially difficult and seemingly contradictory life since Csokonai was able to live an independent, free, creative life in spite of all this. In line with the findings of the most recent monograph, this essay is shows that Csokonai’s career was financially supported primarily by his mother, Sara Dioszegi.

The paper asks how the literary legacy of Mihály Csokonai Vitéz (1773–1805) has been handed down: why did Csokonai’s legacy remain so intact that it is still accessible to modern research (a significant part of the material is currently housed in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), and how did Csokonai become such a timeless marker of Debrecen’s urban space and local identity in the 19th century and later? The answer lies in the fact that there were people in Csokonai’s immediate Debrecen environment (his family and circle of acquaintances) who, immediately after his death, considered it important to preserve his intellectual legacy. The role played by Csokonai’s mother in this process should be highlighted. Later, after his mother’s death, there was a person (László Gaál) who not only preserved his own memories, but also passed on Csokonai’s legacy and his own memories to the persons and institutions of the slowly centralising scientific community in Pest, who were able to shape the outlook and canon. In other words, the survival of Csokonai’s legacy and its emphatic inclusion in the literary historical canon was the result of the cooperation of local and central factors. This did not mean, however, that Csokonai was discovered by the city of Debrecen itself: the discrepancy between the preservation of manuscripts and the preservation of the Csokonai-related material world is striking. While the former reaches the most important places of the institutionalised literary memory almost as fast as lightning, the musealisation of objects does not follow, and the Csokonai Circle (Csokonai Kör), which was founded in Debrecen only much later, in 1890, vainly tried to collect such relics, but could hardly find anything that could be authentically

connected to Csokonai.

I argue that the research into the relationship between the poet and his former school has become overwhelmed by the infamous trial of Csokonai. Whenever the topic is discussed, researchers often come to a standstill during the interpretation of why and how
Hungary’s most significant Enlightenment poet came into conflict with his own school an institution to which he owed both his impressive education and the development of his poetic talent. As a result, the examination of the institution’s intellectual influence on the poet is overshadowed. Th–e study reviews the ritualistic elements of student life, such as the daily routine, the legation, and fundraising, which had a strong impact on Csokonai’s personal development, but have so far escaped the attention of literary historians. Th–e paper also outlines the main characteristics of the cult of Csokonai at the college. It highlights that, unlike the now-defunct cult in Debrecen, it is the students’ literary societies–originally created by Csokonai–continue to keep this tradition alive to this day.

A composite volume in the Hungarian National Library contains a signature by Csokonai Vitéz Mihály (1773–1805). However, instead of Csokonai V. Mihály, the signature uses an unusual form, “Cs. V.”, meaning that Vitéz (roughly meaning ‘virtue’) functions as a proper name. The handwritten note also contains a two-line Hungarian epigram, unanimously attributed to Csokonai as a book review in the milieu of the Reformed colleges in the Kingdom of Hungary. This paper presents arguments, based on Csokonai’s sentimental poetry, suggesting — without absolute certainty — that the signature is more likely than not to be that of Csokonai’s. The paper also examines the European context of the epigram, concluding that the verse is a translation, the original of which was written in Latin during a critical period of the European Protestantism (1570–1580).

ŸThe paper analyses a poem entitled the Tomb of Mihály Csokonai Vitéz. ThŸe work was published anonymously, but the poem was written by Ádám Pálóczi Horváth (1760–1820), a close friend of Mihály Csokonai Vitéz (1773–1805) and is an under-analyzed poetic commentary on the early cult of Csokonai. ŸThe paper analyses an unknown text variant from Horváth Pálóczi’s collection of poems. ŸThe poem is linked to the 1806 Arcadia trial, surrounding Csokonai’s tomb in Debrecen. It is a commentary on the controversy from the point of view of a friend, and thus an important element of the cult of Csokonai from a Debrecen perspective. It designates a local memorial site and lists the places, the persons and the events that were significant for Csokonai during his stay in Somogy County.

An example of the comparison between the poetry of Miklós Hubay and that of Csokonai can be found in a canonical text in the history of Hungarian criticism. In his criticism, Ferenc Kölcsey condemns the author for his excessive respect for Csokonai. In 1817, Miklós Hubay was known as the author of a single volume of lyrics, and he never published again. His poetry was mostly associated with a negative critical evaluation, but contemporaryreception was not unanimous in its assessment of whether Csokonai was Hubay’s only model author. This paper will show how contemporary criticism and literary historiography have assessed the volume, and then examine the Csokonai parallels in Hubay’s poetry.

The text reviews the new scholarly digital edition of The Complete Works of Mihály Csokonai Vitéz. It gives a brief overview of the Hungarian scholarly digital editions and discusses the importance of the TEI-XML markup language. It gives a structural overview of the scholarly digital edition based on genetic principles, argues why it fundamentally changes the reception of Csokonai’s oeuvre, and then illustrates various possible uses through examples.

In Szilárd Borbély’s book, life and literature are almost inextricably linked. In order to separate them, the first part of this essay presents – or rather describes – the book chapter by chapter, and then explores what might have shaped and determined the author’s focus and methodology. In particular, the paper examines why the book focuses on the question of life’s transcribability into text and the interplay between reality and fiction, as not only Csokonai’s life story, but also that of Szilárd Borbély, compel us to examine the strategies they used to textualize their lives and make them narrative.