Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ... XIII THE NOVEL The history of the Hungarian novel resembles, on a small scale, the history of the novel in general. Its first form was that of the heroic novel, a style that had flourished most in Europe during the reign of Louis XIV. Romances were full of the features most highly valued in that day, and were broughttothehighestdegreeof refinement byCorneille and Racine, namely, courtesy and heroism. One of the representatives of this style in France was La Calprenede. He wrote novels of from eight to ten volumes in length, and the public read them eagerly. People then had more leisure for reading. One of his stories, Cassandra, was translated in 1784 by a Hungarian Lifeguard officer, Alexander Baroczy (1735-1809), a member of Bessenyei's circle. He had a curious personality. Though a faithful disciple of the matter-of-fact rationalism of Voltaire, he sacrificed much time and energy for an old superstition, the manufacture of gold. When he translated Cassandra, the language of Hungarian literature was still unpolished, and it seemed a bold idea to try to translate a book full of refined galanterie in its conversation, into a tongue so different in character. But Baroczy tried, and his success influenced the development of Hungarian prose for good. It must be borne in mind that Baroczy was a Transylvanian, and that in Transylvania there had been a Court life since the beginning of the seventeenth century, when there had been no national Court in Hungary for ages. Baroczy made use of the language which he had heard in Transylvania, and was thus enabled to translate the novel as well as he did. The sentimental novel was another phase in the evolution of the novel. Richardson, Rousseau and Goethe became world-famed for that kind of...
