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“My shepherd stick is better than the crown” : The Image of the Shepherd in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Popular Literature in Hungary

Csörsz, Rumen István (2020) “My shepherd stick is better than the crown” : The Image of the Shepherd in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Popular Literature in Hungary. In: Portraying Countryside in Central European Literature. University of Ostrava Faculty of Arts; Slovak Academy of Sciences Institute of Slovak Literature; Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Humanities, Ostrava, pp. 56-73.

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Abstract

The shepherd was a very frequent motif in eighteenth century Hungarian popular literature in both anonymous songs and authored works. Compared to the earlier centuries, we can determine that different types of shepherds are present in Hungarian poetry in a higher proportion in this period. This was related to the consolidation of agriculture after the Turkish occupation (1690s) and the rich shepherd culture of the multi-ethnic land, such as a higher awareness of Slovakian and Romanian mountain shepherding. The shepherd motifs were enriched in three fields which were interconnected: 1. ancient Roman, bucolic shepherd figures after the eclogues of Virgil; 2. Rococo pastoral characters of the Christmas dramatic plays and popular songs; 3. genre figures of realistic shepherds in the 18th century. From the beginning of the nineteenth century, Hungarian broadside literature, consisting of very popular chapbooks,27 helped to spread these motifs, especially by genre songs and later by the puszta poems of Sándor Petőfi (1823–1849). The protagonists of the early Hungarian outlaw ballads were initially shepherds who were criminalized only later. This paper would like to give a nuanced image of shepherds in early modern Hungarian literature by analysing the motif of the shepherd.

Item Type: Book Section
Additional Information: A tanulmányt angol nyelvre fordította: Szabó Dávid
Subjects: D History General and Old World / történelem > D4 Modern History / új- és legújabb kor története
P Language and Literature / nyelvészet és irodalom > PH Finno-Ugrian, Basque languages and literatures / finnugor és baszk nyelvek és irodalom > PH04 Hungarian language and literature / magyar nyelv és irodalom
SWORD Depositor: MTMT SWORD
Depositing User: MTMT SWORD
Date Deposited: 17 Nov 2021 18:45
Last Modified: 30 Nov 2021 00:15
URI: http://real.mtak.hu/id/eprint/133613

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