Zrínyi Miklós eposza és az irodalmi orientalizmus = The epic of Zrínyi Miklós and orientalism in literature

Förköli, Gábor (2024) Zrínyi Miklós eposza és az irodalmi orientalizmus = The epic of Zrínyi Miklós and orientalism in literature. IRODALOMTÖRTÉNETI KÖZLEMÉNYEK, 128 (3). pp. 296-327. ISSN 0021-1486

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Abstract

Zrínyi Miklós’s image of the Ottomans in the Obsidio Szigetiana has been examined several times in the critical literature. This essay attempts to interpret not only the epic itself, but also its place in literary history, from the perspective of orientalism. The study will also review the Turkish-themed works of 16th-century Hungarian epic poetry, as well as Zrínyi’s immediate successors and the imitators of his works. Finally, the study will examine the reception of Zrínyi’s oeuvre by the Enlightenment and Romantic-Nationalist literary taste, including Zrínyi’s transcriptions, the editions of the epic and the critical and literary-historical discourse surrounding the work. From the sources analysed, it can be concluded that Zrínyi’s epic was a novelty in Hungarian literature in its depiction of the Turks: it is unprecedented both in terms of the aesthetics employed in the description of material and spiritual culture, and in its exploitation of exotic stereotypes. At the same time, his contemporaries and the 17th century epic poets who followed him were less receptive to Zrínyi’s early orientalism. In the century of the Enlightenment, however, Zrínyi was read by Ráday Gedeon, Kazinczy Ferenc and others as an author of idyls with an oriental taste. The question of Zrínyi’s portrayal of Ottomans remains important for Romantic literary theory and national literary history as well, but here the study of a supposed national character will prevail, and the presumed common Eastern origin of the warring parties, the Hungarians and the Turks, will be brought to the fore.

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