John Barclay Argenise Magyarországon = John Barclay’s Argenis in Hungary

Tüskés, Gábor (2024) John Barclay Argenise Magyarországon = John Barclay’s Argenis in Hungary. IRODALOMTÖRTÉNETI KÖZLEMÉNYEK, 128 (3). pp. 269-295. ISSN 0021-1486

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Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the process and the main forms of the reception of Argenis in Hungary, with particular attention to the copies and references to the work preserved in historical book collections and libraries; the manuscript and printed translations; and to the novels inspired by it. One of the notable features of the reception is that, although the presence of the work in public and private libraries can be traced back to the mid-17th century, the first translations were made relatively late, in the second half of the 18th century. Four of the translations survived in manuscript form and circulated in copies, but in 1792 two new translations appeared in print simultaneously. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Argenis was read by members of all educated social strata and all denominations; no other foreign novel had attracted the same level of interest. Among the collectors of Argenis, there was a strikingly large number of people who participated in the various anti-Habsburg movements. Among those who took note of the novel Szerdahely György Alajos stands out, as he mentions it in three different aesthetic works. The original work, manuscript and printed translations, adaptations, and literary works inspired by the novel all played a role in the narrative transmission of political knowledge, an immanent imperial princely and doctrine on wisdom. The published translations encouraged the adoption of the narrative model of Argenis, promoted the spread of Hungarian-language literature, and the prefaces enriched the corpus of texts on translation theory. Fejér Antal’s complete translation with the copies of the symbolic-emblematic engravings of the 1769 Nuremberg edition of Argenis, with its copies of symbolic-emblematic engravings, and K. Boér Sándor excerpted adaptation, are unique in the international context. In his two novels, Argonautica and Etelka, which were also inspired by Argenis, Dugonics András combined the models of the courtly-heroic historical novel that legitimised absolutism and the Enlightenment political novel in a unique way.

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