Lévay, a dicsszónok = Lévay, the laudatory orator

Porkoláb, Tibor (2011) Lévay, a dicsszónok = Lévay, the laudatory orator. A HERMAN OTTÓ MÚZEUM ÉVKÖNYVE, 50. pp. 397-405. ISSN 0544-4225

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Abstract

A Lévay-életmű talán legértékesebb, ám legkevésbé ismert részének tekinthető az a szövegkorpusz, amely emlékbeszédekből és emlékódákból áll. Tanulmányom ezeknek a kommemorációs funkciójú szövegeknek a filológiai áttekintésére vállalkozik. | József Lévay often appeared with speech and ode, like as rhyming memorial speech, on the commemoration events, which refreshed the remembrance of “the great people of the nation”. The researchers have not studied the huge quantity of this corpus text up till now. This study surveys the activity of Lévay from the hundredth anniversary of Kazinczy in 1859 to the old Lévay’s commemoration appearances in detail. On the basis of the survey we can say that the excellent orator, Lévay appeared with great intensity and commitment on the official commemoration events in the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. He tried to contribute to the cults of his former colleagues and friends with his speeches and poems consequently. The great representative persons of the classic era of the Hungarian literature passed away one after the other so he became the last man of the legend time and could satisfy the increasing requests to act as a laudatory orator. The ancient poet became the “patriarch” and “living monument” of the Hungarian poets and it was together with the charge of elocution. The influential public institutes (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, The Kisfaludy Society), which controlled the common remembrance, asked Lévay to renew the memory of the “Greats” and to help transmitting of the glorious traditions of Hungarian literature for the future symbolically. It was his privilege and obligation. The focus of Lévay’s life work was these speeches and poems. His commemoration texts are masterpieces, in which the author used the formalistic tongue of the commemoration with experience. This formalistic tongue formed by the middle of the 19th century and became empty by the beginning of the 20th century. These speeches and poems are not only worth of studying as an oratorical performance, but they throw light on the work of the common remembrance, the literary, and the political cults.

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