Mihály Babits [antikvár]

a poet's place by BALÁZS LENGYEL Ever since the time of Goethe vi'e have known here in Europe that literature is no less then world literature. Now that Europe is no longer the world, not even the cultural world, we have proof every day that literature is not world literature. Or to put it another way, it is and yet it is not. Though great literatures do have an impact which effects all the world insofar as the basic forms and concerns develop out of them; but this impact is by no means as synchronous and immediate as we think it is, as it would be if there were a unitary world literature. This unity is an illusion and is the illusion that only the "great powers" in literature nurture; thus what appears in one of the lesser diffused languages rarely if ever has an impact of consequence. Here, however, I am not concerned with this desperate lack of reciprocity. I should like to give two examples of how trends and ideas may occur at widely separate times in different literatures and cultures. At an international conference, a writer from a small Asian people (they number some 25 million) boasted that his work was successfully developing the level of picture stories. On seeing the wry faces he went on to explain that his language has no usable refinements of literary expression and writers consequently cannot rely upon readers understanding anything beyond the level of picture stories. Of course, around the world, this example is by no means unique. It is evident that even the minimum of unity in world literature can only be observed between those peoples who have relatively the same level of culture, one which is based on relatively similar traditions. Even here, however, contemporaneity is a question of some delicacy. If we were to produce a small map—and this is my second example—to show the spread of the literary trends of the 19th century, a map on which flags would indicate the dates of the respective triumphs of romanticism, symbolism and impressionism, there a striking discrepancy in time would surely emerge (depending