The tragedy of man [antikvár]

o R E w o R D It is perhaps not surprising that Madách should have had to wait so long for a really worthy Enghsh translation, for the difficulties are manifold and obvious : but all the wanner should be the welcome extended to MM. Meltzer and Vajda. That much more recent product of Magyar genius, Psalmus Hungaricus of Kodály, needs only the waving of the conductor's wand and its secrets stand revealed to us in the language of every human ear. "The Tragedy of Man" is no less characteristic, no less revealing, but it is subtler and more elusive ; words and actions sometimes cloud over its underlying philosophy. Its latent pessimism was a natural product of the poet's own times — he did not live to see the great revival of 1867 and probably died too soon to realise the part that he and other brilliant contemporaries were playing in the literary renaissance of Hungary. Thus it is still possible to question the view which treats him as a pessimist, and to claim the final note of reviving courage and hope, as redeeming the progressive decline and downward trend of humanity throughout the course of the drama. Aspiration, followed by disillusionment, is the law of life, so long as Adam plays the Prometheus : but when the lesson has been rubbed in by experience, almost ad nauseam, the final goal is suddenly visible — redemption through faith, and knowledge that materialist negation leads nowhere. The theme of Adam inevitably suggests a comparison with Faust and Manfred, but it is one which not even the 1" ¦ ' i ' i U: ' i-