The Tragedy of Man [antikvár]

Preface The Tragedy of Man is the major work of a 19th century Hungarian poet, Imre Madách,' and it is regarded as one of the greatest hterary compositions ever written in Hungarian. First pubHshed in 1862, it was received with the highest acclaim, but it also started a controversy which has not been settled to this day. Twenty-one years after its first pubHcation the great dramatic poem was adapted for the stage^ of the Hungarian National Theatre where it enjoyed immense popularity and where acting versions of the The Tragedy of Man have been staged in over one thousand and four hundred performances to date. The play begins with three short scenes set in Heaven, in the Garden of Eden and in the wilderness outside lost Paradise. The theme is familiar, but the temptation to draw an early comparison with Milton's Paradise Lost, or indeed with any other work which The Tragedy of Man may superficially resemble, must be firmly resisted.^ To Madách the sHghtly adapted story in Genesis serves only as a convenient vehicle to take Adam on his visionary journey of self-discovery. In the play within the play, of eleven self-contained scenes, the history of man is revealed to Adam in a dream. In a succession of incarnations he travels through the pageantry of history with Eve and Lucifer into the distant future. In the course of this the ideaHst Adam is involved in turn with the greatest principles of mankind, only to be disappointed by them. Through his encounters with Eve he also explores the complexities of man and woman relationships, while Lucifer is acting as a guide, a debating partner and a cynical commentator through the ensuing scenes. Egypt under the Pharoah, democratic Athens at the time of Miltiades, ancient Rome in the heyday of hedonism, Constantinople in the grip of medieval fanaticism, feudal Prague at the time of the astronomer Kepler, the Paris of the revolutionary Danton, and the London of 19th century capitaUsm are successive stages of revelation in scenes drawn from history, while three subsequent scenes introduce a collectivist-utopian society governed by r vii 1