Magyar Alkibiadés : Balassi Bálint élete

Abstract

The present work comprises three main parts. The introduction is partly a historiographical overview, partly a perambulation of the problem: whether it is possible at all (today, here and now) to write a biography; furthermore, what the relationship can be between biographies based on fictional and non-fictional statements. The middle and lengthiest part of author’s thesis is self-imposedly traditional literary history: it is the biography of the writer and poet Bálint Balassi (1554-1594), the greatest Hungarian renaissance poet who had been the very first Hungarian one identified with a name and oeuvre. Similar attempts had been made so far under the spell of myths, and the present work shows the intellectual historical tendencies that evolved out of these myths. The aim of this new biography is to put an end to the free passage between fictional and historical data, notwithstanding that a fictional work may also contain facts. The personality of Balassi had been designed throughout the ages in a necessarily mythical, sometimes fabulous way. The present study offers different readings not instead of the previous ones but besides them. This work also corrects some topos-like statements of the secondary readings that became so stereotypical in Hungarian education. It is certain, however, that some assertions are open to doubt. The author hopes that these views will not only be accepted or declined by the professional public, but that they will be a matter of further scientific discourse, together with the picture of an era visioned about the events of the second half of the sixteenth century. The final part is concerned with a few postulates of the post-modern literary studies, trying to find an answer for the questions of biography.