Akadémia Kiadó

"Because if we write folksongs, why not folktales?"

The folktale in Hungarian Literature in the 1840s

The book investigates what attempts were made in the second half of the 1840s in Hungarian culture to insert a genre of oral tradtion, i.e. the genre of fairy tale, into the generic-aesthetical system of literature. It focuses on texts that were published in an epic verse form, by literary authors (Sándor Petőfi, Mihály Tompa, János Arany), with an explicit authorial-generic designation (folktale) in the texts' subtitles. The scrutiny of texts marginalised both by literary as well as folklore studies, and an overview of the related authorial endeavours, actual cases and general tendencies of textualisation and reception as well as contemporary strategies of interpretation contribute to reaching a deeper understanding of what role a genre of the epic folklore played in the formation of national literature in the 19^th century.