A Chapter from the Poetics of Central European Humour: Géza Gárdonyi’s “Spirit of Laughter”

Árpád Kovács

IN: Partitúra Irodalomtudományi folyóirat, Volume XIII. , Issue 2, 2018, p. 3-21., ISSN 1336-7307

DOI: 10.17846/PA.2018.13.2.3-21

Abstract:

The study raises the problems of interpretation in light of the following topics: The differentiation between humour and irony. The views of Bergson, Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard. Géza Gárdonyi’s specific concept: the lyrical and satirical modalities of humour in his art. The pretty and the ugly; laughter and smile; verbal and non-verbal formulas. The viewpoint of a child in the act of laughter; its characteristics in the areas of plays and arts. The identity regarding humour. The laughing mouth and smiling eyes in gárdonyi’s writing. The eyes of the partner in silence and in dreams. Fárdonyi’s note-books: an experiment for the reconstruction of anthropological, aesthetic and poetic concepts.

Keywords: culture of laughter, humour, irony, inverse perspective, prose language identity

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Partitúra is a Hungarian literary journal published in Slovakia twice a year. The first edition was issued in 2006. From 2007 to 2014 its publishers were the Faculty of Central European Studies at The Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra in cooperation with Sambucus Literary Society. Since 2014 the Faculty of Central European Studies at the CPU in Nitra became the sole publisher.

The journal releases peer-reviewed scientific articles, literary studies and art reviews of both Hungarian as well as world literature. It is also a forum for essays on several other arts and intercultural relations. Furthermore, special attention is devoted to the Central European literature and literary studies; the magazine not only publishes the reviews of such studies, but also provides the arena for reflections about them. The journal aims to give an account of the contemporary Hungarian literature of the Hungarian minorities as well as to serve as a cluster for discourses.

As for the structure of the paper, it is usually divided into three main sections. The first part generally deals with the translation of an important foreign abstract literary study. It is followed by the heading of Scientific Studies and the Columns of Critical Analysis. Partitúra regularly publishes thematic abstracts by authors, genres, as well as a literary and artistic phenomenon in focus.