Écritures, activités d’un poète-pasteur hongrois de la fin du XVIIIe siècle
Writing and Other Cultural Practices of a Hungarian Poet-Priest of the 18th Century

Summary/Abstract: In my paper I’m analyzing the autobiographical text of a Transylvanian poet-priest of the 18th century, János Gyöngyössi (1741–1818). I'm applying three different contextualizations on the manuscript. The first is a generic one being represented by the autobiographical tradition of the European culture of the 18th century. This is the period when due to Rousseau's Confessions the autobiography will be connected inseparably to the history of the subject and to his esthetical representation. The late history of the genre produces that other types of autobiographical texts will have a marginal position in the study of the first person texts. The other question is inspired by the social history. How can a priest be a poet as well? What is the historical protagonist’s interpretation on this double social condition? The third perspective is given by the context of writing practices of the intimate sphere (omniarium, diarium, Family Books, road journal, economic diary, peregrination diary). In this case I want to find out how could Gyöngyössi’s text produce reality effects. The text can be a philological curiosity as well, because after being partially published in 1938, these days it was considered a lost manuscript.

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