Intermediate Spaces of Cultural Memory and Sacrality in Aladár Lászlóffy’s Poetry Cover Image

A kulturális emlékezet és szakrális jelenlét köztes terei Lászlóffy Aladár költészetében
Intermediate Spaces of Cultural Memory and Sacrality in Aladár Lászlóffy’s Poetry

Author(s): László Szilárd Szilveszter
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature
Published by: Scientia Kiadó
Keywords: Transylvanian poetry; sacrality; historical space; cultural memory; communist dictatorship;
Summary/Abstract: The past more than a half century Transylvanian poetry contains many motifs concerning travel in space and time; these are mostly related to humanity’s past, different historical periods, and important stages of life from birth to death. Lyric tradition and events of distant past also create a fertile breeding-ground for imaginary time journeys and virtual dialogues with various personalities, in the course of which not only the persons addressed but the speakers in the poems take on peculiar masks and identities. Aladár Lászlóffy’s 20th- and 21st-century poetic works excellently illustrate this complex system of relations and meanings, which appears in an allegorical/mythical or tragic/ironic context showing different forms of search for identity. In my presentation, I examine how the intermediate spaces of cultural memory function in Lászlóffy’s poetry, and how different spatial and temporal coordinates connect to great periods of sacrality, literary and artistic tradition, and national history as well as to their social, ideological, and aesthetic/poetic reality.

  • Page Range: 179-194
  • Page Count: 16
  • Publication Year: 2020
  • Language: Hungarian