DIETER P. LOTZE

OF COCKROACHES AND "CIVILIZING" H U N G A R Y :

IMRE MADACH AS AN ARISTOPHANIC SATIRIST

Most literary critics would readily agree that Mad~ich was essentially a one-work author. True, some of his poetry is beauti- ful and deserves more attention, but who would read it had it not been written by the creator of Az ember trag~didja (The Tragedy of Man)? His prose narratives are-with some justification- hardly even mentioned, let alone discussed in scholarly books and articles. His other plays have fared a little better, but despite recent efforts by Dezs6 Keresztury to adapt Moses and Csdk's Last Days for successful stage presentations, Madfich's claim to lasting fame is based on his one dramatic masterpiece. I f the rest of his literary production is studied at all, it is mainly in order to show the development that led to The Tragedy of Man.

It has also become a tradition in Mad~ich scholarship to search in the playwright's personality and life experiences for clues to characters and events in the drama. Certainly his involvement in county politics, his work as a judge, the events of 1848-49, his imprisonment, and the collapse of his marriage, all left traces in the tragedy. And it does not seem inappropriate to relate some of the drama's pessimism as well as the indestruc- tible idealism of Adam to Mad~ch's own character and atti- tudes. By the same token, much of Lucifer's cynicism is usually ascribed to the effect of Mad~ch's close friend, Pill Szont~igh. Quite consistently, Peter Michael Hamel's opera Ein Men- sehentraum (A Dream of Man), which premiered in Germany in 1981 has the dying Imre Madfich see in a dream vision him- self as Ad~m and Pill as Lucifer. 1

1 Produced at the Staatstheater Kassel, 1980-81 season. See my paper dealing with Hamel's opera presented at the 1982 Annual Conference of the American Hungarian Educators' Association.

204 D I E T E R P. L O T Z E

Yet a perusal of Mad/tch's correspondence and of his literary works reveals a very distinct tendency towards satire throughout his life and development as a writer. His first-person account of the "Adventures of Zebedee Dul6" (Dul6 Zebedeus kaland- jai) of 1842 sketches a satirical portrait of the Hungarian coun- t ry squire who likes his dogs because they-unlike people-do not attempt to rise above their social status. Dul6 does not read, as books are only for those who need to learn, and he is, after all, a Hungarian gentleman. 2 It is remarkable that the story precedes Pettfi 's famous poem about the Hungarian nobleman (A magyar nemes) b y some three years. Unfortu- nately, Madfich is unable to sustain the tone of the opening of his narrative, and the rest of the tale reads like a poor imitation of a short story by K~iroly Kisfaludy. The playwright's contributions to the N6grfdi kkpcsarnok (N6grfid Picture Gallery), the collec- tion of satirical epigrams he coauthored with Szontfigh and Ferenc Pulszky in 1844, further attests to his ability to use wit and sarcasm in portraying people. 3 The satirical trend reaches its culmination in the 1859 comedy A civilizftor (The Civilizer). But it continues not only in Lucifer's attempts to ridicule every- thing ~d~im sees as great and ideal, but also in Mad~ich's parliamentary speeches, and it is still evident in the dramatic fragment Tiinddrdlom (Fairy Dream). Here Amor complains about the changed conditions on Mount Olympus and among human beings. He is no longer taken seriously in the realm of the gods, and on earth commercialism reigns instead of true love. His arrows cannot pierce the shield and armor of real estate registers and contract forms, and he himself is being replaced by "newspaper advertisements, aunts, old hags, cos- metics and profiteers. ''4

2 See Imre Mad~ich, "Dul6 Zebedeus katandjai." Osszes mavei, ed. G~ibor Halfisz (Budapest: Rtvai, 1942), II, 400.

3 See Osszes miivei, II, 1184-93. 40sszes mk'vei, I, 1062. All Mad/tch translations by Barbara arid

Dieter P. Lotze.

IMRE MAD.~CH AS A N ARIS'IOPHAI~IC SATIRIST 205

But the focus of this study will be on the drama whose very subtitle emphasizes its satirical intent: Madfich called A civili- zdtor a "comedy in the manner of Aristophanes". He wrote his play at the end of a period of deep personal depression and as a response to the sad conditions of his country. The war of 1848-49, in which he could not participate actively for health reasons, had brought tragedy not only to the nation but also into his own life. His favorite sister Mari, her husband, and their son had been brutally murdered by Rumanian insurgents. His idealistic and patriotic brother Pill was another victim of the war. In his poetry, Madfich expressed his grief over the loss of those dear to him and his deep concern over the fate of his country. The Austrian revenge after the failure of the Hungarian struggle for freedom had been brutal, and the "Bach Regime" of the 1850s, named after the Austrian Interior Secretary Alexander Bach, governed Hungary like a conquered colony and attempted to change the traditionally independent country into a province of the Hapsburg "Gesamtmonarchie", the total unified monarchy. A repressive bureaucracy, staffed by officials whom the Hungarians mockingly called "Bach hussars" because of their extravagant uniforms, was an important tool in this effort. The Hungarian response was widespread passive resistance and refusal to pay taxes.

The Bach period was to have a profound impact oi1 Mad~ch's personal life, too. In 1851, he gave shelter to a political refugee. Probably denounced by a neighbor, the poet was arrested by the Austrian authorities and imprisoned for almost a year. During this period and in the time after his release, his marriage to charming but selfish Erzsi Fr~ter deteriorated. After his divorce in 1854, he completely withdrew not only from public life, but also from his friends and even from his family. His writing helped restore gradually the psychological and emotional balance of the "Recluse of Als6-Sztregova". A civilizdtor and especially Az ember tragddtYtja mark his breaking Out of his self-imp0sed intellectual and physical exile. Significantly, he reentered politi- cal life as well and was elected to the 1861 Diet in Pest. It is this

206 DIETER P. LOTZE

background we should keep in mind when looking at his "Aristol~hanic comedy".

A synopsis of the one-act play should make Mad~ich's inten- tions quite clear. Uncle Istv/m, the Hungarian farmer, and his servants, Jan6 the Slovak, Uros the Serbian, Mitrule the Ruma- nian, Carlo the Italian, Miska the Hungarian, and Miirzl the German maid, are ready to sit down for their evening meal when an odd-looking stranger appears. Sitting on top of an immense bundle of paper in a wheelbarrow drawn by two dogs, he identifies himself as "Stroom, the great civilizer", who has left "Great Germany", his homeland, to "carry to the East the blessings of the West". Stroom manages to incite the servants to desert their master. He gains the support of Uros, who has been banned from the main table for a minor act of insubordi- nation, by his promise of replacing the "established custom" with a formal legal system. The other servants are won over by his pledge of a system of absolute equality where the different nationalities would no longer have to accept orders from a Hun- garian. He distributes amulets to them as tokens of his pledged blessings. The promises of the new "prophet" are lofty:

I brought ideas, civilization; I came to create order. To establish a Paradise in which everyone is a winner And nobody a loser)

The servants take over Istvfin's house and are ordered to make an inventory of all the items there when the army of Stroom's assistants arrives: long lines of cockroaches, the "irresistible carriers of civilization". They function as the Aristophanic chorus throughout the play, and from their ranks Stroom will appoint his judges, policemen, administrators, and teachers. He then conducts a formal trial in the "celebrated and compli- cated case of Uros", questions witnesses, decrees that Istvfin's family name be changed from "Magyar" to "M/tder", and even- tually passes judgment according to the law books. In the course

1bid., pp, 474-75.

IMRE MAD~CH AS AN ARISTOPHANIC SATIRIST 207

of another investigation he discovers that Istvfin does notpossess a passport, a residency permit or a baptismal certificate-thus officially he does not exist. Yet, suspecting grave deficiencies in the barbarian region, Stroom has brought along a sufficient supply of documents: identification cards, cattle passes, gun permits, name registration sheets, deeds, tax payment books, birth certificates, certificates of inoculation and of exemption from military service, supplementary tax forms, tobacco permits, wine licences, servat's working permits, residency permits; and he promises that a new load of government documents will arrive each week. The imposition of a general income tax is beginning to create some dissatisfaction among his new subjects, and they distrust the paper money he is introducing.

The servants' misgivings about the new regime develop into an attitude of open rebellion when they-having become suspicious-pry open Stroom's "amulets" and discover ethnic slurs or other offensive inscriptions. One after the other, they call for Istv~in to come back and lead them in the fight against the "Great Civilizer". But their former master is hesitant to assume his prior role. As the servants withdraw to discuss their course of action, Stroom comes upon Miirzl and tries to persuade her to make love to him. Spurned by the object of his ardor whose heart belongs to her master, he vows to throw her and every other girt in the country into jaxI and make the keys available to interested parties for a fee. That is the last straw for Istv~in who has overheard Stroom's monologue. He is ready for battle now and 'leads his servants in the attack on the oppressor and his retinue. Stroom cannot comprehend why the prospect of sex denied would enrage the Hungarians like that. He reminds the cockroaches of the lessons in strategy learned from Attila, Scipio, and Napoleon, and orders them to guard the doors. When Istv~in and his servants, armed with flyswatters, pokers, birch switches and other weapons, come in through the win- dows, the occupiers flee, with Stroom still proudly] proclaiming that, while beaten, his side at least did not "violate the beauti- ful science of strategy". But that does not console the chorus:

208 DIETER P. LOTZE

We don't give a damn about your strategy! Rescue us, or the pantry and the cellar will be lost. s

To no avail, and Istv/tn is no t bothered by the Civilizer's protest that flyswatters are no t a m o n g the weapons ment ioned in the regulations. The cockroaches leave, imploring the earth, in their final choral song, to

Be sorrowful and cry in pain, Swabia has fallen, the sacred bastion, And Europe, which we had Germano-Christianized so beautifully, Has sunk again into wild paganism. 7

S t room surrenders, and Istwin is ready to make peace, since "generosi ty becomes the victor".s His opponent wholeheartedly agrees, grateful tha t he had failed to "civilize~' the Hungar ians sufficiently; otherwise the price o f rope would now go up. S t room will leave to earn a living as an organ grinder. Sadly he looks back:

My idea was glorious, proud, excellent: The unified strong monarchyP

His mission failed, he sings to the tune o f his barrel organ as he departs :

Here I am leavink Hoongary, I am goink to Chermany. Oh, I poor Cherman, Nobody iss lovink me. Back zere it viii be better for me. 1~

Obviously Mad~ich's immediate target is the Bach Regime and its excesses. But in a wider sense, his satire is directed against Austr ia 's longstanding efforts to make Hunga ry an integral par t o f the Hapsburg Empire. While the author was very familiar with Ge rman culture and -a s A z ember trag~didja shows-was

1bid., p. 505. 1bid.

s Ibid., p. 507. 9 1bid. lo 1bid., p. 508.

IMRE M A D A C H AS A N ARISTOPHANIC SATIRIST 209

influenced by it, "German" becomes in this play a symbol for that continued threat of political, cultural, and linguistic

domination from the West. The choice of cockroaches to present the chorus of "Bach hussars" is ingenious. Not only do these insects elicit immediate emotional responses, but their Hungarian name, "swlbbog~ir" (or "sv~ib"), actually means "Swabian bug", and "Swabian" was traditionally used in Hun- gary as a generic term for all German-speaking settlers, regard- less of their specific origin. Thus, when the chorus mourns in the end that "Swabia has fallen, the sacred bastion", it acknowl- edges that Hungary can no longer be considered a province of Austria, governed by a German-speaking bureaucratic elite.

In his description of the way in which Stroom secured the support of Istv~in's servants, Mad~ich gives a satirical but essen- tially accurate portrayal of Hapsburg's policy to divide in order to conquer. The symbolic representation of the different nation- alities in the microcosm of Uncle Istv~n's farm reflects 19th century Hungary and her various ethnic groups, many of whom were as disgruntled about Hungarian cultural dominance as were the Magyars about Austrian attempts to Germanize them. Vienna very skillfully used to her own advantage these national- istic tendencies and this resentment by the different minorities. In part, the war of 1848-49 came about because of these prob- lems. Thoughtful Hungarians realized that a continuation of past policies would result in further instabilities. Thus, while the satirist Mad~ich paints a picture of initial harmony of the nation- alities under benevolent paternalistic leadership of the Hungar- ian master, the politician Mad~ich, a strong supporter of Baron J6zsef Ettvts, eloquently expressed his concern about the ques- tion of the nationalities when he served in the 1861 Diet. ll

On the other hand, just as Istv~in's servants eventually realize their common interest and their common enemy and fight together with their master against the "Great Civilizer" and his

11 See his parliamentary speech, "A nemzetisdgek figytben." Osszes milvei, II. 694-703.

14

210 D I E T E R P. L O T Z E

cockroaches, many members of ethnic minorities identified completely with the Hungarian cause in the struggle against Hapsburg. The eminent literary critic and art historian Imre Henszlmann could stand as an example for numerous others. Despite his German origin, he came to see himself as a Magyar. He or his older compatriot Franz Schedel, who, under his chosen name Ferenc Toldy, became one of Hungary's leading literary historians and publicists, could have served as t h e model for Mtirzl's attitude. She reacts with indignation w h e n Istv~n calls Stroom her "fellow countryman":

He was, but he is no longer; now your house is my home, You have accepted me as your daughter, thus you are my father. ~z

After 1849, the victorious Austrians claimed that the existence of a privileged class in Hungary had prevented the people from achieving freedom and had kept the country from progressing. One of the professed goals of the Bach Regime was to rectify this deplorable condition, and Stroom's removal of Istv~in from his position of relative power is the caricature of that process. Of course Stroom immediately establishes himself as the new master; similarly, Francis Joseph's Austria was not the least interested in introducing democratic freedoms into the territory she controlled. A system of customs and traditions was being replaced with formal laws and regulations; conflicts between individuals were not solved on the basis of common sense and longstanding practice, but according to specific paragraphs of specific laws. This is how Stroom proceeds in the "celebrated and complicated case of Uros" who, instead of merely having to eat by himself, is now additionally faced with corporal punish- ment and a heavy fine. Of course the new administration-in the country as well as on Istv~in's farm-creates a veritable f lood of paper that threatens to drown the people. The "Grea t Civilizer" decrees that Istv~in's home will be converted into a government office in order to hold all those documents that the

x20sszes m#vei, I, 468.

IMRE MAD/~CH AS A N A R I S T O P H A N I C SATIRIST 211

people cannot carry on their persons; the stable will have to do as shelter for those who used to live in the farmhouse. He also replaces St. Steven, Istvfin's patron saint, with Sophia, protec- tress of hemp growers:

And hemp is the foundation stone of any order. It governs because it furnishes paper for us, It brings about justice in the form of the rope, And it becomes money by degenerating into banknotes. 1~

The inefficiency of the bureaucratic system is demonstrated when~the farmhands rush to rescue an ox that has just fallen into the mire. Stroom interferes because this is the task of the police force he has set up. He reminds his cockroaches to follow established procedure and to keep proper records. When they arrive a while later with the dead animal, he considers the dam- age minor since at least the report was drawn up according to regulations.

Of course the bureaucracy thus introduced and the new way o f dispensing justice are expensive; so fees are charged for everything, and a general income tax is imposed. Stroom also tries to introduce a new device that will grind up the corn cobs, hitherto thrown into the garbage, as feed for the Hungarians, so that their wheat may be taken away as another form of taxation rather than being wasted for their white bread. In ex- change for their traditional currency, he supplies worthless paper money. Certainly Madfich was not alone in charging Austria with the economic exploitation of his homeland.

But the author's most stinging sarcasm is reserved for another target, already indicated in the title of his play. Stroom repre- sents not only the attempt to dominate Hungary politically, to change her governmental structure, and to exploit her economically. Even more, he stands for the cultural arrogance so frequently encountered in German-speaking countries: everything (and everybody) beyond the Eastern linguistic borders is "barbar ic" and in dire need of Western civilization.

13 Ibid. , p. 492.

14"

212 DIETER P. LOTZE

Thus, the Austrian effort to Germanize HungarY was not solely a matter of political expediency, but also had its roots in cultural imperialism.

Stroom complains about the inadequacy of the Hungarian language that does not even contain an all-important world like "must". So the Magyars have to learn the word, "musz~j", and the concept behind it from the superior German civiliza- tion. Obviously a family name like "Magyar", which he con- siders "parvenue", can no longer be tolerated, so he renames Istv~n "M/taler". Once again, Mad~ich's choice is a happy one. Not only is "Mader" a perfectly plausible Austrian name- Viennese'born Joseph yon Mader (1754-1815) taught law in Prague and is considered the father of medieval numismatics- but, more important, the German word "Made" means"mag- got", and Stroom thus symbolically transforms the free Hungar- ian farmer into a member of his crawling army of vermin.

When Stroom refers to "Great Germany" as his homeland, Istv~in asks him where that country is loeated-a mocking reference to the fact that what had once been the Holy Roman Empire of the Germans had long since been split up into nu- merous smaller and larger political entities-and he recites the names of some fo the German duchies, city states and the like, from "Katzenellenbogen" to "Reis-Schleis" (obviously the duchy of Reuss-Schleiz). 14 Stroom refers to the "unity of spirit" that holds his country together, whereupon Istv~in quotes Brunner's parody of Ernst Moritz Arndt's stirring song of unity, " W o ist des Deutschen Vaterland ?" (Where is the Home- land of the German?), a parody that accurately describes the arrogant posture of the "Great Civilizer" and those he typifies:

That is the homeland of the Germans, Where someone Once invented gunpowder, And even today everybody proudly believes, That he himself helped invent it. 15

14. ]bid., p. 469. is Ibid.

INIR~ MAD-~CH'AS AN ARISTOPHANIC SATIRIST 213

:Madli~ch would :Hater use this poem~in the original German- in an important:parliamentary speech. 18 He certainly was well aware of the German saying on which Brunner's parody is based "Er hat das Pu!vernicht erfunden" (He hash' t invented gun- powder), meaning that somebody is not particularly bright.

Throughout the:iptay~ Maclfich mocks the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, or, to state it more accurately, the inane and arrogant use of Hegelian ideas ;and slogans by Stroom. In his lecti~res on the philosophy of history, Hegel had described the history of the world, in terms ~of thedialectic progress in the consciousness of freedom. He saw the fusion of oriental Christianity and Germanic culture as :the last and highest stage in this development and came to view the Prussian monarchy of his times as the most highly developed and thus inherently freest political system. The "blessings of the West" which the "CMlizer"wants to share with the pagaii, uncultured Hungarians spring from this "Germanic-Christian" spirit. Stroom responds angrily when Istvin-by using a clever p u n - makes a joke out of his Hegelian argument:

: ' Tlaat was sophism, sophism; by God!

This is not a Germanic-Christian chain of ideas! 17

And the final song of the chorus mourns the fact that Europe, which they had "Germano-Christianized so beautifully", is once again degenerating. It is interesting in this respect that Madich, in the very letter tO Pill Szontigh of March 27, 1855 in which he specifically refers to Aristophanes, also jokingly uses the term "Christian-Germanic". is

Stroom appears most ridiculous when he tries to impress the Hungarians with his own knowledge of Hegel's philosophy.

16 See "A felirat vagy hat~rozat krrdrsrben." Osszes mdvei, 11, 689. Mad~ich's notes include a slightly different version, see Osszes milvei, II, 746.

aT Osszes mlivei, I, 472. 18 See Osszes mllvei, II, 985.

214 DIETER P. LOTZ E

His l isteners e i ther poke fun a t h im or show incomprehens io n and disinterest . In c o m p l a i n i n g a b o u t the ba rba r i c M a g y a r language, S t r o o m s ta tes :

How could Hegel be understood by this nation

When lstvfin cheerful ly denies knowing Hegel, he is t o ld :

But then,thow can you understand my plan? If you knew at least about the subjective and the objective, About the positive and the negative! Let us assume that a human being is positive, And what is outside him is negative--not human. Do you understand?

His new s tudent has grasped the i dea per fec t ly :

Yes . - - I am human, You are outside me--you are not human but inhuman, so

("nero ember vagy gazember.")

A n d when S t r o o m suggests an " a r g u m e n t a pos te r io r i " , Istv~in swings his cane, c la iming to be a g o o d deal s t ronger in tha t area.

The d i sc repancy between Hegel ian verb iage and the goal to be r e a l i z e d - t h e seduct ion o f a coun t ry g i r l - i s especial ly gro tesque as S t r o o m addresses Mi i rz l :

� 9 my hope is focused on this, That I, who have mastered Hegel, In this barbarian realm, out of the non-ego world, By you, the concret subject of my ideas, Who gave my desire tangible form, That I will be understood by you alone. Oh, allow my soul to dissolve in you, Don't hold me back with such sheer negation, And then I can explore with you the depth Of all salvation.

To which Mii rz l repl ies:

l~ Osszes mavei, I, 480. so Ibid., p. 471.

IMRE MADb, CH AS AN ARISTOPHANIC SATIRIST 215

Go to hell, I don't understand a word of this claptrap. ~1

On the basis of these passages, Istv~in S6t6r has concluded that Mad~ich could hardly have been influenced by the thinking of the philosopher whom he so savagely satirizes. 22 Yet a careful study of The Tragedy of Man will yield ample evidence for Madfich's familiarity with at least Hegel's lectures on the philo- sophy of history, and for the impact of Hegel's concept of a dialectic pattern in history, although the playwright most cer- tainly did not agree with the German thinker's assessment of his own period as the highest point of development. How could any Hungarian in the 1850s have held that view? But a close reading of A civilizdtor reveals no wholesale rejection of Hegelian thought, but rather an attempt to ridicule those who-l ike Stroom -employed some of his terminology and argumentation, not in order to foster dispassionate philosophical debate, but rather to achieve their own selfish and very materialistic goals.

To what extent was Madfich justified in attaching the label "Aristophanic" to A civilizdtor? Although J6zsef Szficsi's reconstruction of his library holdings za does not list any perti- nent titles, we can infer from Mad~ich's correspondence that he knew at least some of the works of Aristophanes. 24 In addition to Goethe's version of the Birds, he had probably read other

zl Ibid., pp. 500-501. z2 Istv~n S6t6r, "Madfich Imre". Romantika ds realizmus (Budapest:

Sz6pirodalmi KSnyvkiad6, 1956), pp. 217-93, especially p. 269. ~3 See Jfzsef Sziicsi, "Mad~ich Imre k/~nyvt~fra," Magyar K6nyvszemle,

NS 23 (1915), 5-28. ~4 See his letter of March 27, 1855 (note 18 above). That Szont~igh--at

least initially--did not share his friend's enthusiasm about the Greek satirist is obvious from his letter of May 11, 1855 (see Osszes miivei, II, 1132). Mad~ich also refers to Aristophanes in his 1862 speech before the Kisfaludy Society ("Az aesthetika 6s t~irsadalom viszonyos befoly~isa", Osszes rnavei, II, 569-82) and in his inaugural address for the Academy of Sciences in 1864 ("A nfr6t, kfilSnSsen esztktikai szempontb61", Osszes mLivei, lI, 583-603).

2'.[6 " D I E T E R P.' L O T Z E

comedies in German translation as well, since J~inos Arany's skillful Hungarian renditions were not published until 1880.

Certainly there is a general thematic correspondence between Mad/tch's satirical drama and most of the plays of Aristophanes. Both playwrights employed the medium of the comedy to casti- gate what they considered deplorable in the political or ctiltural area. Thus, the attitude of the Hungarian writer in ridiculing the oppressive Bach Regime and the cnlturaI arrogance of the Ger- man-speaking countries is akin to the Greek author's attacks on Cleon or on Socrates and the Sophists whom he held responsible for undermining traditional morality.

But while both dramatists wrote satirical political 'comedies, their purposes were quite different. Mad~ch knew that his biting attack on Austria and her policies had no chance of being ap- proved by the censor. He did not write for the stage and probably intended to share the play only with his closest friends, if with anybody. Aristophanes, on the other hand, created his comedies for public performances at the Athens festivals;and he conscious- ly employed them as political weapons. Through his hardly disguised assaults on specific personalities, he tried to bring about changes in government, and through making martial attitudes an object of derision, he attempted to facilitate an end tothe war his countrywas waging.

Given the satirical intentions of Mad~ch's play, his choice of symbolic names-such as Istv~in Magyar-or of symbolic characters-the servants and their nationalities, or the "Great Civilizer" himself-is natural and need not have been inspired by Aristophanic comedies where these devices abound. But it is highly unlikely that Madfich would have come up with his chorus of cockroaches, had Aristophanes not established the model in his animal choruses. The insects that take over IstVfin's house were certainly modeled after the birds, wasps, and frogs in the Greek satires. And in each case the animals have some attitudes or characteristics that are symbolic. Wasps-like the Athenian jurors they represent-swarm, buzz, and sting; birds-in contrast to human beings-can escape from their mis-

�9 i M R E M A D J ( C H AS A N A R I S T O P H A N I C S A T I R I S T :21:7

ery by flying away. Madfich's coCkroaChes-like good policemen and informers-can penetrate into any crack and dig into any

-dirt. In addition, they eagerly consume whatever is edible. But, except perhaps for Istv~in's use of flyswatters:as weapons, Mad~ich fails to derive the same comic effect from the employ- ment o f animals that Aristophanes achieved. Henri BergsOn's insight that animals appear funny to the extent that the~r display recognizable human features ~ is amply illustrated in the Greek comedies.

Certainly the formal structure of the choral passages,~the division into strophe and antistrophe in A eivi l izator can be traced to Greek drama in general, and most likely to Aristopha- nes in particular. But in contrast to most Aristophanic comedies, Madfich's satire lacks the parabasiS, the Characteristic episode in which.the chorus, alone on stage, addresses the audience directly and becomes the mouthpiece for the author's opinions. ,The only faint echo of:this might be 'the moment when the cockroaches implore their master not to initiate neverending civil court proceedings. But perhaps Ma&ich found it tOO diffi- cult to have this particular chorus serve as his spokesmen, or, more likely, he was not completely aware of this specific dramatic technique.

Both authors present in their works a blend of sophistication and burlesque. Slapstick humor and bawdiness can be found in Madach's play as well as in all Aristophanic comedies. To some degree, lewdness and vulgarity serve a function in the Hungarian play. Stroom objects early in the drama to Istv~n's use of the words "pants" and "maiden", as they make him blush and lead to dirty thoughts. 25 When the same Stroom later pursues Mtirzl, comparing himself to an overcharged battery on whose positive pole a flame is burning and who would like to find a negative spot in her lap to discharge his energy, 26 and when he eventually marvels that the Hungarians get so upset

25 Osszes miivei, I, 470. 26 Ibid., p. 500.

2 1 8 DIETER P. L O T Z E

because of the female sexual organ under lock and key-Mad~ch abbreviates the vernacular hereZ~-then he revels himself as the hypocrite he truly is. Yet, very much in contrast to the obscenity in the works of Aristophanes that seems to serve a purpose and furthermore is related to the culture of the age, even in this case the crudeness in Mad~ch's work appears somewhat artificial and unmotivated. There seems little justification for attaching to Miirzl, who is depicted as a wholesome and positive character, the surname "Zielarsch" (target arse) so that Stroom can make some remarkt about flogging. 2s

It is characteristic that such examples of coarseness are re- stricted to Stroom. It is obvious that the playwright attempted to ascribe only positive characteristics to Istv~in. He is kind, gener- ous, just, patient, thoughtful, witty, considerate, and brave, and at the end demonstrates his willingness to forgive. In view of the satirical and symbolic intention of the play and its cast, one should perhaps not complain about the lack of believability of such overly noble character. Yet, after reading A civilizdtor, one almost longs for a little of that vindictiveness so typical of the works of Aristophanes.

The comedies by Mad~ich and by Aristophanes are topical. But the most significant difference may be that the best plays by the Greek author continue to be read and enjoyed long after their topicality has gone. The modern reader or theatergoer does not have to know anything about the Athenian legal system of the fifth century B. C. in order to appreciate The Wasps, and whether there is any direct connection between The Birds and the Sicilian expedition of Alcibiades is a question of interest only to the historian or literary scholar. Mad~ich's play, on the other hand, becomes meaningless without the specific historical setting. A civilizdtor offers little to hold the attention of anyone unfamiliar with the conditions in Hungary in the 1850s.

Perhaps the lacking ingredient that could have made Ma- d~ich's drama truly a "comedy in the manner of Artistopha-

z7 Ibid., p. 502. 28 Ibid. , p. 481.

IMRE MAD~,CH AS AN ARISTOPHANIC SATIRIST 21"9

nes" was a sense of humor. The playwright emerges as a brilliant satirist, using sarcasm and wit to ridicule and, tear down. But there is no at tempt and no ability to view matters from the detached vantage point of a humorist. But then, such stance could hardly be expected from someone with Mad~ich's experi- ences. As it stands, .4 civilizrtor is important as a historical document, and it is important as a statement by a man soon to be elected to parliament and soon to give life and voice to the greatest satirist of them all, Lucifer in The Tragedy of Man.