THESES OF PhD DISSERTATION

There are two basic aims in my dissertation. On the one hand, I make an attempt Ŕ by the means of the close reading of Toldi-trilogy and Bolond Istok Ŕ to show that there are two poetically distinguishable basic-types of Janos Arany‟s narrative discourse, and I also try to characterize the specific features of these discourses in respect of the constructive principle, worldview and subject-concept. On the other hand, I elaborate those theoretical essays of Janos Arany which deal with verse language and narration, and I re-read them from the point of view of the 20 century literary theories with the aim of drawing out a general theoretical concept that can be applied to any kind of literary work based upon the dominant process of crossing verse language and narrative construction. The extended perspective of my theoretical concept is provided by discursive poetics which links up the best of formalism and hermeneutics, and which is very near to the contemporary endeavours of the Ricœurian form of interpretation theory because of this integrative claim. I draw up the correspondences of action, emplotment, metaphor and narrative identity on the basis of Ricœur‟s essays, and the correspondences of action, verse language, poetical text production and text-subject with the assistance of discursive poetics; it is set me the difficult task of understanding and interpreting the poetical act that crosses the processes of verse language and narrative construction. Janos Arany‟s narrative poems may appear in a new manner in the light of this (more or less) new line of approach. With the interpretations I am out for join the reception history of the Arany-oeuvre in three ways: first, I aim at applying those personal and biographical notices of the Arany-monographs (Riedl, Gyongyosy Laszlo, Voinovich, Keresztury) that can be poetically motivated in my analysis which is concerned not with the author, but with the subject being constituated by the poetical text production; second, I strive to make use of the general ideological notions of the most important overall literary history books (Erdelyi, Gyulai, Horvath Janos, Barta, Sőter) in my argumentation which is concerned not with the epoche of the Hungarian 19 century era, but with the worldview being constituated by the language-creating act of literary work; third, I hope that I contribute with my interpretations about the literary history being constituated by the narrative and intertextual processes of the poems to enrich the results of those history books of literature, of poetics and of concepts (Beothy Zsolt, Horvath Janos, Nemeth G. Bela, Szili Jozsef, Szegedy-Maszak, Davidhazi Peter, Imre Laszlo, S. Varga Pal, Eisemann Gyorgy) which specify the historical function of the Aranyoeuvre.