Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/124

 uo HUNGARIAN LITERATORE Poets discovered new beauties in them and praised th eir religious and chivalric spirit. The new tendency was romanticism. After the ratio nalism of the latter part of the eighteenth century, romanticism carne as a reaction. In France, Chateau briand was the leading representative of the new tendency, which restored the san ctity and veneration of sentiment. In England it was Walter Scott who threw open the íron-bound gates of the mediceval castles to his admiring readers. Autbors began to drop their abstract ideas about man in general, and to lean towards the strongly national features of the Middle Ages. Alexander Kisfaludy went with the stream. His historical tales From the past of Hungary are ch iefiy tales of chivalry. Their psychology is imperfect, but they are told with much vivacity and charm. Kisfaludy spent many years of his life near the 11 H ungarian Sea " as Lake Balaton was then called. Many of the volcanic hills in that district are crowned with the ru ins of fortresses, such as those of Csobáncz, Somló, and Tátika. The sight of them proved a great inspiration to Kisfaludy. But it was not altagether their religious or chivalric spirit that attracted h im to the Middle Ages ; it was rather the fact that it was the time of Hungary's political independence. He was guided by his patriotic sentiments. The life of K isfaludy, judged by ordinary human stan­ dards, was a very fortunate one. He carne of a respected, well-to-do, and infiuential family. Nevertheless, there occurred in his life confiicts in which he was beaten. He was a valiant soldier, but it unfortu nately happened that his army had to contend twice with the genius of perhaps the greatest of military leaders, Napoleon. No wooder then that Kisfaludy's troops lost the day.