Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/218

 204 HUNGARIAN LITERATDRE of everyday life there was a repelling restlessness in him, some stiff pride, and occasionally a certain superficiality, but in the service of freedom he was thorough and faithfui to the end. For freedom he was ready to give al i, even life itself. Petőfi, like his great contemporary and fellow-worker, Arany, based his poetry upon popular traditions and feeli ngs. He embodies many of them in his verses, but always uses them with the conscious art of a cultured poet. It was as if he had grafted the c ultivated r ose of true poetry upon the wild rose of the popular imagination. The former gave the beauty, an!; the latter the sap and strength. Both Petőfi and Arany were pupils of the people. Arany learnt from them his graph ic language, the plastic simpticity of his sentences and his epic construction. Petőfi used the features of the popular songs, though altered in accordance with his own individuality. Th e essential characteristics of the popular Hungarian songs may be discerned in his poetry. We feel while reading his verses that we are standing on Hungarian soil. Nowhere can we find the qualities of the people and the c haracter of their daily life better portrayed. The char­ acters that he introd uces are typicaily H ungarian, and the sober self-consci ousness of th e people, their quiet dignity and their we ll-known discreet reserve, are as faith fully depicted in his poetry as their warm feelings are reflected in himself. In the mature poetry of Petőfi we see love as the Hungarians conceive it, full of strength and warmth, and without any touch of Freneh frivolity or German sentimentalism. Petőfi' s writings give us a glimpse of H ungarian life and the H ungari an soul, lighted up by the flame of p oetica} exaltation.