Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/276

 262 HUNGARIAN LITERATURE ideals, and with mocking laughter on his lips, but with hitterness in his heart, wrote a travesty of the great events of the time in his satirical poem, The Gypsies of Nagy Ida. Mild Tompa bimself broke out into wild, uncontrollable grief. 14 The young wife prays that she may not bear ch ildren j parents do not bewail th eir infant's death j only the aged rejoice, gladdened by the thought that they have not long to live. " Everything in Nature itself is interpreted in terms of a gloomy symbolism. To Charles Szász. it seems as if 14 the clouds floating above were horn of the vapour of tears and blood, but some day they will send down their light­ nings upon the earth." The works of Paul Gyulai bear the same note of bitter­ ness. One of his characters, a farmer, grieves most of ali because his dea r ones, slain in hattie or by the hangman, died in va in. We may imagine what inftuence this environment had on Madách's naturally pessimistic disposition. And then, while other men found some solace for their grief as patriots in the joys of home, it was there that he receíved the cruellest blow through the faithlessness of. his wife. Madách wrote several dramas which were published after his death, but they may ali be regard ed as 11studies " for his great work, which raised bim to the rank of H ungary's greatest philosophical poet. The great democratical movement of the years around 1840 brought the peasa nt into fash ion, not only in poli­ tics, where the emancipation of the peasant became a battle-cry, and in the lyric and epic poetry of writers like Aran y, Petőfi and Tompa, but also upon the stage. A new dramatic genre arose, known as the 11 popular play," in wh ich the life of the H ungarian peasant was repre-