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THE AESTHETICS OF SILENCE
IN GYORGY RONAY’S POETRY
——~o » —_—_
MELINDA SEBOK
ABSTRACT
“It is silence I have always loved”—Hungarian poet Gyorgy Ronay wrote in his
Ars antipoetica. Rénay was a poet, novelist, critic, translator. He was a member
of the so-called third generation of the Nyugat Movement, in whose thinking
theology and poetry were inseparable. He translated numerous authors
into Hungarian and his poems represent Catholic views of modern writers.
His mind was partly influenced by Teilhard de Chardin’s philosophy, Paul
Claudel’s poetry and Pierre Emmanuel’s discourses. The Catholic ideology
heavily shaped Roénay’s religious poetry. In his art, transcendent tranquility
gives expression to ontological questions. He considered the uniformity of
theological and literary ideas in his essay: On Issues of Our Modern Catholic
Literature (Modern katolikus irodalmunk kérdéséhez). He believes the most
important thing in poetry is if the poet’s experience has been impressed by
Catholicism. In his poetry the metaphysical suspicion of silence implies the
dialogue between a human and a godlike soul. The secret of silent moments
yields transcendent metaphors to his poetry. Beyond expressions (without
words), the metaphysical suggestion provides ontological questions. The aim
of my paper is to respond to some of these questions.
When Ferenc Szab6’, in his volume Solar Eclipse—Christianity and Modernity
(Napfogyatkozas—Keresztenyseg es modernseg), in the chapter titled Beyond
Nihilism (Tul a nihilizmuson) analyses the central issues of Christianity in
the intellectual context of modernity, he points out that literature, in its
own discourse, always reinterprets its doubts (originating in its existential
experience) pertaining to God, the transcendent. Christian literature, from
' Ferenc Szabo (1938-) is a Jesuit monk, theologian, teacher, poet, publicist.
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