OCR
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. * 333 ¢ Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 333 6 2020.06.15. 11:04:27