Oldal 337 [337]
THE AESTHETICS OF SILENCE IN GYORGY RONAY’s POETRY
expressed in their art is Catholic or not." In Saints, writers, directions, his
collection of essays, Rónay paints a detailed picture of the spirit of modern
Catholic literature. He perceived the postulate of modern Catholic thinking
partly in grace as a supernatural gift, partly in the universe, the cosmos as
a drama of grace. Ihe "divinely created stage for the drama of grace—in
which we move and play our part—possesses meaning, purpose, goal, and
also significance and destiny pertaining to salvation history to be realised by
the participation and contribution of humanity."?
“The thoughts of Teilhard compel me to examine my faith in Providence;
for it is not enough to believe in it as if we were operating in the internal
life of each and every individual soul, we need to learn to see and respect
it in the evolution of matter and the development of life.”? The French
Jesuit philosopher Teilhard de Chardin expounds the dilemma of faith and
science when speculating on the infinity of micro- and macrocosm, while
recollecting the angst of Pascal terrified by the eternal silence of infinite space.
A similar phenomenon is observable in The Sounds of the Night (Az éjszaka
hangjai) by Gyorgy Ronay, the first poem in the volume The Graveyard of
Winter (Teltemetö):
above the silence of the lake,
with cool and persistent rustling,
star-forests wuther in the cosmic wind.!°
The Christian worldview of Teilhard de Chardin’s scientific phenomenology,
that is, the recognition of the cosmic universe and transcendental silence,
influenced the worldview of Gyérgy Ronay as well. His Christian thinking,
however, was not formed solely by translations of prose; he also studied
the poetry of Paul Claudel and Pierre Emmanuel in depth. In addition to
translating Teilhard’s philosophical treatise titled The Human Phenomenon,
he translated several poems from volumes of Paul Claudel and Pierre
Emmanuel. The dreadful silence of Claudel’s weltering lyric torrents and the
depleting words of Emmanuel’s Ars poetica also influenced the aesthetics of
his final poetic period. Since György Rónay lived and created in the circulation
György Rónay, Interjúk, nyilatkozatok, vallomások, Modern katolikus irodalmunk
kérdéséhez (Interviews, Declarations, Confessions: On Issues of Our Modern Catholic
Literature), Budapest, Vigilia, 2004, 325.
§ György Rónay, Szentek, írók, irányok (Saints, Writers, Directions), Budapest, Szent István
Association, 1970, 164.
Rönay quotes Mauriac’s thoughts, in Chardin, Teilhard de, Hit az emberben: Moral és
misztika (Faith in the Human: Moral and Mysticism), Budapest, Szent Istvan Association,
1968, 15.
All translations by the author of the present article.
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