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ABSTRACTS that Pilinszky considered poetic and to demonstrate its survival in Attila Vidnyänszky’s performance of Crime and Punishment in St. Petersburg. In the play, which is performed in Russian, one can observe the interweaving of poetry and liturgy, which is also characteristic of Pilinszky’s theatrical vision, and through this the (stage) space of metaphors referring to transcendence. In Vidnyänszky’s work, the metaphor itself becomes a liturgical event: it evokes the Christian story while at the same time offering the possibility of breaking through the mental space of the subject. The metaphor of Christ in the performance becomes a central figure through which the characters enter the textual space of the Scripture and participate in the events of Christ by creating this possibility for the spectators. In the operation of the metaphor, the revived murder situation can be interpreted as a continuation of Pilinszky’s poem “The Assassination”: “It happened though I did not commit it, / and it did not happen though I did.” MELINDA SEBOK The aesthetics of silence in Janos Pilinszky’s art When Ferenc Szabo - in his Napfogyatkozas — kereszténység és modernség [Solar eclipse — Christianity and Modernity] — 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. Though Pilinszky states that “Iam a poet and Catholic”, he intends to picture the interrupted nature of theological tradition of interpretation in literature, but the experience expressed in his art is Catholic, as the Catholic ideology shaped not only his poetry, but also his stagecraft. The horror of the second world war experience determined his work. Pilinszky’s art is seeking redemption, his brief works express the passion of mankind even at the risk of muteness. Pilinszky’s mind was partly influenced by Simone Weil’s philosophy and Robert Wilson’s drama. When he saw Deafman Glance by Robert Wilson in Paris in 1971, the static and muted production gave him the impression that it was the realization of his theatrical ideals. The consequence of Wilson’s effect within a short period, he wrote four stage plays. Several examples of the poetics of silence can be noticed in his stage plays such as the lack of communication, the speechlessness, the muteness, the action without words, the articulate silence or the transcendent tranquillity. + 238 +
