Poetry
Dorottya
Not translated into English
Mihály Csokonai Vitéz · 1804
Opening lines
Éneklem a Fársáng napjait s Dorottyát,
Ki látván a dámák bajos állapotját,
Carnevál s az ifjak ellen feltámada,
S diadalmat is nyert pártára únt hada.
I sing the days of Carnival and Dorottya,
Who, seeing the sorry plight of the ladies,
Rose up against Carnival and the young men,
And her army, weary of spinsterhood, even won the victory.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from mek.oszk.hu
Synopsis
Carnevál, carnival in person, travels through Hungary to take a census of married women, young girls and widows, and stops with his retinue at the castle of Prince Esterházy, at Kapos, in Somogy. During the feast, the register in which marriages are recorded is opened, and Dorottya, a plain spinster, becomes the target of mockery. Eris, goddess of discord, slips into her in the form of a doughnut; Dorottya then rallies the other forsaken women, and their army demands that Carnevál and the register be handed over to it.
Context
The poem is written during the winter of 1798-1799, when the author is teaching in Somogy, and does not appear until 1804, in Nagyvárad. In his preface, the author explains his choice of characters, moment and place, and remarks that no one before him had tried his hand at this genre in his language. The four books follow the hours of a single day of a ball and take up, one by one, the devices of the epic: the announcement of the subject, the invocation, the catalogue of troops, the intervention of the gods.
Who it is for
Four books of verse, full of allusions to the customs of carnival and of the provincial nobility in the eighteenth century; no French or English translation has been located.
Prizes and reception
According to the Britannica, the first comic epic in the Hungarian language, and its author's most popular work.
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