Midsummer Night's Dream. The moral is, of course, that true love overcomes every obstacle.
Not the least of Vörösmarty's merits is that he was the first great translator of Shakespeare into Hungarian and the first Hungarian author to appreciate rightly the world's greatest dramatist. His translation of Julius Cæsar appeared in 1839.[1]
Vörösmarty urged others to translate his works well. "A good translation of Shakespeare," he said, "would be worth to any nation at least the half of its existing literature." Petőfi equally idolised Shakespeare. In one of his dramatic criticisms he said: "In the field of poetry Shakespeare has reaped all that is most beautiful. We can only glean after him what he did not find worthy of him." Arany was influenced by Shakespeare even when writing his ballads, and said of him: "We can best express our feelings by quoting the words of the psalmist, 'Thou art great in great things and great in small.'"
The three greatest Hungarian poets, Vörösmarty, Petőfi and Arany, arranged together to translate some of the plays. Their choice was in each case characteristic.
- ↑ The name of Shakespeare was first heard from the lips of Bessenyei. The first translation appeared in 1786. It was by Alexander Kun Szabò, after an adaptation by Weisse in German, and all the first translations were made from German variants. When the first theatre was opened, in 1790, Kazinczy translated Hamlet for it, but from such an altered version that the prince does not die at the end. In some cases managers even produced new plays, with the name of Shakespeare as author. For instance, a play was produced at Kolozsvár in 1812 entitled Alexander Menczikov, of which Shakespeare was declared to be the author. More absurd still, when a real Shakespearean play was given, it was advertised to be by Kotzebue in order to draw a larger audience. The finest of Hungarian tragic poets, Katona, was greatly influenced by Shakespeare's method of drawing his characters.
