HUNGARIAN DRAMA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21640, 4 November 1933, Page 9 (Supplement)

HUNGARIAN DRAMA

" THE TRAGEDY OF MAN " A Hungarian author of note little known to English readers is lmro Madach, who died in ISti4 at the early age of 11. In ]So'2 ho was sentenced by the Austrian Government to a year's imprisonment for having sheltered a political refugee. When released he found that his wife had left him. It was in the years which followed that he wrote his masterpiece, 11 The Tragedy of Man." The trials through which he had so recently passed probably account for the pessimism with which the poem is coloured. The present translation was made by the late Charles Sanger and aims at being literal, almost line for line, but at the same time reminding the reader that the original is in verse. It is a notable coincidence that almost simultaneously with the publication of Mr. Sanger's translation in London there has been published in Budapest a translation by Charles Henry Meltzer and Paul Vadia.

" The Tragedy of Man " is the story in dramatic form of Man's struggle throughout the ages for supremacy over God. Adam and Evo, cast out of Eden, ask Lucifer to show them the future. In a succession of scenes we see Adam disgusted with the tyranny of Egypt, the mob rule of Greece, the voluptuousness of Rome, religion which had turned to hair-splitting over heresies, the learning of the Middle Ages, the equality, fraternity and liberty of the French Revolution, and " life in its fulness." Then lie is shown a future in which science rules supreme; a world in which art and inspiration have no place. Adam attempts to escape from the earth but is prevented by the Spirit of the Earth. He returns to find a frozen and degenerate world: "Science has failed to conquer destiny." In the end, his dream over, Adam realises that it is tho striving which matters and that the field which summons him to work is endless. Further there is a future to strive for. as Eve is to bear him a child. Lucifer, the Spirit of Negation, acts as a mocking chorus throughout Although it is written in dramatic form and has repeatedly been played with marked success in Hungary and elsewhere in Central Europe " The Tragedy of Man " belongs to the realms of ppetry rather than to those of drama. The author when writing it did not have in mind the limitations of the.stage. It belongs to the same class of literature as Goethe's " Faust," with which it has often been compared. The present translation is timely and welcome. " The Tragedy of M?n," by Imre Madach, translated from the "Hungarian by C. P. Sunscr. (The Hogarth Press.)