Dubliners by James Joyce

   James Joyce’s collection of short stories Dubliners may not be as ambitious as his more acclaimed Ulysses or the almost schizophrenic Finnegans Wake. It is, however, an amazing piece of literature on its own and, like A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, is more indicative of the mind of Joyce than his later work.

   Dubliners has its roots in the 19^th century innovations in the short story as a serious literary form by the hands of especially the Frenchman Guy de Maupassant and Russian Anton Chekhov, both of whom revolutionised the short story. That being said Dubliners remains a highly original piece of literature that is marked especially by Joyce’s exceptional prosaic tempo and pacing, which makes the language flow in a remarkable way — an effect best experienced by reading aloud.

   The collection has no fixed protagonist per se but instead is composed of fifteen cross-sections in the life of various Dubliners. The stories are characterised by a dark atmosphere in which the sun never seems to rise on the isle of Ireland. A great example of this dark atmosphere is in the story Araby in which a boy, who has developed a romantic affection towards a girl, goes to the market to get her something and, in the darkness of the market, which he found closed, reflects:

   “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.”

   The closing story The Dead is the highlight of the collection and stands out as the most ambitious of the stories. It details the celebrations of Epiphany, which is celebrated on the 6^th of January in Ireland, and follows Gabriel who is greatly anticipated by his aunts, the hosts. The events of the evening reinforce the main themes of the collection; id est: the themes of the mundaneness of life and routine, lack of passion, religion, politics, etcetera. Especially towards the end of the story when his wife reveals that she once loved a boy in western Ireland, who had wanted to die for her in the passion of his love, he has an epiphany: at first he was mad at his wife’s love for the boy but he soon realises his emotional ill is the sadness of not having experienced the love or passion that the boy felt:

   “Yes, the newspaper were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, further westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. … His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

   Dubliners is a great introduction to the writing of James Joyce. And had he not written Ulysses I’m certain that Dubliners would still be revered and esteemed in English-language literature for its aesthetic merit and its excellent portrayal of Dublin, and Ireland, in a time of great social, religious, and political unrest and change.

The Tragedy of Man by Mádach Imre

The Tragedy of Man is a Hungarian play by Mádach Imre[1]. In the same vein of Milton’s Paradise Lost and Goethe’s Faust, the Tragedy of Man is a play about God, Lucifer, Man, its quest for wisdom, and their relations. Although the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 profoundly affected contemporary Hungarian literature, Mádach placed himself in the larger European literary tradition, with almost no references to the Revolution or Hungarian nationalism in the play.
   While the play takes place in a biblical setting, it is not a Christian play per se (it is often critical of the Catholic church, Mádach being protestant), rather it is a play in the form of epic, dramatic, poetry that portrays mankind’s struggle for wisdom and hope using biblical and historical settings to highlight this struggle. The play begins as God creates the world and Mankind, and the Archangels praise his creation. However, Lucifer refuses to praise God and deems his work futile, as Man will want to become God over his own world. Lucifer sets out to prove the futileness of God’s work. After Lucifer induces the Original Sin, Adam and Eve are thrown out of Eden, and Lucifer takes Adam through history using illusions in Adam’s dreams. In each scene of the play Adam, Lucifer, and Eve take on different historical characters such as Adam being Pharaoh of Egypt, Lucifer being some subordinate to Adam, and Eve being a non-essential character, subject to Adam’s desire. As Adam and Lucifer reach the 1800s and beyond, Adam begins to take the role of an outside observer in each historical and future scenario. Though Adam before the journey does not recognise his sin and is hopeful for mankind and its future progress and achievements, he realises the futile and hopeless nature of mankind through his visions, each of which he is disappoints and ages him.

   The Tragedy of Man deals, most of all, with mankind’s inability to truly understand the Lord and the vain quest for wisdom. In it, the reader is constantly reminded of the fruitlessness of mankind’s struggles, much like in the Ecclesiastes, but there is a message of hope beyond all hope in the play. Although mankind is like the Eskimo in one of the last scenes of the play, unsure of his God,

ESKIMO
(at the sight of Adam and Lucifer, in a world where the sun has burned out)

                                    And do the gods still live above?
                                    Here they stand now, in the flesh.
                                    Are they good or evil though?
                                    I’ll play it safe and run away.
                                                            He makes to flee

The play is an argument that Man need not understand the ways of God and instead, in the words of God in the famous last line of the play: 

THE LORD

                                    Man, I have spoken: strive on, trust, have faith!

    The play, of course, also deals with a wide variety of themes and ideals. Most notably is the notion of nationalism and liberalism, which Adam first thinks inhibits man, but later realises the value of, as Lucifer shows him a future without nations. Adam asks a question still relevant today; whether or not nationalism, or lack thereof, is worth it:

LUCIFER

                                    […] Don’t you think

                                    That nationalism was a petty concept?
                                    Prejudice gave it birth, and rivalry

                                    and narrow-mindedness were its defence. […]

ADAM

                                    All that I dreamt of is fulfilled at last. […]

                                    I’ve one regret: the nationhood ideal,
                                    Which could have survived […]

                                    Our souls need limits, fear the infinite,

                                    Scattered too wide they lose the power within;

                                    They cling to everything, the past, the future;
                                    I fear too big a world will not be loved
                                    As much as the soil in which our parents lie.
                                    A man who’d shed his blood to save his children

                                    Will shed but tears at best for mere acquaintance.

   Moreover, although Eve is a marginal character, she is also used to give the tragedy a romantic and poetic twist, Eve being the one that saves Adam from his imminent doom, and their poetic declarations of love lightens the mood of their hopelessness, as love so often does:

EVE

                                                                        I tremble, Adam.

                                    And heaven too has fallen silent.

ADAM

                                    I hear it still within your breast.

EVE

                                    When clouds obscure the eye of heaven

                                    I see it still within your eyes.

   Thus, the Tragedy of Man, unique in the context of Hungarian literature, is one of the most noteworthy pieces of Central European literature, and although the role of God in relation to the human condition is not as relevant within the artistic standards and thematic foci of the post- and metamodern culture of the early 21^st century the issue of mankind’s hopelessness in the world is still relevant and interesting, with the play's theme of nationalism being increasingly relevant in the Western world, too. Arguably, some of the poetics of the play has been lost in translation, as this particular translation focused on retaining meaning rather than poetic form. However, the play is tragic, hopeful, and still incredibly poetic, and the argument it presents, that there is hope beyond all hope, is its virtue: it finds a optimistic pessimism within the futileness of mankind’s desire for wisdom.

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[1] Mádach Imre is the native form of his name; Hungarian naming customs order the surname before the given name.