15The Reception of Edmund Burke’s Aesthetics in Hungary1
The first complete Hungarian translation of Burke’s Reflections was in 1990,2 and that of his Enquiry only in 2008.3 The first Burke monograph in Hungarian was published in 2000 (Molnár) and the first scholarly papers on his influence in Hungary were published as late as 2011 (Horkay Hörcher and Szilágyi). It might be thought that Hungarian intellectuals of earlier times by and large ignored Burke’s views, but if we look at the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we see that this view is mistaken.4 In this period, theoretical books were rarely translated into Hungarian and theoretical works on aesthetics in Hungary were usually written in Latin or German. Potential Hungarian readers of Enquiry were proficient in German and a German translation was available soon after its publication in England.5 The absence of Hungarian translations is not proof of a lack of interest in, or a lack of knowledge of Burke in itself.6 So what evidence is there for awareness of Burke’s aesthetics among Hungarian intellectuals? The clue lies in the fact that the most prominent figures writing about aesthetics were professors of the Hungarian University.
Georg Aloys Szerdahely,7 who was educated as a Jesuit, became the first professor of the newly founded Faculty of Aesthetics of the Hungarian University in 1774. Szerdahely published his Latin book, the Aesthetica, in 1778, which was used as a university textbook until 1828. Szerdahely’s later works tackled more specialized areas in aesthetics: the Ars poetica (1783) about poetry, the Poesis narrativa (1784b) about the nature of narrative poetry, and Poesis dramatica about dramatic poetry (1784a).
Johann Ludwig Schedius was the professor of aesthetics at the University of Pest from 1793 to 1847.8 He earned his professor’s chair as a very young academic after returning from the Georgia Augusta University in Göttingen with a handwritten recommendation from Heyne.9 Of Schedius’s output, the most important piece for our study is a Latin handbook, the Principia, which was published in 1828, and was used as a university textbook for more than two decades.
Since Szerdahely’s and Schedius’s books were both written in Latin, they had the chance to be well known and respected not only in the multilingual and multinational Kingdom of Hungary, which belonged to the Habsburg Empire, but abroad as well.10 It is necessary to examine how Burke’s aesthetic theory features in these books, without following the dominant research method in the history of Hungarian aesthetics.11 This method simply consists of counting the number of explicit references to the topic in question, usually names or book titles. If we followed this method we would get very disappointing results, because in Szerdahely’s book Burke is only mentioned by name once, while in the Schedius volume only his name and the title of Enquiry appears (Szerdahely 1778, 1:56; Schedius 1828, 173, 183). Let us therefore examine the contexts of explicit and indirect references to Burke.
In Szerdahely’s Aesthetica, Burke’s name is mentioned in a chapter which lists the most important figures in the new science of aesthetics: Burke, Shaftesbury, Home, Batteux, Du Bos, Baumgartgen, Wolff, Mayer and Sulzer (Szerdahely 1778, 1:56). There are more British authors than French, and the combined number of British and French authors is larger than the number of German aestheticians. This is surprising if we consider the strong cultural and geographical links that existed between Hungarian and German culture in the eighteenth century. Yet the inclusion of Burke’s name supports the proposal that Szerdahely might have held Burke in high regard.
If we examine the explicit citations in Aesthetica, we will find that 95 per cent of these quotations are from antique sources because, as a professor of aesthetics, Szerdahely was responsible both for teaching theoretical aesthetics and for introducing his students to classical literature (Szentpéteri 1935, 242–45). Therefore, Szerdahely wrote a book suitable for teaching this combined subject.
Both Burke’s Enquiry and Szerdahely’s handbook employ a subjective narrator in an essay style, so they rarely use explicit citations. For example, the Enquiry includes only two explicit references to Pseudo-Longinus’ treatise (Burke 1997, 188, 226), and there are no direct quotations at all from the works of Shaftesbury.12 Yet it would be foolish to doubt Pseudo-Longinus’s and Shaftesbury’s influence on Burke. The fact that Szerdahely included Burke among the notable masters of aesthetics without any explicit references to the Enquiry may suggest that Burke influenced Szerdahely.
The citation system of Schedius’s Principia is closer to the conventions of modern academic writing. However, in the preface, Schedius promises to include only the most important works containing statements which diverge from his own (1828, iii–iv). The only explicit reference to Burke in the Schedius volume is the following:
EDM. BURKE’s volume titled A philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful. London. 1757. 8. classifies a large number of non-precisely separated things as beautiful which can only be regarded as nice or pleasant. (173, § 253)13
Schedius was clearly aware of the contents of Burke’s book, but he did not want to start a debate about its proposals. The Principia also contains an overview of the history of aesthetics (177–84). Schedius includes a list of ten people whom he thinks are respectable authors: Du Bos, Wolf, Crousaz, Hutcheson, André, Batteux, Burke, Hogarth, Home, Diderot (183, § 264). Burke is treated as a notable master of aesthetics in both books, and Schedius’s textbook mentions the Enquiry as an important work on aesthetics. Did these two authors access Burke’s works directly or indirectly? If we find that they had indirect access, we have to investigate the intermediary sources as well, after first examining their research methods.
As a Jesuit monk, Szerdahely was well trained in the methods of ars excerpendi and ars compilandi which Jesuits often used for writing their homilies, and he used these procedures in his book on aesthetics (Bárczi 2007; Ehlich 1981; Neumann 2001).14 A writer who follows this tradition starts his research by examining the indices of the books of interest to him, then organizes his notes by keyword, achieving the effect of a ‘wheel-like book’ which allows him to examine theories from multiple sources at the same time. We cannot, therefore, expect Szerdahely to reflect on the whole Enquiry in detail. However, we can find ideas from the Enquiry in his book’s explanations of key concepts such as the sublime or the picturesque.
It is not possible to determine whether Szerdahely took the quotations, parables and definitions directly from the original Enquiry, or indirectly from a lexicon or an academic treatise written by a third person. Therefore, it makes no sense to build up genealogical tables to show the sources Szerdahely quoted from, as former researchers have done. For example, Jánosi (1914, 11) supposed that Szerdahely did not read the Enquiry but rather Riedel’s Theorie (1767) as an indirect source for it, but Riedel is not even mentioned by name in the Aesthetica. According to him, many chapters of the Aesthetica, especially the ones about emotions and concepts like colour, size and smoothness, are proof of Home’s influence on Szerdahely. But the Home text might have contained a Burke text, so that Szerdahely gained an indirect access to Burke through Home. But we cannot prove that Szerdahely even read Home in the original. Others suggest that the influence of Mendelssohn’s works on Szerdahely was the main mediated access to Burke’s works, but without providing strong evidence.15
We can see from these hypotheses that by building genealogical tables we will be trapped in a never-ending hermeneutic spiral. The definition of taste in Szerdahely’s Aesthetica clearly illustrates this point. It is easy to identify the strong similarities between Szerdahely’s definition of ‘bonus gustus’ and the contents of the Enquiry’s chapter on taste. Both Burke and Szerdahely expressed similar arguments about two important factors of taste. The first is our ability to use our senses to collect information, which may be improved by education, the second is an explanation about the personal differences in taste. But the list of texts containing similar theories may be expanded to include Baumgarten’s Metaphysica (1779, 221–22, § 608) or Sulzer’s article Lexicons Geschmak (1771, 1:461–65) among others. Besides the secondary sources, we also have to review those sources which our authors could have read before they wrote their respective works. Probably one such source is the treatise of Pseudo-Longinus, which must have been familiar to both Burke and Szerdahely.16
Schedius’s research method was formed under the influence of the hermeneutic and scientific theories he acquired at Heyne’s philological seminars at the University of Göttingen.17 In Principia, Schedius separated the text into two parts, dividing his own theories and proposals into a strict and logical system of numbered chapters, sub-chapters and paragraphs. Each paragraph is accompanied by a commentary in small print which provides bibliographical background; Schedius opted for a polemical approach by contextualizing and separating his own statements from the other aesthetic theories.
In most aesthetics monographs of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, definitions and descriptions often became generic so that attempts to find direct links between certain works can lead to simplistic answers. If we divide works into groups based on similar or shared views on certain issues, they can be treated as parts in a larger network, where thematic keywords act as joints and multi-directional links within the larger system.
Whilst there are no direct quotations from the Enquiry in either book, it seems likely that both authors had access to a German translation of the Enquiry. More importantly, a network of academic works transmitted quotations and theories, and made Burke an authoritative figure of aesthetics in the eyes of both Szerdahely and Schedius.
The key links within the network were the following. In Szerdahely’s case, the likely secondary sources included the handbooks written by Riedel (1767) and Sulzer (1771), the works of Home (1762) and Mendelssohn and some key primary sources like the Pseudo-Longinus treatise (1710),18 the works of Lord Shaftesbury (1732), Joseph Addison’s articles in the Spectator and the Aesthetica by Baumgarten (1750).19 The elements within Schedius’s network probably included every source which Szerdahely had consulted, plus Szerdahely’s own works. Besides the books mentioned above, Schedius read Kant’s criticism of Burke and the handbooks written by Eschenburg, Koller, Krug, Ersch and Hillebrand.20
Schedius’s case provides a better opportunity for us to examine another important medium in the reception of Burke in Hungary, namely the scholarly networks which existed between members of universities. Both Szerdahely and Schedius belonged to this system, first as university students and later as professors. No documents survive concerning Szerdahely’s university studies in Vienna or from his correspondence, but we can propose that his cultural contacts within the Jesuit order played a key role in the formation of his scholarly views.21 By contrast, Schedius’s scholarly contacts are well documented because he became a highly respected member of the European Republic of Letters.22 He had started to build his reputation while studying at the University of Göttingen and gained greater respect after he became a member of Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen.23 And we know from Hlobil’s prominent study of the German reception of the Enquiry (Hlobil 2007) that the protestant universities in northern Germany, especially Göttingen with its strong British connections, played a key role in the reception of Burke.
Hlobil also suggests that there was a Catholic branch of Burke reception within Germany. The centre of this reception was Leipzig, but there was also reception at the University of Prague due to the work of Professor Meißner. Schedius’s reception of Burke may be connected with Meißner, not least because translations of Meißner’s works were published in two journals in Hungary, the Orpheus and the Urania, of which Schedius was an editor.24 Schedius’s notes for his university lectures also prove that there was a professional link between them, and that he was familiar with Meißner’s works.25 There was a similar professional link between Schedius and Garve, the German translator of the Enquiry,26 who himself had scholarly contacts with both Leipzig and Göttingen. The reception of Burke in Hungary thus provides an interesting example of how a network of scholars could be involved in the spread and success of a new ideas.
Having examined the links which made it possible for Burke’s Enquiry to reach the two Hungarian professors, it is now useful to consider three texts: the Enquiry, the Aesthetica and the Principia. The most important topics which connect them are:
1. The definition of the sublime and an attempt to place it within a system.
2. The positioning of the narrator and the use of metaphor in the narration.
3. The importance of the picturesque.
4. The connection between aesthetics and social philosophy.
Szerdahely rarely uses the precise Latin equivalent of the noun ‘sublime’, which would be ‘sublimitas’, but prefers the adjective ‘sublime’, which parallels the English terminology. Baumgarten’s text (1750), which was accepted as the standard for aesthetics in Latin, used only ‘altum’ and its synonym ‘grave’ to describe the sublime. We can interpret Szerdahely’s consistent word usage as a slight allusion towards the title of the Enquiry. Another allusion could be that Szerdahely defines the sublime as something ‘which raises us to the highest position’:
[It] raises man up and often places him near the border of the measurable world. Greatness is more closely connected with width and extension while the sublime is more closely linked with height: the former frees the spirit and the senses while the latter raises the instinctive emotional feelings.’27
Szerdahely defines greatness and the sublime by using the metaphors of width and height, which are similar to the metaphors of distance and the infinite in Enquiry, and even in Pseudo-Longinus’s treatise. At this point, we can clearly see the difference between Szerdahely’s and Burke’s texts. Burke does not clearly define whether the sublime is an objective phenomenon which can stimulate our senses and is thus part of the material world or whether it is a mere image within the subject’s mind. By contrast, Szerdahely follows Baumgarten’s Aesthetica (1750, 178–96), which interprets the sublime as a quality which helps us form an opinion about things. In Szerdahely’s conception, greatness is the objective appearance of the sublime.
Szerdahely’s theory describes beauty (‘pulchrum’) as the most important aesthetic quality, and it depends on three conditions. Two of these are objective features, ‘varietas’ or variety, and unity or ‘concordia varietatis’. The third condition of beauty is the existence of sensibility within the person who is experiencing something. The phenomena which make for unity in variety are: greatness (‘magnitudo’), the sublime (‘sublime’), amiability (‘amaenitas’) and grace (‘gratia’). This multi-level structure undermines the superficial interpretation that the Enquiry clearly separates the beautiful from the sublime while the Aesthetica does not make this division.
We cannot be sure that Burke’s ‘beauty’ is a synonym for Szerdahely’s ‘pulchrum’, because Burke’s ‘beauty’ is closely linked to its effects such as happiness, companionship, and its further connections with material qualities such as smallness or smoothness.28 But in Szerdahely’s volume these qualities are never linked to ‘pulchrum’ and are sometimes mentioned as the attributes of ‘amaenitas’ or, even more frequently, of ‘gratia’.29 Szerdahely separated the concept of ‘gratia’ from the ‘sublime’ which almost parallels Burke’s division between the ‘sublime’ and ‘beauty’.
According to Szerdahely, the objective appearance of sublimity causes special feelings within the subject which are mentioned in the Enquiry too (Burke 1997, 226–27). However, these emotions, which can include fear (‘metus’), desperation (‘desparatio’), sadness (‘tristia’), pity (‘misericordia’) and ambition/endeavour (‘ambition’), are described in Aesthetica not in the chapter about the ‘sublime’ but rather in a separate chapter about sensitivity, which is the third and subject-centered part of the definition of beauty.30 In contrast to Szerdahely’s approach, Burke’s Enquiry does not separate the objective and subjective elements of the sublime so sharply.
Alongside the analysis of the structural foundations of the sublime, we must also examine the internal structure of the sublime in both sources. The scholarly literature usually emphasizes the view that in Burke’s writings the sublime is described as a product of a shock phenomenon.31 These phenomena are tied to negative effects of the sublime, such as fear or deprivation. However, Burke always held that the sublime existed to cause delight. Szerdahely states that both ‘magnum’ (greatness) and the ‘sublime’ are tied to a state of rapture which is also a kind of shock effect. But Szerdahely argues that while the rapture linked to greatness causes pain, the rapture linked to the sublime generates sweetness (‘dulcedo’). We may conclude that Burke’s ‘sublime’ is the combination of Szerdahely’s ‘magnum’ and ‘sublime’. In addition, both authors suggest that man is born with a natural attraction towards both the ‘magnum’ and the ‘sublime’. Furthermore, the artistic effects which are either attributed to Burke’s ‘sublime’ or Szerdahely’s combination of ‘magnum’ and ‘sublime’ are strikingly similar in the two works. They use natural events or examples of architecture to illustrate their points.32
Schedius had tried to define the sublime even before the publication of Principia in 1828. One of his lecture notes from around 1800 (Balogh 2005, 33–244) contrasts the views in Szerdahely, whose book was then a compulsory textbook in Hungary, and the writings on aesthetics of Kant, which were banned in Hungary at the end of the eighteenth century.33 It was forbidden to use or review any of Kant’s writing in the education, especially in the university lectures. Schedius merely mentioned the sublime in a single paragraph, probably because of Kant’s criticism of the Enquiry. In a lecture note from 1803 (Szüts 1803), Schedius eliminated the link between ‘magnum’ and ‘sublime’.
Schedius made further changes which led him toward the ideas of the Principia. The lecture from 1800 is constructed around the idea that greatness and the sublime
almost completely deplete the power of creativity and the power of the senses and they attract attention so forcefully that everything else becomes empty. But when this greatness becomes so big that it is impossible to transform it into an understandable form by using the power of imagination or if this new thing lies beyond the limits of our senses and the only way to create a theoretical unity or a unified idea [Ideen einheit] is to use our minds, and say that that thing is sublime [Erhaben].34
Schedius, following Kant’s arguments, thus contrasts ‘cogitatio’ or conceptual thinking with ‘imaginatio’ or imaginative thinking. He argues that, unlike the beautiful, the sublime can only be understood by using our minds and not our imagination. In the lecture from 1803, we find powerful verbs which state that the sublime can rule, conquer, force and drive others. The interpretation of the sublime as aggressive is totally alien to Szerdahely’s theory, but harmonizes with Burke’s definition (1997, 236–43).
This link between the sublime and power, which was an important element in Burke’s views, will play a major role in Principia. In the earlier version, the extreme limit of the sublime was excess (‘tumor’) while in the Principia it was replaced by the ridiculous (‘ridiculus’). But the sublime and the ridiculous are not regarded as antonyms here. Schedius defines the sublime:
If any power is so intense that it can, without any difficulty or effort, make any part of matter or any secondary powers tied to it reach a balanced internal unity, and is also capable of governing it, then the outcome is usually positive and gives birth to an even greater beauty. This intensity may expand so greatly that the size of beauty becomes so powerful that by breaking the unquestionable balance within the relationship it can spread without any limits. This is the process which leads to the birth of absolute beauty.35
According to Schedius, however, the ridiculous is not created by the overwhelming power of matter but by the interference or clash of various forces:
Whenever a conscientious superior force which is getting ready to win a certain and easy victory is attacked either treacherously or fairly by an inferior force which causes some damage to the superior force without completely destroying it, the result of this attack may either cause imbalance or it can prevent the superior force from achieving its original goal, and in both cases an absolute empiric ridiculousness will be borne. Therefore, it is clear that there is a straight road from the sublime to the ridiculous.36
It is not a surprise that this paragraph sounds like Jean Paul’s contrast between ‘Erhabene’ and ‘Lächerliche’ (Schedius, 1828, 92).37 Jean Paul’s argument can be traced back to two sources: the Enquiry and Lord Shaftesbury’s theory which describes ridicule as the false gravity of the sublime (Shaftesbury 1711, 3–55).38 Jean Paul and Schedius changed this theory by removing the Aristotelian contrast between largeness and smallness, which was also a key part of Burke’s definition. Schedius’s other change was to define the ridiculous as a measurable difference between the original intention and the action actually taking place.39 If we read Burke from this point of view, we may accept an interpretation where the sublime is created by the dominance of force over matter. This elimination causes a situation where ‘the affection arising from the idea of vast power is extremely remote from that neutral character’ (Burke 1997, 236). In the system of Schedius’s Principia, the archetype of the beautiful is a ‘mutually equal internal relationship’ while the definition of the sublime mentions that it is only created when this balanced relationship has been disturbed by a force. According to both Burke and Schedius, therefore, the appearance of the sublime leads to the disappearance of beauty.
If we examine the positioning of the narrator in the three works we will find remarkable similarities between Aesthetica and Enquiry. The available literature on the Enquiry frequently emphasizes the rhetorical structure of the text.40 These studies usually highlight two features of the Enquiry: the narrator’s subjective tone and the use of metaphor. In the first edition of Enquiry, the narrator clearly states that his words are attempts to reach subjective, non-definitive results. The second edition is even more focused on empirical experimentation; according to the foreword, the main point of the text was to gain subjective experience rather than reach objective results (Burke 1997, 190). Burke openly admits that he has chosen an eclectic and empirical methodology:
They who are accustomed to studies of this nature will expect, and they will allow too for many faults. They know that many of the objects of our inquiry are in themselves obscure and intricate; and that many others have been rendered so by affected refinements, or false learning; they know that there are many impediments in the subject, in the prejudices of others, and even in our own, that render it a matter of no small difficulty to show in a clear light the genuine face of nature. They know that whilst the mind is intent on the general scheme of things, some particular parts must be neglected; that we must often submit the style to the matter, and frequently give up the praise of elegance, satisfied with being clear. (1997, 189)
The preface to Szerdahely’s Aesthetica also employs the device of a humble narrator, which can be traced back to Cicero, to whom he refers, as does Burke. Szerdahely uses almost the same rhetorical phrases as Burke did in his foreword to the Enquiry:
I do not think that I am telling something which is perfect or which is the absolute truth. Instead, it causes me the unbearable pain of spiritual anxiety and I know how distant I am from being perfect. I should have listened, seen, read and experienced more. I wrote this book not because I have reached a conclusion; my aim was simply to gain more experience.41
This powerful narrative statement – that the book was not designed to present a true system but was written as an intellectual adventure – appears in the foreword and reverberates throughout the book. In the chapter with the revealing title ‘The Rise of Doubt’,42 the narrator illustrates the problem of the subjectivity of taste and his own subjectivity with a parable:
Apelles painted Venus as the most beautiful woman he could imagine, yet there was someone who did not find the painting beautiful. The painter then told the man who complained about the picture to accept the evidence of his eyes and then the goddess will be beautiful in his eyes too.43
The narrator also tries to separate his own unique and personal ideas from other aestheticians in the chapter entitled ‘What is the difference between them and me?’44 But instead of providing a definition, the narrator often tells the audience how difficult or impossible it is to define things, as in the chapters entitled ‘What is beautiful? This is a very complicated question’ and ‘Which things hinder the explanation of the concept of beauty?’45 In addition, Szerdahely refers to the empirical method of the Enquiry with a chapter entitled ‘Beauty must be tracked by following its footprints’.46 In the chapter called ‘How does beauty influence our senses?’, subjective doubt turns into ironic self-reflection. Here, the narrator states that nobody has been able to answer his question and he cannot answer it either:
I would rather leave this issue in its own mystic secrecy instead of trying to answer something I do not know enough about. You do not have to blush if you admit that you do not know something when you really do not have any information about it.47
It seems that the empirical, self-critical, and ironic attitude,48 which was a key feature of contemporaneous English and Scottish philosophy, had much more influence on the author of Aesthetica than has previously been thought.
There are also striking similarities between the three books if we examine their linguistic structure. It has been argued that the ubiquity of metaphors in Burke’s texts, including the Enquiry, represents an attempt to overwrite the linguistic paradigms of his age (Le Bruyn 2012; Ray 1973). On the other hand, researchers have largely ignored the fact that, despite its strict structure, the Aesthetica is still dominated by figurative structures, metaphors, parables and a multitude of descriptive quotations. Furthermore, this dimension, exemplified by the use of visual vistas, and metaphors incorporating body imagery, including that of female bodies, plays a key role in both the Aesthetica and Enquiry.
In political and literary discourse of the time, light was usually used to signal the concepts of intelligence and rationality.49 In contrast to this tradition, both Burke and Szerdahely focused on the relationship between the eyes and light, because both of them believed that the most powerful sensory influence was caused by light.50 Therefore, it makes sense for our authors to model and describe the process of sensation by means of metaphors of light and darkness. Although Schedius clearly adopted the rules of logical thinking, including the elements of powerful linguistic criticism,51 light metaphors infiltrate his non-figurative text as well. A good example of this is the etymology of the term ‘pulchrum’ which in the text is explained by a light metaphor.52
The frequent use of images and metaphors of the female body in the books of Szerdahely and Schedius is another under-researched topic, even though gender-oriented studies of the Enquiry have already caused lively debates within the scholarly community (Eagleton 1990, 52–61; Furniss 1993; Armstrong 1996). These studies usually focus on Burke’s views on passions and social life, and especially the extremely important role played by love in his metaphors. A well-known gender-related image of the Enquiry is the father-mother-grandfather metaphor, where beauty is clearly treated as a feminine value. The Szerdahely volume also contains similar metaphors, in similar places. For example, during the description of grace (‘gratia’), Szerdahely uses images of a beautiful female body to illustrate his point (1778, 319–27). Explaining his theory of emotions, Szerdahely describes love (‘amor’) as the ideal metaphor for the aesthetic process (193–208). Similarly, in Schedius’s system, love is an organic example of beauty as a mutually equal, internal relationship.53 Although the use of female images in Principia is mostly due to the influence of Friedrich Schlegel (Balogh 2007, 165–79), this process was probably strengthened by the influence of Enquiry.
The relations between Burke’s Enquiry, Schedius’s Principia, and Szerdahely’s Aesthetica differ because of the use of different intermediary sources. The differences are illustrated by their attitude towards both the picturesque and the connection between aesthetics and social theory. The former provides the strongest link between Szerdahely and Burke, whereas the latter provides the strongest link between Schedius and Burke.
In Burke’s aesthetics, as in Lessing’s, views and visual hermeneutics occupy an extremely important position (Townsend 1997). The examination of the picturesque is also an important element of the study of Burke’s reception in European aesthetics,54 which is what makes Szerdahely’s ‘iconismus’ theory extremely interesting. Szerdahely first defined ‘iconismus’ in his Aesthetica (1778, 119–31), which he expanded in his later work on poetry (1783, 66–72). The sources for ‘iconismus’ include, besides Burke, Addison’s visual aesthetics, the contents of the Laocoon debate between Winckelmann and Lessing, and their views on ‘ut pictura poesis’ (Burwick 1999).
But what does the term ‘iconismus’ mean, and how does it fit into Szerdahely’s aesthetic and epistemological system? According to Szerdahely, beauty is created during the process of sensation. To make this process possible, objects must emit a special radiation which can stimulate our senses. In Szerdahely’s system the name of this radiation is ‘the light of aesthetics’. The various tones of this light are called by him as ‘the colours of aesthetics’, and one of these colours is ‘iconismus’. Szerdahely describes ‘iconismus’ as a special artistic effect. His definition:
‘Iconismus’ can visualize persons, real and unreal things by words, or by the devices of other art forms. These visualized images with all their characteristics appear before our eyes as if they were on the stage in a theatre.55
The most important part of ‘iconismus’ is the placing of an item ‘under a light, on a stage’, through a complex method of mediation. In this method, we use words which conjure up the devices of other art forms as special mediums. So ‘iconismus’ is not related to ekphrasis, a well-known device of ancient epics and speeches used to describe artworks (Fowler 1991). Instead, ‘iconismus’ is similar to medial, postmodern visual textual effects. Many postmodern scholars of pictorial semantics argue that similar methods are used in the works of writers like E. T. A. Hoffmann (Kumbier 2001), Goethe (Pirholt 2009) and Pope (Chico 2002). In Ars poetica (1783, 71), Szerdahely also mentioned examples such as The Alps by Haller, Spring by Kleist and the Temple of Venus by Voltaire. Szerdahely’s probable theoretical goal was the creation of a new quality of aesthetics based upon the theories of Burke, Lessing, Addison and Jesuit concepts of visual culture (Van Vaeck 1999).56
In the Ars poetica Szerdahely returned to the importance of ‘iconismus’ again and he expanded it even further (1783, 66–72). A new and interesting element of it concerns the description of horrific and ugly scenes, such as the scene where the bloody Achilles pulls Hector’s torn body behind his chariot. Although Szerdahely mentions that ‘iconismus’ can only work in the description of such an image if we omit many details of the scene, he argued at the same time that it was wrong not to describe horrendous details at all because ‘You must depict the scene in a complete and finished state so the spectator should feel satisfied and not tricked’.57 Szerdahely’s views on this issue link him, therefore, to a tradition of aesthetics orientated towards the effect on the receiver, which does not reject the use of ugly, horrendous or shocking images. The focus on effect and the rehabilitation of disgusting images in art are two conceptual elements which were first proposed in the history of European aesthetics by Burke’s Enquiry (Ryan 2001).
Another important part of Burke’s aesthetics is its great influence on social philosophy.58 Trying to examine this in Szerdahely makes almost no sense, but is much more worthwhile in the case of Schedius as he, like Burke, included elements of social philosophy in his writings on theoretical aesthetics. Furthermore, Schedius might have been aware of the Reflections as well as the Enquiry. The theoretical background to Schedius’s system follows the traditions of the eighteenth-century English companionship theories which the scholarly literature usually attributes to Burke and Hume (Phillipson 1993, Huhn 2002 and Kontler 1997).
Schedius only mentioned that his theories on aesthetics had social aspects in a few paragraphs of Principia, but in a later essay he set out a complete system of social philosophy (1830).59 According to this system, beauty in aesthetics, which is a mutually equal internal relationship, is similar to the ideal state of social organisms, which are also networks of mutually equal internal relationships. Interestingly, the same quotation from Aristotle is the epigraph for both Schedius’s essay on social philosophy and for the Principia. This quotation is about man-made institutions: ‘We should therefore make the best use of what has been already discovered, and try to rectify defects.’60 The Aristotle text is clearly about social institutions, but Schedius also recommends it for use in artistic contexts. According to Schedius, art, like society, is based upon certain institutions, which in art are the original antique masterpieces. These works are the products of human creativity which makes them the embodiment of humanity (‘humanitas’). The subject of aesthetics and social philosophy is thus basically the same: humanity and human creativity. Burke also expressed a similar argument:
Every sort of moral, every sort of civil, every sort of politic institution, aiding the rational and natural ties that connect the human understanding and affections to the divine, are not more than necessary, in order to build up that wonderful structure, Man; whose prerogative it is, to be in a great degree a creature of his own making; and who, when made as he ought to be made, is destined to hold no trivial place in the creation. (Burke 1989, 143)
After this analysis of the most important links between the aesthetics of Burke, Szerdahely and Schedius, it is time to describe how the two volumes of the latter spread the influence of Burke to other areas of Hungarian culture. Between 1770 and 1850, the writings of Szerdahely and Schedius on aesthetics were used as essential handbooks. The books were in Latin, the authors were well-known academics and professors, and the volumes were also used as university textbooks. We can identify Schedius’s and Szerdahely’s influence on the works, correspondence and other writings of many eminent Hungarian writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, beginning with Csokonai Vitéz and ending with Kazinczy and Vörösmarty (Bodrogi 2012; Balogh 2009).61
The contents of numerous literary journals show the influence of the writings on aesthetics which we have discussed. The Magyar Museum (1789–92) used phrases which are clearly related to the Enquiry, printed Burke’s views on the sublime and quoted Burke’s opinion of Milton’s epic. The most important link between the Magyar Museum and the Enquiry (and British aesthetics in general) was Szerdahely’s Aesthetica (Debreczeni 2011). Another example is the short overview of aesthetics published by Fejér in the Tudományos Gyüjtemény (Thesaurus of Sciences), which was a popular scholarly journal of the period. He repeated the names of noteworthy masters of aesthetics almost exactly as they appear in the Szerdahely and Schedius volumes, and Fejér (1817) placed Burke in a prominent position. Schedius himself was the editor of two journals,62 and wrote many essays and reviews, in which he always followed his own aesthetic views. In 1794, one of these was published in the journal Urania, which was a journal intended for educated women (Schedius 1999). Here, Schedius advises women to love religion but not primarily for moral reasons. According to him, religion is beautiful, delightful and pleasant, and women are especially sensitive to beauty, which is similar to a point raised in the Enquiry. In 1822, Schedius published another essay in the Auróra, which was also an almanac for women. Here, following Burke, Schedius tries to describe his aesthetic ideas through gender-related metaphors and analogies with love relationships. These two essays prove that Hungarian aestheticians wanted to spread the influence of Burke not only among writers, educated gentlemen and university students, but among educated women as well.
Responses to Burke cannot be limited to correspondence, translations, direct references or quotations: it is necessary to examine the unique features of each occurrence and its own sources. The history of many institutions, including university networks and the printed media, clearly played a major role in the Hungarian reception of Burke.
In spite of the small number of citations, and the great geographical and cultural distance separating Britain from Hungary, it is clear that the reception of Burke occurred at many levels of Hungarian culture. Moreover, the reception of Burke in Hungary was a dynamic one, since Szerdahely and Schedius did not simply repeat Burke’s aesthetic ideas, but creatively incorporated them into their own independent system of aesthetics.
Notes
1Translated by Ambrus Mózes. The research was funded by the Hungarian Scientific Research Found (OTKA).
2English edition used here: Burke (1989). Hungarian edition: Burke (1990), trans. Kontler.
3English edition used here: Burke (1997). Hungarian edition: Burke (2008), trans. Fogarasi.
4The first Hungarian article about Burke was an anonymous article about his political views, Fox és Burke … (Anon. 1837).
5The most widely used translation of Burke in Hungary was by Garve (Burke 1773). About the history of the German translations of the Enquiry see Parret (2012) and Kontler (1997).
6The libraries in Hungary which served the learned community in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries usually list the German translations of both the Enquiry and the Reflections among their contemporary acquisitions. For example: Hungarian National Library (Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, shelf marks 81.232, 831.695, 3483039, 833.091, 639.536), Debrecen College Library (Tiszántúli Református Egyházkerület Nagykönyvtára, N452), Ráday collection (Dunamelléki Református Egyházkerület Ráday Könyvtára, 2–26544), Library of the Lutheran Lyceum of Bratislava (Lyceálna knižnica v Bratislave, LycB III/103).
7For detailed description of Szerdahely’s academic career see Balogh (2012), Margócsy (1989).
8For a detailed description of Schedius’s academic career see Balogh (2007) and Doromby (1933).
9For the professional relationship between Schedius and Heyne see Balogh (2010).
10The choice of Latin may seem anachronistic, but until 1844 Latin was the official language of the Kingdom of Hungary and the language used for university education (Tóth 2000). An important example was Baumgarten’s Aesthetica, which was written in Latin. In the eighteenth century Latin was still accepted as one of the major languages of the European Republic of Letters (Peter Burke 2002, 52–60.) The choice of Latin ensured that Schedius’s work was available in many important Austrian and German libraries and in the British Museum.
11These are Radnai (1889) and Jánosi (1914, 1916).
12Pseudo-Longinus (1710) was a treatise written in the first century AD which became popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Szerdahely refers to this work fifteen times in Aesthetica. On Pseudo-Longinus’s influence on Burke, see Ashfield and de Bolla (1996, 18–21, 57–61) and Ryan (2012). About Shaftesbury’s influence, see Bullard (2005).
13‘Quod EDM. BURKE in toto suo opere: A philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful. London. 1757. 8. haud satis accurate distinguens, multa inter res pulcras refert, quae iucundus tantum gratisque accensenda sunt.’
14Some academics, such as Clucas (1994), argue that ars compilandi and ars excerpendi had strong links with the Baconian scientific model which was an important source for both Szerdahely and Schedius.
15For Szerdahely’s comments on Mendelssohn’s aesthetic theories, see Szerdahely (1778, 123–29). For Szerdahely’s reception of Mendelssohn, see Margócsy (1989, 1–33) and for Burke’s reception of Mendelssohn, see Hlobil (2007).
16For Burke’s view see note 12.
17On the influence of Heyne on Schedius, see Balogh (2007, 104–15, 263–94). On Heyne’s method of criticism see Marino (1995, 267–75).
18For the documents of the Burke debate between Lessing, Mendelssohn and Nicolai see Mendelssohn (1932, xli–xlv; 1977, lxxiii–lxxv). On Mendelssohn’s reception of Burke, see Koller (2011) and Hlobil (2000).
19The Spectator was available in Hungary from the 1730s, and Hungarian students at the University of Göttingen played an important role in its spread in Hungary. In the 1790s some Hungarian translations and adaptations were published; see Balázs and Labádi (2005, 10–23).
20On Kant’s reception of Burke, see Vandenabeele (2012). In Principia (177–78) Schedius recommends a number of works on the history of aesthetics: Eschenburg (1789; 1788–95), Koller (1799), Krug (1802), Ersch (1814), Hillebrand (1827–28).
21As the authors in O’Malley and others (1999; 2006) prove, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Jesuits were masters of the transfer of knowledge. For example, Szerdahely supported a fellow Jesuit, Maximilian Hell, in a debate on astronomy by writing a themed propaganda poem, see Balogh (2012, 313–18).
22For the publication of Schedius’s letters, see Valjavec (1933).
23The Hungarian students of Göttingen University could have heard about Burke or even had personal contact with him. For example, a letter from the Dutch professor Pieter Camper was carried by two Hungarian students to Burke (see Guttridge 1961, 178–79). On Göttingen’s British cultural connections, see Müllenbrock (1988).
24On the reception of Meißner in Hungary, see Szilágyi (1998, 237–49).
25Schedius mentions Meißner in his university lectures too (Balogh 2005, 55).
26Schedius quoted the translation of Cicero by Garve (Schedius 1828, 84, 174) who might have met him as a university student in Göttingen.
27‘in altum adsurgamus’, ‘haec enim adtollit hominem, et saepe in extremis pedum articulis constituit. – Magnitudo igitur Latitudinem, potius, et extensionem; Sublimitas autem Altitudinem significat: illa mentem, et sensus explicat, haec spiritum eleuat’ (Szerdahely 1778, 1: 330, 332).
28See Burke (1997, 219, 255–82).
29See Schedius (1828, 173, § 253).
30The Enquiry incorporates many medical and philosophical views of the nature of emotion, according to Dixon (1940), Sarafianos (2008) and Dwan (2011). Szerdahely dedicates more than one chapter to the theory of emotions (1778, 2: 174–330).
31See Sarafianos (2005), Brooks (1995, 14–18).
32This we can interpret as a sign of Pseudo-Longinus’s influence on both authors.
33On the reception of Kant in Hungary, see Hanák (1990, 51–60); on the proscription of his work, see Ch. 14 section 1 above.
34‘Magnum (aesthetice) grande continet igitur tantam multitudinem partium, quanta in unum aliquod totum, in unam formam imaginationis vi comprehendi potest, capacitatem itaque imaginationis et sensuum quasi explet, attentionemque ita figit, ut eam ab omnibus aliis rebus abstrahat. Si vero haec magnitudo tanta sit, ut in unam formam cogi nequeat imaginatione comprehensibilem, ut sensuum limites excedat, atque adeo nonnisi ope rationis tamquam idealis unitas (seu una idea) Ideen Einheit, cogitari debeat, sublime dicitur Erhaben’ (Balogh 2005, 133–34).
35‘Si qua Potentia intensione tanta pollet, ut solito plures vel Materiae partes, vel vires secundarias suis Materiis iunctas, absque molestia aut effusa contentione, certo tamen successu, aequaliter atque intime uniat regatque: solito grandiorem, eumque pulchrum adhuc, effectum sane producere debet; qui porro etiam in tantum augescere potest, ut pulchritudinis temperamentum, coniunctionis nimirum aequabilitatem, excedens, sine limite progrediatur. Hae vero sunt viae, quibus Sublime absolutum nascitur’ (1828, 40–41, § 81). Also on the sublime, see Schedius (1828, 89–91, § 148–49).
36‘Quotiescunque dein Potentia superior, sui conscia, intenta sane, ac facili certoque successu freta, seu clam ipsa (non advertente ipsa), seu aperte, per inferiorem quandam Potentiam affligitur atque ita vexatur, ut non penitus quidem concidat ruatve, sed tamen vel ab aequalitate sua dimoveatur, vel effectum propositum non plene sortiatur, Ridiculum absolutum empiricum prodit; unde clare perspicitur, quam pronus a Sublimi transitus ad Ridiculum sit’ (1828, 91–92, § 150).
37The relevant part of the Jean Paul volume: Paul (1813, 196–212, § 29).
38See Wolf (1988).
39On Jean Paul’s views on the sublime and ridiculous, see Müller (1983, 218–24); the quotation from Jean Paul is on p. 229.
40The latest analysis of this topic is Bullard (2011, 79–108).
41‘Non puto merem perfectam, absolutamque dare. Immo vero angor animi dolore incredibili, quum video multa mihi ad perfectionem superesse. Et audire, et videre, et legere, et multa experiri debuissem; quibus ego me non parum destitutum profiteri cogor. Adgressus sum opus non tam perficiendi spe, quam experiendi voluntate; nec tam corpus efformare, quam lineamenta ducere volui, quae porro augeri, complerique debeant’ (Szerdahely 1778, Proemium).
42‘Tollitur Dubium’ (Szerdahely 1778, 33).
43‘Saepe in caussa est Gustus diuersitas. Apelles pinxit Venerem, ut decuit venustissimam; erat tamen aliquis, cui illa displicuit. Pictor autem, accipe, dicebat, meos oculos, et videbis esse Deam’ (Szerdahely 1778, 35).
44‘Quid discriminis inter illos, et me?’ (Szerdahely 1778, 56–58).
45‘Pulcrum quid sit, difficillima est quaestio’ (Szerdahely 1778, 97); ‘Explicationem Pulcri quae faciunt impeditam?’ (100).
46‘Quaerenda est Pulcritudo per sua vestigia’ (Szerdahely 1778, 122).
47‘Malo ego rem hanc inter mysteria refere, quam, quod nescio, temere adferere. Neque enim erubescendum est homini confiteri se nescire, quod nescit; ne dum se scire mentitur, numquam se scire mereatur’ (Szerdahely 1778, 134–35).
48A possible shared influence on both authors was Francis Bacon’s aphoristic and empirical view of science; see Riedel (1767).
49Cf. Osborn (1967).
50A possible shared source for this proposition may have been Addison (1712).
51See Balogh (2007, 388–91).
52For more information, see Balogh (2007, 394–95). For the etymology of ‘pulchrum’, see Schedius (1828, 2–3, § 6).
53For a good example of this, see Schedius (2005).
54E.g. Fuentes (2004).
55‘Pictura Personas, Res veras, fictasque verbis, aliisque ceterarum Artium signis exhibet, et quid quid adprehendit, suis cum adtributis, et proprietatibus plena in Luce, atque ante oculos, auresque deponit, ut hominem velut ad theatrum euocet, eumque extra se constituat’ (1778, 119–200).
56For further examples, see Majewski (2002) and Starzyk (1999).
57‘Siquid autem sit pingendum, habeat plenam, perfectamque imaginem, ut spectator satiatum se, non delusum esse sentiat’ (1783, 70).
58For example in Bourke (2012), Lock (1998, 109–10), Horkay Hörcher (2011).
59For an explanation, see Balogh (2004).
60Aristotle (1948, 7: ch. 10, § 8, 1329b): ‘The history of Egypt attests the antiquity of all political institutions. The Egyptians are generally accounted the oldest people on earth; and they have always had a body of law and a system of politics. We ought to take over and use what has already been adequately expressed before us, and confine ourselves to attempting to discover what has hitherto been omitted.’
61For more detailed information consult Balogh (2007, 408–13; 2012, 305–07).
62Literärischer Anzeiger für Ungern (1798–9) [Literary Observer for Hungary], Zeitschrift von und für Ungern zur Beförderung der vaterländischen Geschichte, Erdkunde und Literatur (1802–04) [Journal of and for Hungary to Promote the Vernacular History, Earth Sciences and Literature].