Recitativ (1916)

Mihály Babits’s third volume of poems, Recitativ (Recitative), was published by Nyugat in January 1916. The pieces of the first part of the volume, which testifies to the change and turn of the Babits’ lyrical voice, were inspired by the experiences of the years of exile spent in Fogaras (today Făgăraș, Romania), exclusion from the bloodstream of intellectual life, and his feeling of loneliness and melancholy emerges from works centering around resignation. The second part of the volume is entitled Intermezzo (Szekszárd). The landscape of home, the vineyard hill, the idyllic memories of summer give it its basic atmosphere; it also contains the famous-infamous poem Játszottam a kezével (I Played with Her Hands), which was turned against its own author by the troubled medium of war. The further cycles of the volume already clearly show that Babits’ poetry, who until then was considered an aristocratic and artistic poet, is also influenced by social and political events. The expression of his opinion on public affairs becomes part of his poetic task, raising his voice in a moral and humane way becomes more and more important, the poet seeks an adequate mode of expression for which his lyrical language is undergoing a powerful transformation. These parts feature his poem in response to the workers’ protest of 1912 entitled Május 23. Rákospalotán (23 May in Rákospalota) and one of the most expressive anti-war poems in Hungarian poetry, Húsvét (Easter) was included in the cycle of poems Isten kezében (In the Hands of God).

A facsimile edition was supplemented by Visy Beatrix’ s introductory study.