Közköltészet Erdélyben a XVIII. század második felében
Popular Poetry in Transylvania in the Second Half of 18th Century

(Some Research Standpoints)

Summary/Abstract: The role that literary texts play in social communication is an increasingly discussed subject in scholarship. In this regard Hungarian literature has preserved many ambivalent features that go back to the early modern era. For example, only in very rare cases did Hungarian literature in the 18th century spread in non-folkloric ways. The author's research field is early modern popular poetry as an important means of communication, which he investigates from various aspects, including manuscripts, popular prints, as well as problems of orality. Transylvanian manuscripts can be regarded as an important forum for private literary communication. The 18th century is characterized by the coexistence of 16–17th century reflections and contemporary tastes. A statistical analysis of collections of popular poetry reveals that they were indicators of changes in literary tastes. Transylvanian Hungarian texts are markedly different; for example, in the 1830s Transylvanian variants of Csokonai's poems originating from before 1840 significantly differed from those found in other Hungarian regions. The present paper is an outline of such a research, drawing attention to changes in the repertoire of popular poetry as well as to Hungarian-Romanian textual parallels.

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