A synoptic critical edition of the manuscript tale and riddle collection of the Arany family and ... more A synoptic critical edition of the manuscript tale and riddle collection of the Arany family and the folklore collection Eredeti népmesék by László Arany Edited by Mariann Domokos and Judit Gulyás In 1862 a volume of tales and riddles was published under the title Eredeti népmesék (’Authentic Folktales’) collected and edited by László Arany, the then 18-year-old son of János Arany (1817–1882), one of the greatest poets of Hungarian literature. Eredeti népmesék has been classified by Hungarian folklore studies as the first canonical folktale collection in Hungary. Besides scholarly recognition, it has also become a most popular folktale collection in the past one and a half century, as selected tales from this collection have been continuously republished in school textbooks and anthologies, and have become solid part of Hungarian children’s literature. The impact of these tales on Hungarian culture is similar to that of the Grimms’ tales, and the narrative style of Arany’s tales understood as a naïve, simple and natural way of taletelling has been accepted as the standard, real or true manner of narration in oral tradition. After the second world war in the basement of the main building of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, a huge pile of manuscripts in a very poor condition was found accidentally, which manuscripts, among other things, consisted of various 19th-century folklore collections. In the 1960s it turned out that some of these manuscripts are very similar to the texts published in Eredeti népmesék. Although these manuscripts are not signed and do not contain any textual allusions as to the identity of the persons who had recorded the tales, relying on a comparison of handwriting of members of the Arany family, it was pointed out that these tales and riddles had been put down by János Arany’s daughter (Julianna/Juliska Arany, 1841–1865), his wife (Julianna Ercsey, 1818–1885), and László Arany (1844–1898), presumably between 1850 and 1862. The identification of the recorders was a remarkable and surprising achievement for Hungarian folktale research, since László Arany (a first-rate poet, essayist, lawyer, scholar, researcher and editor of folktales, bank manager, member of the parliament etc.) never mentioned or referred to the fact that it was his mother and sister who had recorded (or had even told) these tales. The investigation of the manuscripts for the present edition has also revealed that there was another, so far unidentified recorder who, either on his/her own or in collaboration with Juliska Arany, also took down tales. In a number of cases László Arany visibly marked on the manuscripts what textual modifications are to be performed with the tales, but in general he must have used these manuscripts as a sort of raw material, draft version or reminder for himself to compile his own version of the tales. The comparison of the manuscripts with their published versions has revealed that in course of the editing process László Arany considerably reworked the texts of the manuscript tales applying comprehensive stylistic and, to a lesser extent, thematic modifications. In this way Eredeti népmesék can be interpreted as a Buchmärchen collection as well: relying on and imitating oral tradition while the published texts are a result of careful artistic textualisation. The present edition publishes the manuscript folktale and riddle collection of the Arany family together with the versions that were edited and published by László Arany in 1862. The introductory chapter, The formation of the manuscript collection and the reception history of Eredeti népmesék (by Mariann Domokos and Judit Gulyás), summarizes the research history of the manuscript and published tales of the Arany family, exploring the sources, formation and edition of these tales, as well as the reception of the published volume, and present the textological principles observed and methods applied in the volume. The second chapter, The textual genetics of the publication of folktales (by Zoltán Hermann), provides an overview of the history and problems of textological and philological methods in literary history and folkloristics. The core chapter of the book comprises the synoptic presentation of the manuscript and published versions of the corpus (tales and riddles). In course of the letter-prefect transcription of the texts a novel method has been elaborated to present the process of textual modification visible on the manuscripts: subscripts indicate those letters, texts or punctuation marks that had been put down by the recorder and then modified (altered or deleted, either by the recorder him/herself or by the editor, i.e. László Arany), while superscripts indicate those letters, texts or punctuation marks that were inserted into the text later (either by the recorder him/herself or by the editor). In case it was not the recorder of the manuscript who altered the text (either deleting, inserting or modifying textual elements), subscripts and superscripts are italicised. The textological remarks of the editors can be found in footnotes. The next chapter (by Mariann Domokos and Judit Gulyás) contains the critical notes to each tale. The notes describe the manuscripts in detail, identify the recorders, provide bibliographical data of the 19th-century publications of the texts (including school textbooks), present what critical or reflexive remarks are known about the given tale from the 19th century, identify the genre and the tale type, summarise the international historical background of the given tale type, then present all 19th-century Hungarian (manuscript or published) variants of the tale type (either from oral tradition or from popular literature) in order to establish a cultural-historical context for the given tale and to detect intersections between oral tradition and literacy. Riddles are also accompanied by notes (written by Katalin Vargha), which describe fundamental data of the manuscripts and early publications of the texts, after which they enlist data of the published 19th-century Hungarian variants of the riddles concerned. In the Appendices a table summarises the basic data of the tales of the Arany family (title of the published variant, bibliographical data of the first edition, title of the manuscript variant, identity of the recorder, identifying number of the manuscript file in the Archives of the Library of Hungarian Academy of Sciences, identifying numbers of tale types). A chronological bibliography (by Mariann Domokos) enlists those books published between 1901 and 2016 that indicate in their title that they contain tales by László Arany. Twenty photos represent members of the Arany family and some of the manuscript tales and riddles, as well as the front cover of Eredeti népmesék.
A synoptic critical edition of the manuscript tale and riddle collection of the Arany family and ... more A synoptic critical edition of the manuscript tale and riddle collection of the Arany family and the folklore collection Eredeti népmesék by László Arany Edited by Mariann Domokos and Judit Gulyás In 1862 a volume of tales and riddles was published under the title Eredeti népmesék (’Authentic Folktales’) collected and edited by László Arany, the then 18-year-old son of János Arany (1817–1882), one of the greatest poets of Hungarian literature. Eredeti népmesék has been classified by Hungarian folklore studies as the first canonical folktale collection in Hungary. Besides scholarly recognition, it has also become a most popular folktale collection in the past one and a half century, as selected tales from this collection have been continuously republished in school textbooks and anthologies, and have become solid part of Hungarian children’s literature. The impact of these tales on Hungarian culture is similar to that of the Grimms’ tales, and the narrative style of Arany’s tales understood as a naïve, simple and natural way of taletelling has been accepted as the standard, real or true manner of narration in oral tradition. After the second world war in the basement of the main building of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, a huge pile of manuscripts in a very poor condition was found accidentally, which manuscripts, among other things, consisted of various 19th-century folklore collections. In the 1960s it turned out that some of these manuscripts are very similar to the texts published in Eredeti népmesék. Although these manuscripts are not signed and do not contain any textual allusions as to the identity of the persons who had recorded the tales, relying on a comparison of handwriting of members of the Arany family, it was pointed out that these tales and riddles had been put down by János Arany’s daughter (Julianna/Juliska Arany, 1841–1865), his wife (Julianna Ercsey, 1818–1885), and László Arany (1844–1898), presumably between 1850 and 1862. The identification of the recorders was a remarkable and surprising achievement for Hungarian folktale research, since László Arany (a first-rate poet, essayist, lawyer, scholar, researcher and editor of folktales, bank manager, member of the parliament etc.) never mentioned or referred to the fact that it was his mother and sister who had recorded (or had even told) these tales. The investigation of the manuscripts for the present edition has also revealed that there was another, so far unidentified recorder who, either on his/her own or in collaboration with Juliska Arany, also took down tales. In a number of cases László Arany visibly marked on the manuscripts what textual modifications are to be performed with the tales, but in general he must have used these manuscripts as a sort of raw material, draft version or reminder for himself to compile his own version of the tales. The comparison of the manuscripts with their published versions has revealed that in course of the editing process László Arany considerably reworked the texts of the manuscript tales applying comprehensive stylistic and, to a lesser extent, thematic modifications. In this way Eredeti népmesék can be interpreted as a Buchmärchen collection as well: relying on and imitating oral tradition while the published texts are a result of careful artistic textualisation. The present edition publishes the manuscript folktale and riddle collection of the Arany family together with the versions that were edited and published by László Arany in 1862. The introductory chapter, The formation of the manuscript collection and the reception history of Eredeti népmesék (by Mariann Domokos and Judit Gulyás), summarizes the research history of the manuscript and published tales of the Arany family, exploring the sources, formation and edition of these tales, as well as the reception of the published volume, and present the textological principles observed and methods applied in the volume. The second chapter, The textual genetics of the publication of folktales (by Zoltán Hermann), provides an overview of the history and problems of textological and philological methods in literary history and folkloristics. The core chapter of the book comprises the synoptic presentation of the manuscript and published versions of the corpus (tales and riddles). In course of the letter-prefect transcription of the texts a novel method has been elaborated to present the process of textual modification visible on the manuscripts: subscripts indicate those letters, texts or punctuation marks that had been put down by the recorder and then modified (altered or deleted, either by the recorder him/herself or by the editor, i.e. László Arany), while superscripts indicate those letters, texts or punctuation marks that were inserted into the text later (either by the recorder him/herself or by the editor). In case it was not the recorder of the manuscript who altered the text (either deleting, inserting or modifying textual elements), subscripts and superscripts are italicised. The textological remarks of the editors can be found in footnotes. The next chapter (by Mariann Domokos and Judit Gulyás) contains the critical notes to each tale. The notes describe the manuscripts in detail, identify the recorders, provide bibliographical data of the 19th-century publications of the texts (including school textbooks), present what critical or reflexive remarks are known about the given tale from the 19th century, identify the genre and the tale type, summarise the international historical background of the given tale type, then present all 19th-century Hungarian (manuscript or published) variants of the tale type (either from oral tradition or from popular literature) in order to establish a cultural-historical context for the given tale and to detect intersections between oral tradition and literacy. Riddles are also accompanied by notes (written by Katalin Vargha), which describe fundamental data of the manuscripts and early publications of the texts, after which they enlist data of the published 19th-century Hungarian variants of the riddles concerned. In the Appendices a table summarises the basic data of the tales of the Arany family (title of the published variant, bibliographical data of the first edition, title of the manuscript variant, identity of the recorder, identifying number of the manuscript file in the Archives of the Library of Hungarian Academy of Sciences, identifying numbers of tale types). A chronological bibliography (by Mariann Domokos) enlists those books published between 1901 and 2016 that indicate in their title that they contain tales by László Arany. Twenty photos represent members of the Arany family and some of the manuscript tales and riddles, as well as the front cover of Eredeti népmesék.
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