LITERARY (HORSE)STABLE From the translator's notebook

Abstract

While translating the poem Horse Leg from the volume It was Easier Yesterday (1993) written by Pál Böndör, the translator came to the conctusion that the poem’s title and basic metaphor convey the fundamental values of general human culture while expressing their distinctive feature of overriding national, racial and artistic exclusivity. It varies in an innovative way the Pegasus motif of Sándor Weöres’s poem, Esti utazás, Le Journal (1953), which motif can be traced back to the onoric figure of the Centaur. As a counterpoint to rapture, artists often resort to ingenious transformations. The Hungarian poets’ “singing like a horse” proclaims the triumph of artistic expression as opposed to the ever more aggressive bureaucratic language, and expresses the desire for the welding of nature with culture.