Die Grenzen der Bukolik

Abstract

Szilárd Borbély (1963–2014) wrote long narrative poems in the last years of his life. The poems and the novel Nincstelenek ( The Dispossessed , 2013) depict the life of a family in an East Hungarian village during the author's childhood years. In constructing the literary landscape, Borbély draws on ancient myths to paint a hierarchical picture of the village from a socio-economic perspective. Borbély planned to publish the poems under the title Bukolikatájban. Idÿllek ( In a Bucolic Land. Idylls ), although these are rather a palinody of a pastoral idyll. This essay examines how Borbély uses the word "gods" in the poems. Two poems ( The Deucalion Collective Farm, Echo on the Veranda ) serve as examples to show the role the reception of myth played in the construction of the "bucolic" world.