Language/Literature paper by Romero, Julián, Ferenc Réder and Dalma Balogh
Márai Sándor: Sociological Meditations of a Writer (1900-1928) (Accepted)
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
The purpose of this paper is to outline a psychosociography of Sándor Márai from his early days, analyzing the sociological problems of the writer under Norbert Elias’ sociogenetic and psychogenetic theory, in order to comprehend the personal and social processes for the formation of the writer. Becoming a writer is a lifelong endeavor influenced by a variety of factors such as personal, emotional, or psychological characteristics formed since childhood, the family context, education, and social class, among others. Furthermore, being a writer is an intensive activity that requires constant effort, discipline, creativity, and a consistent strategy as well, in order to participate in a field dominated by other writers and forms of writing. Therefore, the temporal framework of this paper begins with the early days of Márai's family organization, mainly reviewing his relationships with his father, mother, siblings, and other relatives, crossing the landmark when he was 13 years old, coinciding with his lock up in a boarding school in Budapest, the beginning of the Great War, and his writing initiation. As it is discussed later, he left Hungary (1919) to free his hedonistic side and enter into the journalistic adventure in Germany and France, until he returned to Hungary in the spring of 1928 with the determination of becoming a recognized writer in his homeland. To examine the evolution of his career, we apply Norbert Elias’s methodology that he proposed in Mozart. Portrait of a Genius, together with the theory of fields given by Bourdieu, and the interpretative set of tools provided by the Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Julián Romero is a sociologist and historian. He has published the book To the Fight I Have Come. The Electoral Campaign in 1930 in Colombia, as well as different articles on sociology of art and culture. He is currently a lecturer at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) and is working on his PhD dissertation dedicated to the literary reception of Sándor Márai abroad, at the Doctoral School of Sociology (ELTE). Email: jdromerot@unal.edu.co
Ferenc Réder is in the last year of the English BA programme at Eötvös Loránd
University (ELTE) in Budapest, and a member of Eötvös József Collegium (Hungarian and Anglo-American Workshop). His field of research is 20th-century American poetry, focusing on the works of Robert Creeley. His publications include literary translations of Simon Armitage’s and Paula Meehan’s works. Email: rederferenc99@gmail.com
Dalma Balogh studies English and Hungarian literature at ELTE in the teacher
training programme. Her research interest is postmodern literature mostly from a gender perspective, and György Petri’s poetry. Currently she writes for the journal Pesti Bölcsész. Email: kiseukaliptusz98@gmail.com