'Az amerikai város': Framing Kosztolányi's (1885-1936) View of American Literature: The Influence of Joseph Reményi (1892-1956) (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Kosztolányi and Reményi’s views about America, along with that of other intellectuals of their generation, provide a window into the prevailing perspective of Hungarians about Americans and American Literature in the early 20th century. Did the sweeping Hungarian belief of the American obsession with money, the “dollár láz,” as depicted in Reményi’s autobiographical novel "Emberek, ne sírjatok" (Berlin, 1926), which Kosztolányi reviewed in one of his literary essays (1927), play a part in numerous references in Kosztolányi’s own writings? Kosztolányi, who translated American writers such as Poe, Emerson, Longfellow, Whitman, Wilder, and reviewed dramatists such as Eugene O’Neill, had befriended Reményi in the 1920s. Kosztolányi’s short stories have American characters, and he more than once mentions Cleveland, Ohio. How would he have known of these places and peoples other than via Reményi’s influence? Reményi wrote disparagingly not just about Americans but also about the Cleveland Hungarian Americans of the first decades of the 20th century for their shallowness, materialism, and indiscriminate imitation of European culture. Kosztolányi’s views, however, evolved over the decades, passing from a relatively negative assessment of Americans and American literature, to America as the place for innovation and experimentation, a place for a new start influenced by Italian futurism (e.g., speed, technology, youth. . .) which urged throwing off the shackles of the past. In this paper, the presenter proposes to resurrect Reményi from literary oblivion and to restore his place in a literary golden age alongside of Kosztolányi and the Nyugat generation.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
is a retired adjunct professor of Spanish language and literature at John Carroll University in Cleveland, OH. He holds a BS in Linguistics from Georgetown University, an MA in Spanish from Cleveland State University, and of Master’s in Theology from St. Mary Graduate School of Theology (OH). He has read several papers on the works of Dezső Kosztolányi, and papers on comparative literature at numerous national and international venues, the three most recent being the Crossing Borders Conference in Vasto, Italy (2017), and AHEA conferences at Cleveland State University (2018) and the University of Pittsburgh (2019).