Papers by Veronika Ruttkay
Sounds national: mediating the ballad in nineteenth-century Scotland and Transylvania
Neohelicon, 2023
This paper looks at the ballad collector János Kriza’s work and its Scottish connections through ... more This paper looks at the ballad collector János Kriza’s work and its Scottish connections through the lens of comparative literature and media theory. It takes its starting point from the “untranslatable” auditory qualities of folk songs and ballads, arguing that these played a crucial role in nineteenth-century thinking about the nation. The configuration of sound, nation, and translation is traced from Herder’s Volkslieder through Kriza’s work and its reception to the Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarum, edited by Kriza’s fellow-Transylvanians Hugo von Meltzl and Sámuel Brassai. The problem of the multi-medial nature of songs and ballads is central to all these projects: while Herder struggled to record the “voices of the people” in translation, Meltzl proposed the use of the phonogram to preserve their living sounds. Between the two, Kriza’s work invited critics to re-think questions of authenticity and oral transmission, leading to the valorisation of poetic form and the study of folklore in a comparative framework.
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Palgrave Communications , 2020
This paper is dedicated to the memory of Professor Géza Kállay.
Combining philosophical and lite... more This paper is dedicated to the memory of Professor Géza Kállay.
Combining philosophical and literary perspectives, this paper argues that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is informed by a skeptical problematic that may be traced back to the work of the young David Hume. As the foundational text on romantic monstrosity, Frankenstein has been studied from various critical angles, including that of Humean skepticism by Sarah Tindal Kareem (Eighteenth-century fiction and the reinvention of wonder. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014) and Monique Morgan (Romant Net 44, doi:10.7202/013998ar, 2006). However, the striking connections with Hume’s Treatise have not been fully explored. The paper begins by comparing the three narrators of Frankenstein with three figures appearing in Hume’s Conclusion to Book I: the anatomist, the explorer, and the monster. It proceeds by looking at the hybrid “anatomies” offered by Hume and Shelley, suggesting that Frankenstein might be regarded as a tragic re-enactment and radicalization of Hume’s skeptical impasse. Whereas Hume alerted his readers to the dangers of a thoroughgoing skepticism only to steer his argument in a new direction, Shelley shows those dangers realized in the “catastrophe” of the Monster’s birth. While Hume had called attention to the impossibility of conducting strictly scientific experiments on “moral subjects”, Shelley devises a counterfactual plot and a multi-layered narrative structure in order to explore that very impossibility. Interpreting Frankenstein as an instance of the “skeptical gothic”, I suggest that both the monster and the scientist (Victor) share some traits with Hume’s radically skeptical philosopher, including a tendency to give up responsibility for what Stanley Cavell (The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, skepticism, morality, and tragedy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979) called “the maintenance of shared forms of life”. Relying on the work of Cavell, this paper argues that skepticism in Frankenstein is manifested as tragedy, traceable in Shelley’s reliance on tragic tropes throughout the novel.
Doromb: Közköltészeti tanulmányok, 9., szerk. Csörsz Rumen István, 2021
This paper (in Hungarian) discusses Robert Burns’s songwriting practice and his collaboration wit... more This paper (in Hungarian) discusses Robert Burns’s songwriting practice and his collaboration with George Thomson on A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs (1793–1841). Based on recent scholarship and the poet’s letters to Thomson, it highlights the cultural heterogeneity and negotiations that informed the publication of Scotland’s national songs around the turn of the nineteenth century. The second half of the paper considers the relevance of the concept of national song to Hungarian literature, especially Sándor Petőfi’s 1848 revolutionary lyric “National Song”.
Angol romantikus tragédiák: A Cenci-ház és a színház (ön-)anatómiája
2000: Irodalmi és Társadalmi Lap, 2019
Csonki Árpád, szerk. Rejtőzködő Kalliopé: Tanulmányok Arany János Naiv eposzunk című írásáról. Hagyományfrissítés 6. Budapest: reciti, 2018
The paper (in Hungarian) discusses the influence of Ossianic literature and historiography on Ján... more The paper (in Hungarian) discusses the influence of Ossianic literature and historiography on János Arany's thinking about the Hungarian national epic.
Történeti változatok elégiára, szerk. Ferenczi Attila és Hajdu Péter, Párbeszéd-kötetek 7., 2021
This paper (in Hungarian) discusses Robert Burns's poem "To a Mountain Daisy" in the context of e... more This paper (in Hungarian) discusses Robert Burns's poem "To a Mountain Daisy" in the context of elegy as a genre (through classical and 18th-century comparisons) and as an instance of the "elegiac" mode theorized by Schiller in his essay "On Naive and Sentimental Poetry". Through Burns, I highlight the conceptual problems around "the naive" in a sentimental age, and interpret "To a Mountain Daisy" as a (sentimental) elegy on the loss of immediacy in modern print culture, and a memorial to the paradoxical idea of the "natural poet" after the death of Burns.
A szerző az ELTE BTK Angol-Amerikai Intézetének munkatársa. A tanulmány a Magyar Állami Eötvös Ös... more A szerző az ELTE BTK Angol-Amerikai Intézetének munkatársa. A tanulmány a Magyar Állami Eötvös Ösztöndíj támogatásával készült. A megírásában nyújtott segítségért a szerző köszönetet mond az ELTE BTK Anglisztika Tanszékén működő Work-in-Progress szeminárium és az MTA ITI Arany János-kutatócsoport résztvevőinek. 6 S. Varga Pál így ír erről: "míg a felvilágosodás általánosan elterjedt álláspontja szerint a gondolkodás megelőzi a nyelvet, vagyis a nyelv a gondolkodás eszköze, Herder megfordította a viszonyt, s azt állapította meg, hogy a gondolkodás elválaszthatatlan a nyelvtől -mégpedig attól a nyelvtől, amelyen gondolkodunk." S. Varga Pál, Ész és hit: Adalékok a 18-19. század fordulójának vallásbölcseleti vitájához = S. V. P., Az újraszőtt háló: Kulturális mintázatok szerepe a felvilágosodás utáni magyar irodalomban, Bp.,
"Negotiating the Popular/National Voice: Impropriety in Two Hungarian Translations of Robert Burns", in: Worlds of Hungarian Writing: National Literature as Intercultural Exchange, edited by András Kiséry, Zsolt Komáromy, Zsuzsanna Varga (2016)
Built Upon His Rock / Kősziklára építve: Writings in Honour of Péter Dávidházi / Írások Dávidházi Péter tiszteletére, 2018
This paper discusses Sámuel Brassai's 1871 essay on Robert Burns and its relevance to the early d... more This paper discusses Sámuel Brassai's 1871 essay on Robert Burns and its relevance to the early development of comparative literature in Transylvania.
The AnaChronisT, 2018
This article contributes to the re-assessment of the role of affect in the writings of T. S. Elio... more This article contributes to the re-assessment of the role of affect in the writings of T. S. Eliot and argues that Eliot's thinking was shaped by earlier -- notably Coleridgean -- discussions of the feeling and writing self. It offers a dialogical reading of the two poet-critics, in which Coleridge's interpretation of Venus and Adonis and the typist scene of The Waste Land play central parts.
'Coleridge’s Use of Steevens’s Note on Lear’s Madness in Biographia Literaria', Notes and Queries (2016)
‘“His voice resonated for the longest time in our literature”: Burns and “popular poetry” in nineteenth-century Hungary’, in: Murray Pittock, ed., The European Reception of Robert Burns, The Athlone Critical Traditions Series, series editor Elinor Shaffer (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 195-226
The rhetoric of feeling: S.T. Coleridge's lectures on Shakespeare and the discourse of 'philosophical criticism
My thesis explores what kind of work is performed by affective terms such as 'passion', &... more My thesis explores what kind of work is performed by affective terms such as 'passion', 'excitement', or 'poetic feeling' in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's lectures on Shakespeare. While Coleridge might be regarded as a fore-runner of twentieth-century critical trends such as formalism and reader-response criticism, his interest in different forms of emotion in connection with poetry links his thought to theoretical concerns of his own and of the immediately preceding age. I situate Coleridge in the context of British 'philosophical criticism' in the second half of the eighteenth century, a critical discourse that had paid particular attention to problems related to the role of feeling in literary language. I argue that Coleridge's interpretations of Shakespeare and the critical stance they articulated both continued and challenged important aspects of this critical tradition. The Introduction offers an overview of the problem of feeling and (poeti...
Farkas Ákos, Simonkay Zsuzsanna, Vesztergom Janina, szerk., Whack fol the dah: Írások Takács Ferenc 65. születésnapjára / Writings for Ferenc Takács on His 65th Birthday, 2013
Szerb Antal A Pendragon legendát 1934-ben, röviddel a híres Magyar irodalomtörténet után írta, és... more Szerb Antal A Pendragon legendát 1934-ben, röviddel a híres Magyar irodalomtörténet után írta, és öt évvel egy kevésbé ismert, rövidebb irodalomtörténeti munka, Az angol irodalom kistükre után. 2 Az irodalom-és kultúrtörténet mint narratív forma a regényszövegben is többször érezteti hatását, igaz, hogy töredékesen, az elbeszélő tudatán átszűrt ismeret-törmelékek formájában, melyek nem követik az irodalomtörténetek kronologikus rendjét, sokkal inkább a szellemtörténeti esszé több kultúrtörténeti pillanatot egymás mellett látó -és Szerb esszéinek esetében sokszor vállaltan szubjektív -pillantását. A központi cselekményszál egy huszadik századi detektívregény-és misztikus rémregény-paródiát sejtet, amit maga Szerb egy levelében "émelyítő giccsnek" nevezett, 3 de erre a látványosan összetákolt történetre itt is, ott is ráaggatja a brit és az európai kultúra történetfoszlányait, és így egy olyan, már-már posztmodern kultúrtörténeti regényt hoz létre, amely nem lineáris, hanem szövegek és korok egymásmellettiségéről beszél, nem tudományosan objektív, hanem hangsúlyozottan elfogult, és amely a brit kultúra "nem hivatalos" történeteit preferálja. Olyasmiket, amik (még) nem kerülhettek bele az Angol irodalom kistük-1. Amikor ezt az esszét egy 2009-ben rendezett konferencián előadtam, Takács Ferenc részletes és kritikus kommentárt rögtönzött hozzá. Megjegyzéseit hálás örömmel építettem be ebbe a változatba.
Bálint Gárdos , Ágnes Péter , Natália Pikli and Máté Vince, eds., Confrontations and Interactions: Essays on Cultural Memory , 2011
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Papers by Veronika Ruttkay
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Combining philosophical and literary perspectives, this paper argues that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is informed by a skeptical problematic that may be traced back to the work of the young David Hume. As the foundational text on romantic monstrosity, Frankenstein has been studied from various critical angles, including that of Humean skepticism by Sarah Tindal Kareem (Eighteenth-century fiction and the reinvention of wonder. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014) and Monique Morgan (Romant Net 44, doi:10.7202/013998ar, 2006). However, the striking connections with Hume’s Treatise have not been fully explored. The paper begins by comparing the three narrators of Frankenstein with three figures appearing in Hume’s Conclusion to Book I: the anatomist, the explorer, and the monster. It proceeds by looking at the hybrid “anatomies” offered by Hume and Shelley, suggesting that Frankenstein might be regarded as a tragic re-enactment and radicalization of Hume’s skeptical impasse. Whereas Hume alerted his readers to the dangers of a thoroughgoing skepticism only to steer his argument in a new direction, Shelley shows those dangers realized in the “catastrophe” of the Monster’s birth. While Hume had called attention to the impossibility of conducting strictly scientific experiments on “moral subjects”, Shelley devises a counterfactual plot and a multi-layered narrative structure in order to explore that very impossibility. Interpreting Frankenstein as an instance of the “skeptical gothic”, I suggest that both the monster and the scientist (Victor) share some traits with Hume’s radically skeptical philosopher, including a tendency to give up responsibility for what Stanley Cavell (The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, skepticism, morality, and tragedy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979) called “the maintenance of shared forms of life”. Relying on the work of Cavell, this paper argues that skepticism in Frankenstein is manifested as tragedy, traceable in Shelley’s reliance on tragic tropes throughout the novel.
http://ketezer.hu/2021/01/ruttkay-veronika-angol-romantikus-tragediak-cenci-haz-es-szinhaz-anatomiaja/
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Combining philosophical and literary perspectives, this paper argues that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is informed by a skeptical problematic that may be traced back to the work of the young David Hume. As the foundational text on romantic monstrosity, Frankenstein has been studied from various critical angles, including that of Humean skepticism by Sarah Tindal Kareem (Eighteenth-century fiction and the reinvention of wonder. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014) and Monique Morgan (Romant Net 44, doi:10.7202/013998ar, 2006). However, the striking connections with Hume’s Treatise have not been fully explored. The paper begins by comparing the three narrators of Frankenstein with three figures appearing in Hume’s Conclusion to Book I: the anatomist, the explorer, and the monster. It proceeds by looking at the hybrid “anatomies” offered by Hume and Shelley, suggesting that Frankenstein might be regarded as a tragic re-enactment and radicalization of Hume’s skeptical impasse. Whereas Hume alerted his readers to the dangers of a thoroughgoing skepticism only to steer his argument in a new direction, Shelley shows those dangers realized in the “catastrophe” of the Monster’s birth. While Hume had called attention to the impossibility of conducting strictly scientific experiments on “moral subjects”, Shelley devises a counterfactual plot and a multi-layered narrative structure in order to explore that very impossibility. Interpreting Frankenstein as an instance of the “skeptical gothic”, I suggest that both the monster and the scientist (Victor) share some traits with Hume’s radically skeptical philosopher, including a tendency to give up responsibility for what Stanley Cavell (The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, skepticism, morality, and tragedy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979) called “the maintenance of shared forms of life”. Relying on the work of Cavell, this paper argues that skepticism in Frankenstein is manifested as tragedy, traceable in Shelley’s reliance on tragic tropes throughout the novel.
http://ketezer.hu/2021/01/ruttkay-veronika-angol-romantikus-tragediak-cenci-haz-es-szinhaz-anatomiaja/