Experiments with Intermediality in the Early Poetry of Mihály Babits

Abstract

Mihály Babits (1883-1941) was one of the most influential figures of modern twentieth-century Hungarian poetry. In an earlier article (Kelevéz 2023), I examined Babits’ efforts, as a poet still in the early years of his career, to engage in open or hidden dialogues with masterpieces by the great figures of European and Hungarian art. Babits created these dialogues not simply by using the common tools of intertextuality. In other words, he did not merely interweave literary allusions and references into the tapestries of his poems. He also used various forms of ekphrasis and other kinds of intermedial references. Babits experimented with ways of interlinking the visual arts and the world of words, and these innovative interlinkings gave him new and complex means of expression. In the discussion below, I analyze several examples of these experiments and show how the threads of intertextual and intermedial references are interwoven into unified works of art in Babits’ poems.