Птичьи метафоры в повести М. Месея "Высокая школа"

Abstract

The article examines how the presentation of birds in the text of Miklós Mészöly’s short novel “High School” changes and how the original meaning of the title is deployed in it. The author of the article also briefly points out to the specific literature on the Hungarian writer’s books. “High School” contains different species of birds, which form a natural hierarchy with predatory falcons on its top. The author addresses this issue from a different angle analysing the images of birds both by their own bird characteristics and by their similarity with the human world. She emphasizes that this short novel is not a realistic or ornithological description of natural birds, but the rethinking of traditional cultural connotations. Mészöly’s innovative metaphorization builds a completely unique hierarchy. Much of the article presents the new interpretation of such images as different types of falcons, which play an important role in Hungarian mythology, culture and life, as well as other birds, primarily, herons, pigeons, crows, etc. This question cannot be referred only to the national or cultural aspect, as Mészöly examines universal human problems both ethically and philosophically. However, the focus of the author’s observations in the article is the metaphorical level of Mészöly’s text. As a result of the poetic analysis, the author reveals that the text of the short novel, contrary to the original task of writing a report on the “high school” of falcons, has become completely metaphorical, representing a “high school of writing” rather than “survival”. The conclusion is that Mészöly, through the narrative image of the writer, emphasizes not only the problem of “murder and slavery”, but says that with the help of one’s own poetic language all sorts of ideological languages (including those of authorities and falconers) leading to a cut-off both in life and discourse can be overcome. The author notes that so the “high school” gets a completely new meaning: the experience of acquiring this word by the subject of the text. She also notes that the searching for this word becomes a real act in the short novel, which expresses the history of selfunderstanding through language. The discursive perspective of the analysis reveals that the metaphorization of bird images contributes to this process of getting existential experience by criticizing “the others’ word”. Bird metaphors create a new poetic word, by which Mészöly’s short novel deservedly became a masterpiece of 20th century Hungarian literature. The author of the article in the analysis demonstrates this contribution and innovation of the writer.