Abstract
Romantic poetry can be described with the conflicting terms of tradition and originality: its essence is not originality in the strict sense, but rather the deformation of tradition. The sovereignty of the Romantic poet does not come from the negation of tradition, but from acquiring and using it consciously. The paper discusses two poems of Petőfi which anticipate the unity of experience and representation, but they both end with arguing for the impossibility of such union. In What Shall I Call You? metaphorical expression becomes a questionable method, while in A Time of Fear narrative sense-making connected to temporal experiences turns out to be impossible. Both poems face the limits of expression, although in different ways: What Shall I Call You? deals with the impossibility of verbalising individual experiences, while A Time of Fear comes to the same conclusion regarding collective experiences. The two poems demonstrate it well how Petőfi initiated a phenomenon representative of the late Romantic period.
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