The Faustiad (Faustiáda) by Jonáš Záborský (Foreword, Chapters 1 & 6) ‘Crying with Reason, Laughing with Reason: On Jonáš Záborský’s Faustiad’ by Peter Darovec Translated by Charles Sabatos

Abstract

Jonáš Záborský’s Faustiad (Faustiáda, 1864, fully published in 1912) is a parody of classical and medieval epic, with a mixture of broad Rabelaisian comedy and bitter Voltairean satire. Oskár Čepan has described it as “the most provocative, esthetically controversial and polemically blunt prose work of nineteenth-century Slovak literature”. The present excerpt in English, translated by Charles Sabatos, brings a significant voice to the history of nineteenth-century Slavic and European literature. It is accompanied by Peter Darovec’s afterword from the most recent Slovak edition.