The personality and aesthetics of Pál Gyulai

One of the most characteristic "compasses" of the age of dualism was Pál Gyulai, who not only had great power in the literary life, but was also considered a significant contender in the political arena. Gyulai's operation and the reception of his operation - that he was able to evoke so much anger, passionate indignation, resentment, and even hatred, but at the same time so much biased love and admiration - cannot be explained only by his political and aesthetic principles, but his extremely characteristic, peculiar individuality must be taken into account to the same extent too. His contemporaries left us only extreme characterizations of his human personality, but he himself was a reclusive person: neither his poems, short stories, nor his criticisms reveal to us the unified personality that worked behind his works and his entire life. In his comprehensive work, which is based on several decades of research, he set himself the goal of presenting the dynamism of Gyulai's individuality, the driving forces behind his way of life and the shaping of his life in the light of his work. Gyulai's work left a profound mark not only on the last century, but also on ours. For this reason, it is therefore important to look carefully at Gyulai as the creator of the school and to show the original roots of his teachings. By examining his personality and political behavior, his aesthetic principles and his theory of the novel, he wants to show the real, human face of the author Gyulai, which we have long owed not only to the memory of the great critic, but also to our own literary historical and ideological orientation. Dr. Beke Albert is a literary historian, critic, teacher and retired university associate professor, a regular member of the Hungarian Writers' Association, and worked as a department head at the Ministry of Environment during the first Orbán government. He has been creating for sixty years, although he was silenced for a while during the dictatorship, but since the regime change, his works on literary history and criticism can be published undisturbed. Along with this book, 25 independent volumes have been published so far. From 1993 to 1998, he taught at the Károl Gáspár Reformed University, and is one of the founding teachers of the Faculty of Arts. He was the responsible editor of the Faculty's scientific publications, the first four issues of the journal Studia Nova. On the occasion of his eightieth birthday in 2014, the President of the Republic of Hungary, dr. Beke awarded Albert the Knight's Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit "in recognition of his work based on classical values and giving a new perspective to the writing of Hungarian literary history after the regime change".