Miklos Szentkuthy - Marginalia on Casanova

ST. ORPHEUS BREVIARY I.

MARGINALIA
ON
CASANOVA

MIKLS SZENTKUTHY

Selected Other works by
Mikls Szentkuthy

Prae

Az egyetlen metafora fel [Towards the One and Only Metaphor]

Fejezet a szerelemr l [A Chapter About Love]

Szent Orpheus breviriuma [St. Orpheus Breviary]

Divertimento. Vltozatok Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart letre [Variations on the Life of W. A. Mozart]

Doktor Haydn

Saturnus fia [Son of Saturn: A novel about Albrecht Drer]

Mzsk teftamentuma [Testament of the Muses]

Frivolitsok s hitvallsok [Frivolous Confessions]

ST. ORPHEUS BREVIARY I.

MARGINALIA
ON
CASANOVA

MIKLS SZENTKUTHY

TRANSLATED BY

TIM WILKINSON

Contra Mundum Press New York

Szent Orpheus breviriuma, Budapest 1973 by Mariella Legnani and Maria Tompa

Translation of St. Orpheus Breviary, Vol. 1: Marginalia on Casanova 2012 Tim Wilkinson

Translation of Zno Bianus Boudoir and Theology

2012 Rainer J. Hanshe Republished with permission of the author

First Contra Mundum Press edition 2012.

This edition of Szent Orpheus breviriuma: Szljegyzetek Casanovhoz is published by arrangement with Mariella Legnani & Maria Tompa

Originally published in Hungary in 1939 by Kecskemti Hrlapkiad

All Rights Reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Szentkuthy, Mikls, 1908-1988 [Szent Orpheus breviriuma: Szljegyzetek Casanovhoz. English.] St. Orpheus Breviary, Vol. I: Marginalia on Casanova / Mikls Szentkuthy;

translated from the original Hungarian by Tim Wilkinson.

st Contra Mundum Press ed.

360 pp., 5x8 in.

ISBN9780983697244

Contra Mundum Press would like to extend its gratitude to the Hungarian Books & Translations Office at the Pet fi Literary Museum for rewarding us with a subvention to aid the production of this publication.

Table Of Contents

INDICATIVE TABLE OF CONTENTS

[ page numbers refer to the printed edition]

Boudoir and Theology: Introduction by Zno Bianu 0

Vita (Life of a Saint) 2

Lectio (Saintly Reading) 26

Casanova is a descendant of actors: the essence of nature & theatre is always comedy 26

proximity of enlightenment philosophy and superstitions attaching to witchcraft in the 18 th century 27

a white morning; etiquette and bacchanalia; compromise in ideals between anarchic sentiment and genteel civilization 27

The first letters 30

a young girl is possessed by the devil: raw Middle Ages amid Sans-Souci curlicues 30

the ball, the dance, Shrove-tide, Carnival, the mask: harmony of Dionysus and periwig 31

madness in sp ite of which no dissonance 32

the main characters are very old and very young 32

Venice, of course, is an even more important character than the main characters 35

situation is everything, the person nothing 35

baroque pomp and desert leanness: an important duality 37

the mask 39

Italian children preach : th -century piety 40

Venices Santa Maria dei Miracoli 42

Giulietta is twelve years old 43

Venices water ( Gerusch von Ruderschlgen )

master and servant in Venetian love 45

youthful asceticism, pirouette and iron will, chic and adolescent heroism 47

demonic, scholarly, and social respect for Nature; smart philosopher 48

near to Mozarts Queen of the Night: Alles ist Natur

Casanovas biggest piece of advice is not love but thought: Denken Sie, one reads (the very first language in which he was published was German) 53

autumn pavilion, the villa at Pasiano 53

for a big poet even prosaic things are mythical beauties sober technical scheme and moonlit swan rhyme with ease 54

slice of ham still life 55

Italian fall: decay? or precisely formative form? 56

del Piombo: The Death of Adonis (the balancing of Toscanini and Turner) 56

romanticism of death in the rococo 58

reticent Casanova 59

games of hiding; the glowering objectivity of a key a candlestick, the objectivity of a red-hot sword in this world 60

worldly and otherworldly are not noisy opposites in this century 61

dissertating Casanova: doctrorate in law at Padua 62

Cyprus wine but in regard to banquets it is not Rubens, but the strictness of Ferrara that comes to mind, Arabia and not Holland 63

far beyond the bad extremes of adventure and grand passion 66

what Brunelleschi is to architecture, Casanova is to love 67 Casanova, man of bone, not flesh 67

a rooms shape, the height of a wall: those are the most fateful things 71

th -century Italian hostelries

impression of a key in wax 72

wide-branched candelabra, chandeliers 72

cross-dressing, the excitement of swapping roles is there any love without such playacting, a masked game of changing gender? 73

butterfly dance between animal rawness and ascetic propriety 75

Casanovas seesawing between true intellectual and slightly clumsy enlightenment Intellectualism 75

he wanders disconsolately in a dark wood Watteauesque world: chirping mandolin and death 76

then back to sniggering, mundane society: as in the music of that century, after the trios the recurrent minuet 77

the cold mathesis of social life 78

social life does not bother with reality or its interpretation: an end in itself 78

mundane man: nothing more philosophical than that 78

old boneshakers around Naples 80

variegation to the point of kitschiness : but still not that 80

scarlet cloak, black wig, Arabic skin 80

ballet and symphony by Venetian waterside 81

illicit associations of ideas: does the world deserve any better? 81

only a thought is truly demonic 82

ninety-year-old merry women 82

overcome by sea-sickness: in a gondola! 83

interplay of Keatsian climes and bloodthirsty rationalism in Casanova 84

a lonely lantern next to the candelabras 85

four versions of love 85

Palazzo Grimani di San Luca 87

a Greek woman brings Balkan atmosphere 87

midnight vengeance in Venice: this horror story logically belongs to a portrait of Voltaire 89

after the murder he notes: So fein war damals mein Zartgefhl that is the 18 th century 91

that is why this dry positivist recognizes the natural power of the imagination 92

visit at daybreak; breakfast; attends church 93

the compulsoriness of infidelity: with cold heart he turns his back in Venice 94

if it were not for forty days of quarantine at Ancona, everything would happen in another way 95

the greatest intellectual incandescence, the greatest pessimism: that is what is behind so-called joie de vivre

Casanova is culture-in-himself: thus cultures are of no interest to him 95

a Balkan slave-girl 96

strict Florence, puddly Balkans, operatic Orient 97

a balcony 98

in the shadow of the Antichrist and blasphemy 99

peasant old crones 100

Rome in September: he himself is Rome, thus the city has no influence on him 101

spring is also fine, the money is also good 102

a little Byzantine history in the name of southern wines 103

mercury alongside muscatel wines: even that is too instructive 105