When Literature Itself Was Bilingual:

A Rule Of Vernacular Insertions

  • Iván Horváth

Iván Horváth, professor at the ELTE/Budapest and a specialist of Medieval and Renaissance Hungarian literature, has expressed his wish to publish a preliminary version of his article on Ars Metrica for the purpose of inviting discussion about his proposal on the circulation and creation of the first vernacular texts in a Latin scriptural environment. The article will be published in the upcoming volume The Poetics of Multilingualism – La Poétique du plurilinguisme.

This paper discusses the period during which Hungarian literature gradually shifted from a bilingual phase mode to a mostly monolingual phase. I am concerned with a rule which applies to Hungarian literature, the rule of vernacular insertions. A similar rule may also apply to other literatures. The first test of the rule is carried out in French literature. Read more