Madách worked on the Tragedy since 17 February 1859, almost secretly, so that none of his family members and close friends were aware of the work in preparation. However, after he completed it on 26 March 1860,  1 like every artist, he also had the natural desire to “show himself”, to seek the opinion of others. He first read the Tragedy to Pál Szontagh (1820–1904) in the spring of 1860. 2 This prominent figure of the aristocratic opposition in Nógrád county had been linked by ties of friendship to Madách since the 1840s, and since the 1850s he had lived in Horpács, next to Alsósztregova. Szontagh and Madách regularly met, thus it was obvious that Madách trusted him. However, as a friendly opinion could be more partial than that of an outsider, therefore Szontagh urged Madách 3 to send the Tragedy to János Arany for criticism. The author of Toldi was the unquestioned literary authority of the period, and his word had the most weight.
 
In the spring of 1861 Madách had the opportunity to let his work get to Arany. As one of the parliamentary deputies of Nógrád county, Madách came to the national assembly, opened on 6 April 1861 in Pest, and brought with himself the only, handwritten copy of the Tragedy. We have no irrefutable evidence that Madách met Arany, but on the basis of indirect data both their contemporaries and Ferenc Kerényi 4 – one of the best Madách researchers of the past decades – have been inclined to think that Madách personally handed over his work. Kerényi also risks the assumption that the meeting took place on 5 June 1861, after Madách’s highly successful parliamentary speech. Concerning the parliament’s answer to be given to Emperor Francis Joseph, Madách represented the opinion of the Resolution Party, led by László Teleki. According to Kerényi, his speech might have provided him with enough confidence to visit Arany in his home at Üllői street. Madách’s obituary published in the Koszorú, the journal of János Arany recalls the meeting in the following words: “[Madách] asked his fellow deputy Pál Jámbor to take him to Arany, to whom he would like to hand over a work for criticism. Pál Jámbor fulfilled his wish. Arany accepted the work from the unknown poet, who asked him for a sincere opinion, and spoke little during the whole visit.” 5 According to Ferenc Kerényi, the “U” signature of the above obituary points to Pál Gyulai, whose information – being one of János Arany’s most confidential friends – certainly came from first hand.

Arany soon began to read the Tragedy but he did not like it, as after some lines he suspected it to be an afre-feeling of the Faust. The first Hungarian translation of Goethe’s masterpiece had been published a year ago, 6 thus the suspicion of Arany was legitimate. In his letter of 27 October 1861 to Madách, summarizing his suggestions and corrections, he commented the following words of Lucifer in Scene 2: “You elements, Lend aid, arise–– Humanity Will be your prize.––” like this: “…it is like Goethe, in István Nagy’s translation.” 7

After line 16 – “A single cog wears out.” – Arany stopped reading the Tragedy. This line is part of the Lord’s monologue, which starts the work:

“It’s done, the great act of creation.
The maker rests. The wheel’s in motion
And will rotate upon its axle for
A hundred million years before
A single cog wears out.”

Arany justified his decision like this: “…the craftsman’s complacency of these four lines have a rather comic tint. (…) It had an impression on me that first I put the work away…” 8 It was the above mentioned Pál Jámbor, a priest-poet publishing under the pseudonyme Hiador to convince Arany to continue reading the work. In his letter to Mihály Tompa on 15 August, Arany already declared with unabashed enthusiasm: “I have got a manuscript: The tragedy of man. A Faust-like dramatic composition, but it stands completely on its own fee. Full of huge thoughts. The first talent since Petőfi who shows up an independent direction.” 9 This time Arany read the Tragedy with pencil in the hand, and he also added the date on the last page of the manuscript: “9 3/8”, that is, between 3 and 8 September 1861.


After the dissolution of the parliament, Madách came home to Alsósztregova on 1 September 1861, and was obviously looking forward with impatience to a sign from the senior fellow poet. Arany sent his famous letter with the address “Dear Patriot!” on 12 September: “The tragedy of man is an excellent work both in its conception and composition. I only find some ponderosity here and there in its poesy and its language; especially the lyric parts are not sonorous enough. But even like this, after some external touches, it could occupy a place among the most excellent works of our literature. I do not know what are your intentions as to its publication: I would wish to promote it through the Kisfaludy Society, and I hope I would succeed in doing so. If my wish met your will, then I would mark the places, from line to line, where I would suggest some – but by no means essential – changes; or if you agree, I myself would add to it a few pen strokes, and then I would present it to the Society.” 10

Madách was glad of Arany’s offer, and he gave him a free hand in the corrections. His answer clearly demonstrates Arany’s incredible prestige among his contemporaries: “…please don’t send me your comments for revision, it is so humiliating to me, who have so much trust in you, and even trusted you when I only knew your fame. Believe me, my dear friend, that if the old Lord’s tailor-like outbreak 11 definitely put you off reading more of my work, and you sent it back to me with a disapproving judgement – then I would have already warmed at its fire, and Adam would have dreamed his last dream among the flames of the purgatory. – In general, please do not believe that I am in love with my works. I am already over the age when one loves to see himself in print. – Yes, I also have my vanity, but a greater one than that: to show nothing mediocre to the world. If I write something, usually I do not re-read it for a year. Then I take it out and I judge it as someone other’s work, I see its errors, and I throw it on the fire. The tragedy of man was the first one which, having stood the trial year, convinced me that I have reached my standard, now someone else has to judge – that’s how I brought it to you.” 12


János Arany started to work, since he was urged, in addition to his critical and personal interest, also by time. In fact, since August 1860 he was director of the Kisfaludy Society, whose statutes stated that the supporting members, in turn of the paid membership fee, are entitled to receive free books in the size of 60 sheets. The end of the year was nearing, and János Arany saw a good opportune in the appearance of the Tragedy, as he could settle the with it the question of the free volumes.

In his second letter of 27 October, already addressing Madách by first name, Arany sent a detailed list of errors. However, Madách had no copy of his own work, so he had to accept or reject Arany’s corrections and suggestions, which, “with only a few exception, concern but the outermost technique. (…) They do not address anything more relevant: the composition, economy, etc. are complete. Moreover, I probably will not do any more what happened in a few cases, that I made observation on the idea itself.” 13


An “eternal”, recurring topic of the Madách philology is, what and how much János Arany improved in the Tragedy. Postmodern criticism has also formulated the opinion that we should address the question: who wrote actually The tragedy of man? The answer is clear and reassuring: Imre Madách.

What did, then, Arany correct? First of all, the spelling errors. The Hungarian Learned Society published its first spelling rules in 1832: this was the first attempt at unifying the regionally checkered, many-colored Hungarian orthography. Madách was born in 1823, and, according to the family tradition, he learned to read and write already at the age of five, but not according to the 1832 standard. János Arany’s spelling, however, was modern and secure, because, as Ferenc Kerényi notes, in all his life he lived from his pen, and administered a great deal – both as a notary in Nagyszalonta and a teacher in Nagykőrös, and in Pest, as the director of the Kisfaludy Society –, and in addition he had a keen interest in linguistic and grammar issues.

The verb prefixes standing before the verb were usually written separately by Madách – Arany corrected and linked them all to the respective verb. He also rooted from Madách’s text the many apostrophes, which slowed reading down and made it clumsy. It often happened that Madách did not link the letters within a word, or, on the contrary, the space between two words was too small: in such cases Arany linked the letters or separated the words. He also corrected the spelling of foreign words. Madách, for example, wrote the Greek word “sphere” as svéra, which Arany proposed to correct to szféra or sphaera. After a while Arany simplified his work, and wrote to Madách: “From now on, I do not mark the spelling errors, I will correct them when the proof will go through my hand.” 14

In several cases Arany changed Madách’s dialectal words for the literary form, for example: trágyatúrony – trágyadomb; aztat – azt; silled – süllyed; fékötő – főkötő; guliba – viskó.

He also replaced the Germanisms with a more Hungarian-like term. For example: “El innen, engem illet e hely itt” …germanizm. Odább! ez a hely itt az enyém!” 15 ; “ha egy kis vér futott” – germanizm.: ömölt.” 16 ; “Kisértett a nagyok agyában.” Es spuckte. Német.” 17 In the period, Germanisms were considered as one of the major threats for the correct Hungarian speech. Arany’s comment on it to Madách was the general opinion among the educated gentry of the time: “Perhaps you have not yet been penetrated by the Hungarian vernacular language as such a great poet should have been, while the literary language has been deteriorating for years, it has been taking up more and more foreign elements. Maybe you received the German, and in general the foreign culture than the spirit of the Hungarian language could have indelibly engraved itself into your sense of language. Or if this is not so, then perhaps you play a more daring language with the language than the language could now tolerate.” 18
 
The considerations of linguistic correctness led Arany not only to weed out Germanisms, but to also touch upon the text in a number of other cases: “– The form nem-e is wrong everywhere.” 19 – he wrote. In fact, Madách used in a wrong order (or rather in a dialectal order, surviving to this day) the question syllable -e, linking it not to the predicate, but to the negative particle: “Nem-e borzongat…”; “Nem-é látjátok…”

In the original manuscript Madách repeatedly calls the Lord the Old one. Arany’s relevant comment: “This Old is too Goethe- and Mephisto-like. Cannot you change it everywhere? Narrow-minded people base on such details the accusation of imitation.” 20

However, Arany did not correct mechanically, he revered the poet’s freedom, and if the poetic metre required it so, he left the individual orthography or use of words.

But Arany’s improvements only touched the surface of the Tragedy. He acted with an almost unlikely humility, showing an extreme respect to Madách’s creative intention and text: “I can not bring myself to change an idea of yours with another idea which is not yours…” 21 He did not abuse the trust of the fellow author, the fact that Madách gave him a free hand. He was aware of being the better poet, but a text can also have other virtues as well: “I have many notes where my improvement is smoother, but your text is stronger. In such cases I always think twice before changing. (…) And in some places a certain asperity is so good that one feels sorry to discard it, as some grimness of Bánk bán.” 22

Nevertheless, It is a fact that some lines of the Tragedy which have since become proverbial, were finalized by János Arany.

“It’s done, the great act of creation.
The maker rests. The wheel’s in motion
And will rotate upon its axle for
A hundred million years before
A single cog wears out.”

The original version by Madách is less smooth and less striking:

“It’s done, the great act of creation.
And everything fits so well that I believe
It will rotate upon its axle nicely
A hundred million years before
A single cog wears out.”

It was also Arany to give a final form to the famous saying in the Egyptian scene: “Only a sum to you, the world to me.” which in Madách sounded like this: „Only a vile  sum to you…”

Due to János Arany, another proverbial saying in the fourth scene also became smoother: “Let one man die providing the state lives, / And makes an entity of single men.” In Madách, the second part of the verse was somewhat clumsy, too prosaic: “Which makes a  whole from the single ones.”

One adage, however, was associated with Arany’s name without any basis. There were theater directors who omitted the famous final verse – “Man, I have spoken: strive on, trust, have faith!” – by saying that it was not from Madách. However, even no polar filter test would have been necessary, only a glimpse at the original manuscript, to be ascertained of the contrary view! Nevertheless, the handwriting expert asked for the examination of the manuscript checked the final verse with x-ray, and it became clear that János Arany did not touch it.

Arany was extremely considerate towards his fellow writer: “Write me also if you do not like my changes, or if you do not want to change anything in general (except for the orthography sometimes, because it should be changed in any case). It will be not an obstacle to the publication of the work; I only proposed the changes for you.” 23

In the Kisfaludy Society János Arany read three times from the Tragedy: on 10 October, 31 October and 28 November. 24 As he had not yet received Madách’s authorization of his corrections, he read the original, uncorrected text of scenes 1-4, 25 and did not name the author either. A stunning humanity and honesty from János Arany’s side!

After Arany’s reading, the literary circles in Pest were frantically guessing who the mysterious author might be. It finally came to light on 1 January 1862, when the journal Pesti Hölgy-Divat first mentioned the name of Madách. 26

The publications of the Kisfaludy Society were printed by Gusztáv Emich’s company. Arany personally took to him the manuscript of the Tragedy, and he corrected the proofs with an extreme care, three times.

The first edition of the Tragedy was completed in record time. Arany announced the end of its printing on 18 December 1861, and the book was ready in the first days of January 1862: 12 January can be considered as the exact date. 27 In about two weeks Arany sent a mail to Madách, and after the obligatory polite introductory lines he immediately asked his opinion about the corrections. “I don’t know how you judge my changes in the text – but you have the liberty to change everything back into the original form in a second edition, which probably will become necessary soon.” 28 As Madách’s response was delayed, Arany sent another letter: “It has been a while that I wrote to you, to which I have hoped an answer, but I have not yet received it. Have you not got my mail, or – what I do not even dare to think about – something in my procedure concerning your work offended you? In that hastily written letter I tried to give account of the technical side of the thing, especially concerning the few typographical errors which, with all my efforts, had slid into the publication, as well as on the changes you have unlimitedly authorized me to, but in which I limited myself to those already reported to you. I also mentioned that if you are displeased with them, in a second edition – of which, thank God, will be urgent need soon – you can restore the original text (your manuscript is still at me, in a usable condition). 29

These anxious, almost reluctant lines are extremely touching. János Arany could remain a modest, humble and considerate person even at the peak of his glory, and turned at least as much attention to the author of the Tragedy, the man, as to the text itself.

In his answer, Madách dispelled Arany’s concerns: “I only owe gratitude for your changes, and the typographic errors are amazingly few.” 30

János Arany did not only care for the correction and publication of the Tragedy, but he also had its reception at heart. He invited his friend Károly Szász to write critcism on it. Károly Szász (1829–1905), author, critic, Calvinist bishop and a honorary member of the Academy carefully and painstakingly read through the work. In the “second, substantially improved” edition, which was also published by Gusztáv Emich in 1863, Madách also took his observations into account. As this was the last edition published in the poet’s life, now this version is considered the final text of the Tragedy.
 
Arany and Madách did not lose sight of each other after the publication of the Tragedy either. In 1862, on his way to the Szliács spa next to Zólyom, János Arany passed by the Nógrád recluse. They met on 7 August in Csesztve, where Pál Szontagh also went over on the festive occasion. The next day they went to Alsósztregova, and, after a short visit, on 10 August they arrived together at Szliács, where Madách enjoyed for two more days the company of János Arany, the admired and envied fellow poet. It was then that their working relationship was ennobled into a real friendship.