Locked in the Ivory Tower. Mihály Babits in the 20th and 21th Century Literary Canon

This study presents the case of an author whose literary standing in Hungarian literary history was destroyed by Soviet dictatorship, even before his canonical position could be consolidated after his death. The decades of socialism did not change this situation, and although serious attempts have been made in academic circles since the late 1970s, the author’s rehabilitation is still ongoing. While his œuvre is a mandatory part of the national curriculum and an essential chapter in literary history, a rather distorted and stereotypical image of him lives on in the public to this day. This is Mihály Babits (1883-1941), who was one of the most erudite creative minds of the first part of the twentieth century. He was a dominant and innovative poet of modern Hungarian literature, a member and later editor of the journal Nyugat (West). This paper demonstrates the processes of literary canonization as it functions as a complex interplay of preconceived and unintentional processes and effects.