"Landscape poetry" - Literary garden in Kalotaszeg

Abstract

The research tries to jóin two fields: literature and landscape- aesthetics. The connection is based on the filtering-eye of the lyricist, and on his approach to the visual, sensational and traditional layers of the landscape. Plenty of examples provide linkage toward literature in garden-history: the manierist garden based on the story of Orlando Furioso, Sacro Bosco; the labyrinth of Versailles has the sculpture of Esopus’ tales or the Rikugien Garden in Tokyo with 88 waka-poems. Magyarvalkó is the Southern border-village of Kalotaszeg Region of Transylvania, Románia. Kalotaszeg has played a very important role since the beginning of the 20th century, when E. Ady, K. Kós, E. Thoroczkai-Wigand, L. Debreczeni and later Z. Jékely had drawn inspiration from the landscape and its traditional collage. The incomparable church of Magyarvalkó from the isth century determines the view of the viliágé. The five towers of the steeple and the two on the wall- around are seeking fór the sky. The cemetery around the walls was planted with fruit trees by the chaplain E. Miháltz around 1900. His són had built a little pavilion in this “garden of the souls” (a kind of paradise-garden), where guests of the vicarage, such as Z. Jékely, took their time. The poet and writer Jékely spent here summers with totál immerse intő the traditions and intő the life of peasants, and the fragmentary memories and the observation of the cemetery-garden are reflected in his art. The “symbol of paradise” tums up on a traditional wooden house facade of the viliágé as well.
Our goal is to bring together memories, traditions on the one hand and “landscape-points-of- views” of the poets on the other intő a new open-space design. The old pavilion and the garden should nőt only be an open space museum, bút should express the experience of the “genius loci”. This new approach should give opportunity of sensual observations. All elements of the design have to relate significant to the poetry, which means to grip essential points of Jékely’s lyrics, as well as the most important views ofthe landscape.