Helyettesítő áldozat

The issue of subjectivity became particularly relevant in the second half of Szilárd Borbély’s oeuvre. While his first period in the 1990s is dominated by the poetical power hidden in silence and the unspeakable, the works after 2000 have the characteristics of a closeness between the lyrical self and the real self, the former previously defined as ironical and reserved. These are the results of a fatal tragedy, the deadly attack on his parents, which has become the focal point of Borbély’s individual mythology. The thematisation of subjectivity, however, did not end in the formation of an autoreferential horizon. Instead, the poet created a net of meanings where the events of his own life are blended together with the Christian narrative of salvation, different myths, literary and philosphical parables. In my paper I investigate the way the personal and abstract structure of the lyrical self is represented in the subsitute sacrifice as a form of identity and in the theological and metaphysical topos of eternity, both of which being the defining motifs of Borbély’s second period.