Portrait of the invisible. A mediological approach to Zsigmond Kemény’s Pál Gyulai

In terms of poetic composition, Zsigmond Kemény’s Pál Gyulai is probably the fanciest Hungarian romantic novel, although this is the first literary work the excellent Transylvanian writer published, in 1847. It could easily win international acclaim among specialists in Romanticism, if it had a translation into one of the widely spoken foreign languages. This essay attempts to interpret the novel from a primarily mediological point of view, focusing on a small number of scenes, and discussing some relations between certain images, poetic interpretation and ethical issues