MML (French and Latin), 2022, Christ’s College‘Oh! comme la lune a l’air étrange!’ Having read Salomé, Wilde’s queer and minor use of French
captured my attention. The abundance of copular phrases, the repetitions in dialogue, theinterweaving of two feminine characters, la Lune et la Princesse, and the way the longing Page
turns from active to passive on the stage captivated me at once. Moving on to examine Alfred
Douglas’ translation, I found an absence of crucial nuances: for instance, the lack of phrases
stressing the importance of seeing or the loss of the representation of the femme fatale
through grammatical elements. Douglas nevertheless does something peculiar: adopting a lofty
tone, he renders Wilde’s estrangement of French into English. As I became more interested inFrancophone literature, I scrutinised a Jean-de-la-Fontaine-anthology I bought in Paris: I
observed the fables’ context and aesthetic properties, then tried to find similarities in theirLatin, English, or Hungarian translations. This novel appreciation has prompted me to pursue acombined course at university to have an adequate notion as to what literary and cultural
relations one can find between French and Latin, and how translation works.
I enrolled in Milestone Institute, an advanced studies programme. I studied Verlaine’s Poèmes
saturniens: being mesmerised by the way Verlaine depicts an omnipresent anxiety that both
suffocates him and makes for artistic creation, I became interested in Decadence, be it Frenchor English. As a final paper for a close reading course, I looked into the representation ofsexual ambiguity and social satire through animalism and Pan culture in ‘Gabriel-Ernest’ bySaki, who was part of the Uranian circle. Being absorbed by the epoch, I juxtaposed
Theocritos’ eclogues with Edward Lefroy’s Echoes from Theocritus to analyse the latter’streatment of the bucolic homoerotic tradition for the Mary Renault Prize, at which my essay
won first prize. Dealing with such topics as the appearance of Pan in literary works as therepresentation of an unconventional and wild culture throughout history, I could draw parallels
between fin-de-siècle literature and the ancient world. An essay on the Shakespearian treatmentof Ovidian mythology in The Winter’s Tale as part of a comparative literature module, theinfluence of Aristotle’s Poetics on Shakespeare and Mandelstam, or the formalist and readerresponse analysis of Catullus 64 were also among the inspiring assignments I worked on when I
was exploring literary theories with my mentor.
Outside Milestone modules – such as Art History, where I wrote a review of the developmentof perspective in the early Renaissance, considering ancient antetypes such as the frescoes inthe Villa Boscoreale – I looked even further into Humanities: I finished as second in theHungarian National French Olympiad and passed the DALF C2 exam. Teaching French to afriend ab initio, I observed language acquisition from the opposite side. I have equally studied
Russian and a bit of German, allowing me, for example, to read Onegin in original Russian.
Latin is also a passion I pursue outside of school; nevertheless, I hope to test my knowledge ata C1 language exam in October, so that I can officially correct other people’s ungrammaticaltattoos. Writing and translating poetry have also been a means of better understanding rhythmand meter. Since I study History and Hungarian Literature on an advanced level, I could peruse
the poems of the Hungarian Renaissance poet Janus Pannonius, discern the Horatian heritage
in Berzsenyi’s poems, or discover implicit allusions to ancient events. I enjoy creative challenges,
too: I edit my blog where I post fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and my paintings.
Most importantly, I would like to examine the mainly literary relations between cultures in a
multidisciplinary way. Ultimately, my goal is to pursue a career in academia.