Further Questions about the Unsorted Editions of the Istenes énekek (Divine Songs)

Abstract

My study tries to highlight some questions about the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century editions of the Istenes énekek (Divine Songs) which contain the religious poems of Bálint Balassi and János Rimay. The first publications usually consist of two sections: the main material, published under the name of Balassi, but actually containing works by both authors, and another part that contains miscellaneous texts from various poets. These editions are commonly referred to as the “unsorted editions”. My main theses are as follows: 1) The fact that the second part of the editions was published with the heading “Balassa Bálintnak istenes éneki” (‘Bálint Balassa’s divine songs’) indicates that the two sections were not clearly separated from each other in the first edition. 2) We mistakenly think that the foreword of the edition published in Kassa in 1665 is the same as the preface of the first edition. 3) In his relevant paper, István Vadai, despite his intentions, does not reconstruct the table of contents of the editio princeps, but of an edition that is unknown to us.