Modernism and Faith in the Poems of Jenő Dsida

Abstract

Jenő Dsida (1907–1938) was a poet and translator and a central figure of Transylvanian Hungarian literature in the interwar period. This study examines the relationship between modernism and faith in his poetry, with particular attention to the crisis of identity and language. It explores how the disintegration of the self and the human body reflects a fractured worldview shaped by secular modernity. Images of death, corporeal decay, and linguistic failure are interpreted as key manifestations of modern existential doubt and anxiety. The analysis situates Dsida’s work within pastoral traditions, late modernist poetics, and religious worldviews, emphasizing poetry’s growing skepticism about its own expressive capacities. At the same time, it identifies an alternative poetic mode grounded in childlike faith, playfulness, and an intimate relationship with the divine.