About the aspects and roles of phrasemes in Kosztolányi’s Skylark (1924)

In this essay I examine the ways in which language functions both as a means of preserving the past and as a marker of change by examining the significance of phrasemes in the novel Pacsirta (Skylark) by Hungarian author Dezső Kosztolányi. In part by examining the ways in which the English and German translators of the novel dealt with the complexities posed by the historically and culturally embedded nature of language, I explore the complex and at times contradictory functions of language in the novel. Kosztolányi’s use of phrasemes in Pacsirta, I argue, exemplifies several of his theoretical ideas about language itself and the roles of language in the mediation of the past.