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János Arany (1817–1882)
Arany, János (or’ony). An eminent Hungarian poet; born at Nagy-Szalonta, March 2, 1817; died in Budapest, Oct. 22, 1882. Educated in the college at Debreczin, 1832–36, he was employed as a teacher in his native place; in 1840 was appointed notary there; and won immediate success with his first epical production in 1845. During the Hungarian revolution he held a government position; then lived in needy circumstances in his native town until 1854, when he obtained a professorship at Nagy-Körös. Thence he was called to Budapest in 1860 as director of the Kisfaludy Society; founded the literary weekly Koszorú (The Wreath); and in 1865 was appointed secretary of the Hungarian Academy, of which he had been a member since 1859. Owing to his feeble health he resigned in 1878. As a national poet he ranks immediately after Petőfi and Vörösmarty, his epical creations deserving to be acknowledged as ornaments not only of Hungarian but of modern poetry in general. He is a master of the ballad and a translator of highest merit, as proven by his versions of Tasso, Goethe, Shakespeare, and above all, his translation of Aristophanes (3 vols., 1880). Works: ‘The Lost Constitution,’ a humorous epic (1845, prize of Kisfaludy Society), depicting the doings at the county elections; ‘The Taking of Murány’ (1848, prize); ‘Katalin’ (1850); ‘Toldi,’ an epical trilogy (1851–54–80), exalting the deeds of the Hungarian Samson; ‘The Gipsies of Nagy-Ida’ (1852); ‘Buda’s Death’ (1864, prize), ‘Prose Writings’ (1879).