János Arany was born 207 years ago, on March 2, 1817, in Nagyszalontán, the central figure of 19th century Hungarian poetry, the unsurpassed master of the Hungarian language.
He came from an impoverished hajdu family. He studied in Debrecen, then became a teacher, painted, and became an actor in 1836. From 1840 he was a sub-registrar in Szalonta, then from 1842 he was the rector of the local high school.
During the 65 years of his life, the poet lived through the ups and downs of the times, and gave voice to everything that happened to Hungarians in his lyrics.
Arany considered himself primarily an epic poet, but his poetry – deservedly popular and immortal Add itapart from – primarily his lyrical side also carries a message for posterity.
The period of his poetic consciousness was the period of the reform, his development and the formation of his individual voice fell during the war of independence of 1848-49.
His depression and the waning of his poetic power fell on the period of autocracy, his second creative period began at the turn of the 1850s and 1860s with the revival of national hopes, while his resignation in old age can be linked to the period after the compromise of 1867.
The parallels of the age and individual life can be precisely followed in his lyre and small epics – his ballads.
It’s his first big success A lost constitution was a satirical epic entitled, with which he won the contest of the Kisfaludy Társaság in 1846. The poet himself referred to the “iron age of our literature” in relation to the work, which can hardly be read today.
He achieved even greater success Add itval in 1847, which marked the high point of his career both in terms of language and editing, as well as the political impact of popular literature, and also earned him Petőfi’s friendship.
This relationship was a life-long journey for Arany, who was six years older, but more reserved and introverted: spiritual and intellectual development, literary and political guidance, to which he remained loyal even decades later.
The fall of the freedom struggle and the death of Petőfi plunged Arany, who was already prone to depression, into a deep mental crisis. After several years of silence, he expressed his feelings and the oppression of the 1850s in such bitter poems as The lute playera I put down the lutea For my son, The veteran’s widow.
At the end of the autocracy, the nation and its poet slowly recovered. Arany’s first great ballads were created in the second half of the 1850s, they are mainly national in nature: a Hunyadi-pieces of a ballad circle, a Zach Klaraa Szondi’s two little onesand most famously, The Welsh Bardswhich became a symbol of resistance.
Between 1851 and 1860 he was a teacher in Nagykőrös, where he also stood out among his peers as a teacher. In 1860, he moved to Pest, where he became more and more active together with other public figures of the time. During this time, he wrote many literary studies and edited magazines.
His poetry also flourished, he wrote the Széchenyi’s memoryt, then a Unperturbed is in In solitude his huge odes, which deal with the fate of the homeland and the nation.
In these years, 1862 and 1863, he wrote the To the death of Budat, which his distinguished monographer, Dezső Keresztury, called the last great upsurge of Hungarian nationalism.
Arany was elected secretary of the Academy in 1865, this position provided him with some financial security, but he did not have much time for literature.
His big plans, the further parts of the Hun trilogy and the Add it the middle part remained in fragments, a Toldi’s lovehe only finished it at the end of his life. The early death of his beloved daughter contributed to his temporary silence, and between 1865 and 1876 he produced only a few poems.
He was not enthusiastic about the compromise, he accepted the royal award given to him only at the special request of József Eötvös, and in this connection he wrote many mocking poems about himself.
In the last decade of his life, he became increasingly resigned, and after leaving his offices, he wrote his last major cycle on Margaret Island, the Autumn oneset.
His ballads of that time project the dramas of conscience before us, a Red Rebsa A call to a corpsethat is Midnight Duela Bridge dedicationa Sea shelling, The holiday breakers all of the poems are “tragedies told in song” – according to the definition of the esthete Ágost Greguss. The poet died on October 22, 1882 in Budapest.
His ancient lyric is at least as significant, that is Epiloguea At the fair, Under the oaksthat is Song from the Pest grove the joys and worries of an old person, the memories of a calm soul are revealed to the reader.
In 1995, the Hungarian Writers’ Association established the János Arany Foundation, which was awarded for the first time in 1996. In 2016, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the poet’s birth, the Parliament declared 2017 the year of commemoration of János Arany, and the Magyar Nemzeti Bank issued a commemorative medal for the anniversary.
Source: mult-kor.hu