János Arany the Hungarian Shakespeare

The beginning of a beautiful friendship

Toldi was also what started the legendary friendship between Arany and Sándor Petőfi, another world famous Hungarian poet. Today, we can “peek into” the relationship of the two poets through the letters they wrote to each other, as these letters were left to posterity. The letters reveal how much love and respect they had for each other.

Revolution of 1848

After the Hungarian revolution in 1848, Arany became editor of the Hungarian paper: Nép Barátja (Friend of the People) which was under the rebel government’s management.

His close friend, Petőfi died during the revolution, however the details of his death are still unknown. The death of a close friend, and the horrors of the defeat of the Hungarian revolution both had a huge impact on Arany’s literary works.

The Hungarian Shakespeare

János Arany wrote more than 40 ballads in his lifetime. His contemporaries called him the Shakespeare of ballads.

He translated three of Shakespeare’s most famous works to Hungarian: Hamlet, King John and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Many of Arany’s works have been translated to English. The most famous one is the translation of the ballad titled: A walesi bárdok (The Bards of Wales) by Watson Kirkconnell. Arany was asked to write a poem honouring the visit of Franz Joseph I, but instead, he wrote about the tale of the 500 Welsh bards who were executed by Edward I of England because they refused to sing his praises. Here is a stanza from Kirkconnell’s translation:

“Edward the king, the English king,

Bestrides his tawny steed;

A silence deep his subjects keep

And Wales is mute indeed.”

The Bards of Wales (written in 1857) is one the most valuable pieces of art in Hungarian literature.

Death

In 1865, Arany became secretary general of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His daughter died in the same year. The losses of a good friend (Petőfi) and a child had a huge impact on his work. For decades, he could barely write or not at all. He had his last (and brief) writing period in which a cycle of poems (Őszikék) were written.

He died at the age of 65 in 1882.

Source: www.magyarorszagom.hu