ARANY, O'rii-ny', JANOS ( 1817-82 ) . Next to Pettifi the greatest of modern Hungarian poets. He was born at Nagy-Szalonta, March 1, 1817. His parents were simple peasants and very poor, hut he was their only son and the child of their old age. and they spared no effort to give him an education. At four he had al ready learned to read from letters traced in the ashes on the hearth, and the Psalms were his first spelling-book. From the first he was an in defatigable reader, and had soon exhausted the resources of the local library, both in Hungarian and in Latin. At the age of fifteen he entered the college at Debreczin, where he quickly dis tinguished himself, but his dreams were of a romantic career. Like Pet6fi, he had felt the fascination of the stage, and in 1836 joined a company of strolling players; but after a few months, poverty and hunger brought him, foot sore and discouraged, back to his father's house. Here he put aside romantic aspirations, and hav ing obtained an appointment as notary. settled down to be a mere "every-day" man. it was not until the summer of 1845 that certain absurdi ties in the lite of the county officials "awoke the voice of satire within him," and inspired his first poem, a satirical epic, Az elreszett alkot twiny ("The Lost Constitution"), and the Kis faludy Society of Pesth having offered a prize for the best humorous poem, lie submitted it and was successful. Two years later he obtained a second prize with the first part of his great trilogy, Toldi, an epic founded wholly upon Mag yar traditions, which immediately brought him into widespread popularity, and won him the friendship of the leading men of letters of his day and country. Petiifi, among others, wrote to him, saying: "While others win their laurels leaf by leaf, we must grant you at once the full crown." Arany's popularity soon extended to the lowest ranks of the people, for he had satu rated himself in childhood with the folklore of his race, and he excelled above all in the art of weaving these old legends and traditions into the fabric of his poems, and in appealing to that spirit of national pride which is a leading char acteristic of the Magyar race. From this time
on his career was determined. In 1860 he re moved to Pesth, becoming first director and then secretary of the Kisfaludy Society, and in 1870 general secretary of the Ilungarian Academy of Science, a position which be held until shortly before his death. October 22, 1882. A monument was raised to his memory at Pesth in 1893, Among his more notable works should be men tioned: Murany ost•oma ("The Siege of Mu rtiny") ; King Buda's Death., an epic in twelve cantos: the second and third parts of the Toldi cycle, Toldi's Lore and Toldi's Evening; sonic exquisite ballads, which many Hungarian critics think have been unsurpassed. and numerous translations, including A ristophanes, and por tions of Goethe, Tasso, and Shakespeare. Arany's own estimate of his worth is interesting: "My talent," he wrote, "is always urging me onward, but my lack of energy constantly drags me back; and so I remain, like the greater part of my work —a fragment!" This verdict falls far below that of his countrymen, who unite in regarding him as the poet who raised Hungarian poetry to a hitherto unknown height, as unequaled in his versatility and artistic finish, and in his power of combining the spirit of the primitive Magyar folksong and the classic polish of his own verse in perfect harmony. There are numerous Ger man translations of his poems, among others, Kertheny (Leipzig, 1851) ; L. KOrodi (Kron stadt, 1863) ; Spoiler (Leipzig, 1880) ; and Dux (Pesth. 1861).