Scribd
Upload
64 views1 page

Hungarian Poet Attila József

Attila József was a Hungarian poet born in 1905 in Budapest. His father disappeared when he was young and his mother died when he was 14. As a child, he was inspired by stories of Attila the Hun to pursue literature. After high school, he studied in Vienna and Paris and joined the Communist party upon returning to Hungary. His poetry shifted focus from beauty to the struggles of the working class. He published several poetry collections and cofounded a literary review before dying by suicide in 1937 at the age of 32 after battling mental illness.

Uploaded by

Flora Bartalosova
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
64 views1 page

Hungarian Poet Attila József

Attila József was a Hungarian poet born in 1905 in Budapest. His father disappeared when he was young and his mother died when he was 14. As a child, he was inspired by stories of Attila the Hun to pursue literature. After high school, he studied in Vienna and Paris and joined the Communist party upon returning to Hungary. His poetry shifted focus from beauty to the struggles of the working class. He published several poetry collections and cofounded a literary review before dying by suicide in 1937 at the age of 32 after battling mental illness.

Uploaded by

Flora Bartalosova
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

gfshrshhtrjsrjrrrrrrrAttila

József, an acclaimed Hungarian poet, was born on


April 11, 1905, in Budapest. His father, a soap-factory worker, disappeared
when he was a toddler, and his mother died of cancer when he was
fourteen. In an autobiographical note, József describes how his unusual
first name led him to literature: “I believed the discovery of the tales about
Attila had a decisive influence on all my ambitions from then on; in the last
analysis it was perhaps this that led me to literature. This was the
experience that turned me into a person who thinks, one who listens to the
opinions of others, but examines them critically in his own mind….” He
published his first volume of poetry while still in high school, although his
work was not widely read until after his death.

After high school, he spent several years studying in Vienna and Paris and,
upon returning to Budapest, joined the underground Communist Party out
of loyalty to the working class. His adoption of Communism marks a shift
in his poetry, as he turned his focus from a search for beauty to the plight
of the lower class. His poetry is also characterized by a particular style of
melancholy realism and a frequent use of free association.

Several of his poetry collections have been translated into English,


including The Iron-Blue Vault: Selected Poems  (Bloodaxe Books, 2000)
and Winter Night: Selected Poems of Attila József (Oberlin, 1997), and he
cofounded the review Szép Szó in 1936. After a battle with mental illness,
he was hit by a train and died on December 3, 1937.

You might also like