Mihály Babits

The native form of this personal name is Babits Mihály. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

Mihály Babits
Born	(1883-11-26)26 November 1883 Szekszárd, Austria-Hungary
Died	4 August 1941(1941-08-04) (aged 57) Budapest, Hungary
Nationality	Hungarian
Period	1900–1941
Genre	Poetry, Short stories, Novels Literary history Essays, lyric poetry
Spouse	Ilona Tanner [hu] (pen name: Sophie Török)
Relatives	Mother: Auróra Kelemen Father: Mihály Babits

Mihály Babits (Hungarian: [ˈmihaːj ˈbɒbit͡ʃ]; 26 November 1883 – 4 August 1941) was a Hungarian poet, writer, essayist, and translator. His poems are well known for their intense religious themes. His novels such as “The Children of Death” (1927) explore psychological problems.^[1]

Biography

Babits was born in Szekszárd. He studied at the University of Budapest from 1901 to 1905, where he met Dezső Kosztolányi and Gyula Juhász. He worked to become a teacher and taught at schools in Baja (1905–06), Szeged (1906–08), Fogaras (1908–11), Újpest (1911), and Budapest (1912–18).

His reputation for his poems in the literary life started in 1908.

He made a trip to Italy in the same year, which made him interested in Dante; he made several other trips in later years. This experience led him to translate Dante's Divine Comedy (Hell, 1913, Purgatory, 1920, and Paradise, 1923).

Briefly after the Hungarian Revolution of 1919 he became a Professor of Foreign Literature and modern Hungarian literature at the University of Budapest, but was soon removed for his pacifism after the revolutionary government fell.

In 1911, he became a staff writer on the magazine Nyugat.

Babits' 1918 novel The Nightmare (also known as King's Stork) is a science fiction novel about a split personality influenced by Freudian psychology.^[2] His 1933 novel Pilot Elza or the Perfect Society (Hungarian: Elza pilóta, vagy a tökéletes társadalom) is set in a dystopian future.^[3]

In 1921 married Ilona Tanner [hu], who later published poetry under the name Sophie Török. Two years later he moved to Esztergom. In 1927 he became a member of the "Kisfaludy Társaság" (Kisfaludy Society) and in the same year he was made a trustee of the Baumgarten Prize.

He became the editor-in-chief of Nyugat in 1929 (sharing the role until 1933 with Zsigmond Móricz), a position he held until his death.

In 1937, he was diagnosed as having laryngeal cancer. He died in Budapest in 1941.

Work

Babits is best known for his lyric poetry, influenced by classical and English forms. He also wrote essays and translated much from English, French, German, Greek, Italian, and Latin. There is a museum in Szekszárd showcasing Mihály Babits's work and life, as well as a memorial building in Esztergom.^[4] His brother István Babits occupied the house at Szekszárd most of the time, with his two sons: István and Tibor.

A bilingual selection of his poems was published in 1988 and in 1994, titled 21 Poems (21 vers), translated by István Tótfalusi (Maecenas).

Notes

1. Norwich, John Julius (1985–1993). Oxford illustrated encyclopedia. Judge, Harry George., Toyne, Anthony. Oxford [England]: Oxford University Press. p. 28. ISBN 0-19-869129-7. OCLC 11814265.
2. "The Nightmare" by Franz Rottensteiner in Frank N. Magill, ed. Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature, Vol 3. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem Press, Inc., 1983. pp. 1121–1123.
3. "Elza Pilóta, vagy a tökéletes társadalom" by Péter Kuczka. In: Frank N. Magill, ed. Survey of Science Fiction Literature, Vol. 2. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem Press, 1979. (pp. 708–711). ISBN 0-89356-194-0
4. Babits Mihály Emlékház (the English-language version is under construction)

External links

• Works by Mihály Babits at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Mihály Babits at the Internet Archive
• His poem The Danaids in English
• George F. Cushing: Mihály Babits: "All Great Poets Are Decadent"