Sándor Weöres (June 22, 1913 - 22 January, 1989) was a
HungarianHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
.
Born in
SzombathelySzombathely, is a city in Hungary. It is the administrative center of the Vas county in the west of the country, located near the border with Austria.-Location:...
, Weöres was brought up in the nearby village of
CsöngeCsönge is a village in Vas County, Hungary. The earliest known reference to the village was in 1429 under the name Chenge....
. His first poems appeared when he was nineteen, being published in the influential journal
NyugatNyugat , was the most influential Hungarian literary journal in the first half of the 20th century. Writers and poets from that era are referred to as "1st/2nd/3rd generation of the NYUGAT"....
("West") through the acceptance of its editor, the poet
Mihály BabitsMihály Babits was a Hungarian poet, writer and translator.- Biography :Babits was born in Szekszárd....
. Weöres attended the
University of PécsThe University of Pécs is the Hungarian university with the largest number of students and faculties.-History:...
, studying law first before moving on to geography and history. He ultimately received a doctorate in philosophy and aesthetics.
Sándor Weöres (June 22, 1913 - 22 January, 1989) was a
HungarianHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
.
Born in
SzombathelySzombathely, is a city in Hungary. It is the administrative center of the Vas county in the west of the country, located near the border with Austria.-Location:...
, Weöres was brought up in the nearby village of
CsöngeCsönge is a village in Vas County, Hungary. The earliest known reference to the village was in 1429 under the name Chenge....
. His first poems appeared when he was nineteen, being published in the influential journal
NyugatNyugat , was the most influential Hungarian literary journal in the first half of the 20th century. Writers and poets from that era are referred to as "1st/2nd/3rd generation of the NYUGAT"....
("West") through the acceptance of its editor, the poet
Mihály BabitsMihály Babits was a Hungarian poet, writer and translator.- Biography :Babits was born in Szekszárd....
. Weöres attended the
University of PécsThe University of Pécs is the Hungarian university with the largest number of students and faculties.-History:...
, studying law first before moving on to geography and history. He ultimately received a doctorate in philosophy and aesthetics. His doctoral dissertation
The Birth of the Poem was published in 1939. It was in 1937 that he made the first of his travels abroad, going first to
ManilaThe City of Manila , or simply Manila or Maynila, is the capital of the Philippines and one of the 17 cities and municipalities that make up Metro Manila. It is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay, on the western portion of the National Capital Region, in the western side of Luzon...
for a Eucharistic Congress and then visiting
VietnamVietnam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam , is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east...
and
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
. During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Weöres was drafted for compulsory labor, but was not sent to the front. After the end of the war, he returned to Csönge and briefly lived as a farmer.
In 1948 Weöres again travelled abroad, residing in
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
until 1949. In 1951 he settled in
BudapestBudapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it serves as the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation center and is considered an important hub in Central Europe. In 2009, Budapest had 1,712,210 inhabitants, down from a mid-1980s...
where he would reside for the rest of his life. The imposition of
StalinismStalinism was the political system and ideology of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from 1928–1953...
in Hungary after 1948 silenced Weöres and until 1964 little could be published.
Work
Weöres' translations into Hungarian were wide and varied, including the works of
UkrainianUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
national poet
Taras ShevchenkoTaras Hryhorovych Shevchenko was a Ukrainian poet, artist and humanist. His literary heritage is regarded to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature and, to a large extent, the modern Ukrainian language...
, the
GeorgianGeorgia Georgia Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Situated at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the east by Azerbaijan...
poet
RustaveliRustaveli may refer to:* Shota Rustaveli, a Georgian poet* Rustavelis Gamziri, an avenue in Tbilisi, Georgia named after the poet* Rustaveli Theatre, a drama theatre in Tbilisi named after the poet...
, the
SloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central Europe bordering Italy to the west, the Adriatic Sea to the southwest, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north...
n poets
Oton ŽupančičOton Župančič was a Slovene poet, translator and playwright.Župančič is regarded, alongside Ivan Cankar, Dragotin Kette and Josip Murn, as the beginner of modernism in Slovenian literature...
and
Josip Murn AleksandrovJosip Murn, also known under the pseudonym Aleksandrov was a Slovene symbolist poet. Together with Ivan Cankar, Oton Župančič, and Dragotin Kette, he was regarded as one of the beginners of modernism in Slovene literature...
. He also translated Shakespeare's
Venus and Adonis and
Henry VIII,
T. S. EliotThomas Stearns Eliot, OM , was a poet, playwright, and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Among his most famous writings are The Love Song of J...
's
The Waste Land, the nonsense poems by
Edward LearEdward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.-Biography:...
and
Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer...
, the complete poetry of
Stéphane MallarméStéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...
. His translation of the
Tao Te ChingThe Tao Te Ching or Dao De Jing , originally known as Laozi , is a Chinese classic text. Its name comes from the opening words of its two sections: 道 dào "way," Chapter 1, and 德 dé "virtue," Chapter 38, plus 經 jīng "classic." According to tradition, it was written around the 6th century BC by the...
continues to be the most widely read in Hungary.
Legacy
Many of Weöres' poems have been set to music. The Hungarian composer
György LigetiGyörgy Sándor Ligeti was a composer, born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania. He briefly lived in Hungary before later becoming an Austrian citizen...
, a friend of the poet, set several poems from
Rongyszőnyeg and other books. Composer
Peter EötvösPeter Eötvös [ˈpɛtɛr.ˈøtvøʃ] is a Hungarian composer and conductor.Eötvös was born in Odorheiu Secuiesc/Székelyudvarhely . He studied composition in Budapest and Cologne. From 1962, he composed for film in Hungary. Eötvös played regularly with the Stockhausen Ensemble between 1968 and 1976...
has composed two pieces,
Atlantis and
Ima, with texts from Weöres' poem
Néma zene ("Silent Music").
In 1980 the Hungarian filmmaker
Gábor BódyGábor Bódy was a Hungarian film director, screenwriter, theoretic, and occasional actor. A pioneer of experimental filmmaking and film language, Bódy is one of the most important figures of Hungarian cinema.- Biography :...
adapted the poem
Psyché to make the epic feature Nárcisz és Psyché.
Poetry
- Hideg van, 1934.
- A kő és az ember, 1935.
- A teremtés dicsérete, 1938.
- Meduza, 1944.
- A szerelem ábécéje, 1946.
- Elysium, 1946.
- Gyümölcskosár, 1946.
- A fogok tornáca, 1947.
- Bóbita, 1955.
- A hallgatás tornya, 1956.
- Tarka forgó, 1958.
- Tűzkút, 1964.
- Gyermekjátékok, 1965.
- Merülő Saturnus, 1968.
- Zimzizim, 1969.
- Psyche, 1972.
- Télország, 1972.
- Priapos, written in 1950, published posthumously in 2001.