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.

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). 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.

Briefly after the Hungarian Revolution of 1919 the country's new leadership appointed him as Professor of Foreign Literature and modern Hungarian literature at the University of Budapest; he was also made a member of the Writer's Directory despite having his reservations about the revolutionary government. Babits was removed from his university post for his pacifism after the revolutionary government fell.

In 1921 he married Ilona Tanner, 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.