Sándor Weöres (; 22 June 1913 – 22 January 1989) was a Hungarian poet and author. Born in

Szombathely } Szombathely (; ; also see #Etymology, names) is the 10th largest city in Hungary. It is the administrative centre of Vas County in the west of the country, located near the border with Austria. Szombathely lies by the streams ''Perint'' and '' ...

, Weöres was brought up in the nearby village of Csönge. His first poems were published when he was fourteen, in the influential journal '' Nyugat'' ("West"), through the acceptance of its editor, the poet Mihály Babits. Weöres attended the

University of Pécs The University of Pécs ( , PTE; ) is one of the largest higher education institutions in Hungary. The history of the university began in the Middle Ages, when in 1367, at the request of Louis I of Hungary, King Louis I the Great, Pope Urban V gr ...

, first studying law 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

Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

for a Eucharistic Congress and then visiting Vietnam and India. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

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, living in Italy until 1949. In 1951 he settled in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

where he would reside for the rest of his life.

Work

Weöres' translations into Hungarian were wide and varied, including the works of Ukrainian national poet

Taras Shevchenko Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko (; ; 9 March 1814 – 10 March 1861) was a Ukrainian poet, writer, artist, public and political figure, folklorist, and ethnographer. He was a fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts and a member of the Brotherhood o ...

, the Georgian poet Rustaveli, the Slovenian poets Oton Župančič and Josip Murn Aleksandrov. He translated Indian poet Jai dev's poetry Gita Govinda from Sanskrit. He also translated

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

's ''Venus and Adonis'' and ''Henry VIII'', T. S. Eliot's ''The Waste Land'', the nonsense poems by

Edward Lear Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limerick (poetry), limericks, a form he popularised. ...

and

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...

, the complete poetry of

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of 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 o ...

,. His translation of the

Tao Te Ching The ''Tao Te Ching'' () or ''Laozi'' is a Chinese classic text and foundational work of Taoism traditionally credited to the sage Laozi, though the text's authorship and date of composition and compilation are debated. The oldest excavated por ...

continues to be the most widely read in Hungary.

Legacy

Many of Weöres' poems have been set to music.

Zoltán Kodály Zoltán Kodály (, ; , ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, music pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music education. ...

composed a choral piece to the text of the 14-year-old poet's poem ''Öregek'' (“Old People”).

György Ligeti György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde music, avant-garde composers in the latter half of the ...

, a friend of the poet, set several poems from ''Rongyszőnyeg'' and other books in the composition '' Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedüvel''. Composer Peter Eötvös has composed two pieces, ''Atlantis'' and ''Ima'' with texts from Weöres' poem ''Néma zene'' ("Silent Music"), and in 2013 he composed ''Speaking Drums'' (Four Poems for Percussion Solo and Orchestra) based on the poems by Sándor Weöres. In 1980 the Hungarian filmmaker Gábor Bódy adapted the poem Psyché to make the epic feature Nárcisz és Psyché.

Works

Works in English

* ''Eternal Moment: Selected Poems by Sandor Weores'', 1988 * ''Selected Poems'', 1970 * ''Self-portrait: Selected poems by Sándor Weöres'', 1991

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

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weores, Sandor 1913 births 1989 deaths People from Szombathely 20th-century Hungarian poets Hungarian male poets University of Pécs alumni Hungarian children's writers 20th-century Hungarian male writers Burials at Farkasréti Cemetery Baumgarten Prize winners 20th-century Hungarian translators Translators to Hungarian English–Hungarian translators French–Hungarian translators