Mihály Tompa Hungarian

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 lyric poet

Poet

A 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...

, was born in Rimaszombat

Rimavská Sobota

Rimavská Sobota is a town in southern Slovakia, in the Banská Bystrica Region, on the Rimava river. It has 24,374 inhabitants . The town is a historical capital of the Gömör-Kishont county .-Geography:...

, in the county of Gömör, his father being village bootmaker.

He studied law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

 and theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 in Sárospatak

Sárospatak

----Sárospatak is a town in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county, northern Hungary. It lies northeast from Miskolc, in the Bodrog river valley. The town, often called simply Patak, is an important cultural centre.- History :The area has been inhabited since ancient times...

, and subsequently at Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

; and, after many vicissitudes, at the age of thirty he accepted the post of Protestant minister in Beje, a small village in his native county, whence, in two years, he removed to Kelemér, and four years later to Hanva, in the county of Borsod, where he remained till his death.

At the age of four-and-twenty Tompa published his first poems in the Athenaeum, which soon procured for him a high reputation. His first volume, Népregék, népmondák ("Folk-Legends and Folk-Tales"), in 1846, met with great success, and the same may be said of the first volume of his Poems in 1847.

He took part in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848

Hungarian Revolution of 1848

The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was one of many of the European Revolutions of 1848 and closely linked to other revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas...

, acting as field chaplain to the volunteers of his county and seeing several battles; but the unfortunate close of that heroic struggle silenced his poetic vein for a considerable time, and when in 1852 and 1853 he gave vent to his patriotic grief in some masterly allegories on the state of oppressed Hungary, he was twice arrested by the Austrian authorities. He married Emilia Zsoldos in 1849.

After being released he published his Virágregék ("Legends of Flowers"), a collection of poems showing great imagination and love of nature. Soon after this he became oppressed with melancholy and abandoned this branch of poetry. He published three volumes of sermons, which, says his biographer, Károly Szász, Protestant bishop of Budapest, are among the best in Hungarian literature

Hungarian literature

Hungarian literature is literature written in the Hungarian language, predominantly by Hungarians.There is a limited amount of Old Hungarian literature dating to between the late 12th and the early 16th centuries...

, and will favourably compare with those of Robertson

William Bruce Robertson

William Bruce Robertson , Scottish divine, was born at Greenhill, St. Ninians, Stirling, 24 May, 1820, and was educated at the University of Glasgow and at the Secession Theological Hall, Edinburgh, where he made the acquaintance of Thomas de Quincey, and on his recommendation went to the...

, Monod

Adolphe Monod

Adolphe-Louis-Frédéric-Théodore Monod , was a French Protestant churchman. His elder brother was Frédéric Monod....

 or Parker

Matthew Parker

Matthew Parker was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1559 until his death in 1575. He was also an influential theologian and arguably the co-founder of Anglican theological thought....

. His collected poetical works were published at Budapest in 1870, and again in 1885.