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1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Csokonai, Mihaly Vitez

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21628531911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 7 — Csokonai, Mihaly Vitez

CSOKONAI, MIHALY VITEZ (1773–1805), Hungarian poet, was born at Debreczen in 1773. Having been educated in his native town, he was appointed while still very young to the professorship of poetry there; but soon after he was deprived of the post on account of the immorality of his conduct. The remaining twelve years of his short life were passed in almost constant wretchedness, and he died in his native town, and in his mother’s house, when only thirty-one years of age. Csokonai was a genial and original poet with something of the lyrical fire of Petöfi, and wrote a mock-heroic poem called Dorottya or the Triumph of the Ladies at the Carnival, two or three comedies or farces, and a number of love-poems. Most of his works have been published, with a life, by Schedel (1844–1847).