요젭 어틸러(József Atilla)의 후기시 연구

Study of Attila J&oacute;zsef's poems : focus on the <To my birthday>

Attila J&oacute;zsef is one of the greatest poets of the 20th century in Hungarian Literature. He experienced the bitter misery of the working class and sad fate. But his misery is not only his personal problem but also that of millions in an Eastern Europe between the World Wars. At the second chapter of this paper we can know his life and poems. And then I tried to survey his poem <To my birthday>. His Romanian - born father deserted the family when the boy was only three; the mother, crushed under the weight of raising three children. He went out to farm, returned to his home environment,the industrial Budapest. His elder sister married with young, jewish lawyer who supported his family. After mother's death his brother in law became his guardian. Attila tried all trades but cared only for poetry. His name was very famous, and he was admitted as a genuine poet. But <Song of Innocence> was blamed for the religious reason,he had to leave Szeged University and finally gave up his university career. He traveled Vienna and Paris where he met Marxism and socialistic revolutionary ideas. He was affected with these ideas very strongly. Finally he became a member of the illegal Hungarian Communist Party. But he was expelled from the Party. In the late time, bursted out schizophrenia. He tried to overcome the disease with his lover Flora. But she fell in love with his rival writer, Illy&eacute;s Gyula. He left alone. Finally he committed suicide by jumping in the wheels of a train. Until his death, he continuously wrote a lot of poems. Among the latest poems, <To my birthday> is very delicious work. He wrote the very poem on his 32th birthday sitting down the corner of a Cafe. Unfortunately, nobody gave him a birthday gift. So he wrote this poem to give himself as gift. While he wrote the poem, he reminded of his expel from the Szeged University. He determined to be a famous poet who teaches whole hungarian nation. Instead he gave up his longtime dream to be a teacher. Attila J&oacute;zsef's poetry varied in his choice of versification and poetic forms. And his works show personal aspect. It is vivid echo of his life, his class, his nation, and humanity. His role, and the value of his work, were consequently slow to gain recognition. He is the greatest poet of the century. His poetry is shaped surrealism, expressionism and Hungarian folk songs.