Árpád Tóth

Árpád Tóth (April 14, 1886 in Arad - November 7, 1928 in Budapest) was a Hungarian poet and translator.

Tóth went to Gymnasium (high school) in Debrecen and then studied German and Hungarian at the University of Budapest. In 1907, he poems began to appear in the papers A Hét and Vasárnapi Újság and after 1908 in Nyugat. In 1911, he became a theater critic for the paper Debreceni Nagy Újság.

In 1913, he became a tutor to a wealthy family and received a little income from writing but still lived in poverty. Tuberculosis led him to rest at the Svedlér Sanitorium in the Tatra Mountains.

During the period of the revolutionary government after World War I, he became secretary of the Vörösmarty Academy, but lost the position and couldn't find new work after the government's fall. He remained poor and sick with tuberculosis for the rest of his life and even considered suicide at one point – although he did join the staff of Az Est in 1921.

Work

He was a major lyric poet and contributed to the Nyugat School. His core themes focused on fleeting happiness and resignation.

He translated Milton, Oscar Wilde, Shelley, Keats, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Gautier, Maupassant, and Chekhov.