Author. He is a recognized Hungarian poet, translator, and journalist. He is often said to be the "Shakespeare of ballads." He wrote more than 102 ballads that have been translated into over 50 languages. His simple and very realistic poetry is based on Hungarian folk traditions. He wrote the "Toldi Trilogy," which consist of "Toldi" in 1846, "Toldi's Night" in 1848, and "Toldi's Love" in 1879. The trilogy traces the life of the 14th-century military hero, Miklos Toldi, who served in the Hungarian army of King Louis. The trilogy has become part of modern-day school curriculum. In the 1980s, the ballad has been adapted to an animated film, "Heroic Times." His birthplace was Bihor County in the Kingdom of Hungary, but since 1925, Bihor is mainly in Romania. Born the youngest of ten children, he was among the two children that did not die from tuberculosis before reaching adulthood. His father, György Arany, was born into Hungarian nobility, yet did not have the riches that went with that honor. Besides being an enthusiastic reader, his education was from schooling at home with his family. At age fourteen, he started working to help the family's income. By age sixteen, he was attending Reformed College of Debrecen studying languages, before joining an acting touring group and then becoming a clerk and a newspaper editor during the Hungarian Revolution in 1848. He became a professor of Hungarian literature at Nagykőrös College. Taking first place in a Kisfaludy Society competition in 1847, he received recognition as an author with his satirical poem, which was inspired by local politics, "The Lost Constitution." Among his other works are "King Buda's Death," which was translated to English in 1936, and two unfinished pieces, "Ildiko", and "Prince Csaba." He wrote a ballad about 500 Welsh bards, "The Bards of Wales," being slaughtered at Montgomery Castle by Edward I of England in 1277. In 2011 Welsh composer Karl Jenkins wrote a cantata adapted from Arany's 19th century poem, which was performed in Wales and Hungary. In May of 2022, a plague with Arany's bas-relief was erected at Montgomery Castle as a memorial to this historical 1277 event and the poem. He became a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1858, serving as secretary-general in 1865. He was the third director of the Kisfaludy Society, a literary group. A postage stamp was issued several times with his image. Numerous poems written by him have been translated to English. He translated three dramas of Shakespeare into Hungarian, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Hamlet" and "King John," and they are some of the greatest translations into Hungarian in history. He married and had two children. His daughter died young and his son became a poet. A museum was erected in his name in Nagykőrös. With his "Toldi Trilogy" characters in bronze, Miklós Toldi and Piroska Rozgonyi, positioned on the base of the Janos Arany Monument in front of the Hungarian National Museum, his larger-than-life sitting statue in bronze is positioned atop the grand monument.