Balassi, Bálint (1554–1594)

Hungarian poet, born in Bohemia. He produced, for the first time in Hungarian, lyric poetry of great beauty and freshness, as in A végek dicsérete/In Praise of the Marches (1589).

Much of Balassi's life was spent fighting the occupying Turks, and in litigation to recover his estates. Couched in a variety of original verse forms, his works treat the themes of love, God, and the military life: his poems include the Julia cycle (1587); the Anna poems (1578); and Adj má csendességet/Grant Me Peace (1591).