Imre Madách

Imre Madách (1823–1864) was a Hungarian dramatist and poet, born at Alsósztregova into an old landowning family of the county of Nógrád. He studied law, served as a county official, and after the failure of the 1848–49 revolution was imprisoned for sheltering a fugitive of the national cause. His marriage broke down in these years, and much of his writing was done in solitude on the family estate.

His reputation rests on The Tragedy of Man (Az ember tragédiája), finished in 1860 and published in 1861, a dramatic poem in fifteen scenes in which Adam, guided by Lucifer, sees the future of humankind in a series of dreams. It was little noticed at first, but came to be regarded as the Hungarian national classic of the stage. William N. Loew's English version appeared in New York in 1908.