In order to understand the poetic and prophetic significance of Endre Ady, the Hungarian poet, it is not enough to point out the pure poetic aspects of his work. No doubt, his supreme contribution is that of a poet; but he pursued political dreams, he was influenced by social events, he knew the kind of despair and possessed the kind of discriminating intelligence which should make him interesting to the non-Hungarian world as the symbol of twentieth-century Hungarian psychology. However, to take cognizance of a poet whose references are often definitely local and whose subtle implications, though moving towards the ideal of universality, are primarily explorations of the problems of his own nation affecting his own person, makes it necessary to show him in relationship to the politics, literary trends and social structure of the time that preceded his writings and activities and in relationship to his own time.

Ady's progressive spirit was misunderstood by many of his contemporaries. In the “gilded age” of Hungary, from 1867 till the first decade of the twentieth century, there was a bewildering confusion or dilettante complacency about poetic and patriotic values. The moral will of the nation, strongly attached to the interests of the “historical classes,” the aristocracy and the gentry, stepped between those poets who abhorred the jargon of transitory slogans, and those who were affected by expediency or by nationalistic sentimentalism.