Károly Kerényi

Károly (Carl, Karl) Kerényi (Hungarian: Kerényi Károly, pronounced [ˈkɛreːɲi ˈkaːroj]; 19 January 1897 – 14 April 1973) was a Hungarian scholar in classical philology and one of the founders of modern studies of Greek mythology.

Károly Kerényi was born in Temesvár, Austria-Hungary (now Timișoara, Romania) to Hungarian parents of German origin. His father’s family was of Swabian peasant descent. Kerényi learnt German as a foreign language at school, and chose it as his language for scientific work. He identified himself with the city of Arad, where he attended secondary school, because of its liberal spirits as the city of the 13 martyrs of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848/49. He moved on to study classical philology at the University of Budapest where he mostly appreciated the teaching of the Latinist Géza Némethy as well as of the Indo-Germanist Josef Schmidt. After graduation Kerényi travelled extensively in the Mediterranean region and spent time as a visiting student at the Universities of Greifswald, Berlin and Heidelberg, learning from the professors of antiquity and classical philology, Eduard Norden, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and Franz Boll. In 1919 Kerényi earned his doctorate in Budapest with a dissertation on Plato and Longinus, Investigations in Classical Literary and Aesthetic History. Subsequently he taught Greek and Latin in a secondary school. He earned his postdoctoral lecture qualification (habilitation) in 1927, and then was asked in 1934 to become a professor of classical philology and ancient history (Griechische und Lateinische Philologie und Alte Geschichte) at the University of Pécs. In Budapest he continued to lecture as private docent on the history of religions, classical literature and mythology, weekly events that were attended by many intellectuals because of their liberal connotations.

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