Career
He was the first greater Slovak poet to write exclusively in the newly standardized literary Slovak language. His predecessors mostly wrote in various regional versions of Czechoslovakian, Slovakized Czechoslovakian or Latin. Hollý translated Virgil"s Aeneid and wrote his own epic poetry in alexandrine verse to show that the Slovak language recently standardized by Anton Bernolák was capable of expressing complex poetic forms.
Hollý studied in Skalica, Bratislava and Trnava.
He was a Catholic priest at Madunice near Piešťany, where he wrote all his major works sitting below a big tree. He used the topic of Great-Moravian ruler Svätopluk to encourage the nation, and is regarded as the founding father of Slovak poetry.
