His resignation from the army alienated his father, and he took refuge at his sister Teréz's house in Vas County.

He studied art, travelling to Vienna in 1812 and Italy in 1815, but had no luck with either writing or painting until April and June 1819, when his tragedies A tatárok Magyarországon ("The Tatars in Hungary") and Ilka, vagy Nándorfehérvár bevétele ("Ilka, or the Capture of Belgrade") were a great success.

He followed them up immediately with other dramas he had written: Stibor vajda ("The Voivode Stiber") and A kérők ("The Suitors"), in September, and A pártütők ("The Insurgents") in November; and the next year wrote three more.

In 1822, he founded the periodical Aurora, for which he was awarded the Marczibányi Prize in 1826, the same year that his father reinstated him in his will.

He is remembered for his plays and epigrams, and for poems like his elegy Mohács (1824), on the subject of the battle of 1526.