William Edward Harkins

Paul I. Trensky

A Symposium

Czech Literature Since 1956

Karel Čapek's R.U.R. and A. N. Tolstoj's Revolt of the Machines

Czech Prose, an Anthology

Deals with the impact of one kind of oral poetry of one Slavic people, the Russians, on a single century of literary development of another Slavic people, the Czech.

The Russian Folk Epos in Czech Literature, 1800-1900

Presents a systematic and critical account of Capek's fiction and plays, focusing on primarily his philosophical ideas and secondarily with the artistic structure, devices, and innovations he employs.

Karel Capek. [Mit Portr.] - New York & London: Columbia Univ. Press 1962. VII, 193 S. 8°

Life and Works

Karel Capek

Karel Hynek Mácha

The book is a translation, in rhymed and rhymic verse, of the Czech writer Karel Hynek Macha's long poem in the Byronic style, one of the most famous works of Czech literature. William Harkins is the translator and editor, and the poem, rendered here in both English translation and Czech, is accompanied by a preface and introduction. The story concerns the unhappy fate of a bandit hero who unwittingly kills his own father, who had seduced his lover. The poem is replete with an atmosphere of destiny and doom. The principal ironic device is paradox: life and love, emblematic of joy and happiness, lead inevitably to torture and death for the crime of parricide. Nature, at first rejoicing in the joy of love, turns into a mirror of gloom and death. Indeed, the poem is notable as one in the Byronic mode that closely involves Nature as a participant in the drama. Another notable feature is the poet's identification of himself with the victims of the tragedy, and the poem can be regarded as a premonition of the poet's imminent death, which occurred several months later in a tragic accident. Macha's poem was perhaps the strongest influence on subsequent Czech poetry and prose. Its romantic devices clearly anticipate much of twentieth-century literature: surrealism, existentialism, isolation and estrangement.

William Edward Harkins

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