Josef Jiří Král

“ Accordingly, the long-oppressed nation slowly rose from its sleep of two centuries, and the dawn of the nineteenth century was the morning of modern Bohemian literature, which was naturally founded, in the main, upon foreign models. It was the genius of Shakespeare that inspired the best of the new Bohemian dramatists. Wellnigh impossible was it to dramatize the glorious deeds of their domestic forefathers, because that would mean to celebrate heroes who were enemies either to the dynasty or to the Established Church ”

“ The progress of the story is extremely logical, reaching the boundaries of mere probability. The characters are different from every-day types, they are men of firm and independent opinions, energetically pursuing their aims, whether good or bad; they are strong minds, deep thinkers, and masters of their feelings and passions; they despise the well-trodden paths of the commonplace.
A feature among his works are novels and studies from the life of artists—e.g., ‘The Bohemian Paganini’ and ‘Il divino Boemo,’ stories of two talented Bohemian musicians ”

“ The general knowledge of Shakespeare’s works has made many of the witty sayings of Hamlet and other heroes of the British poet proverbial. Shakespeare is recognized as the greatest of modern poets, as Homer was of the ancient singers, and some of his works may always be found in the repertoires of theatrical companies. ”

“ It is to be regretted that in Bohemia authors must respect their reader a little too much and have to “harmonize” their works with the latter’s views. Besides, the Catholic hierarchy is powerful as yet in Bohemia and hard to oppose, and Arbes is a liberal freethinker: his writings fight against prejudices of all sorts and religious and other superstitions; it follows that he cannot be as explicit as we might wish, only a hint, an allusion here and there, allows the reader to guess the author's real meaning. ”

“ Yet we admire the great mastery with which he depicts the inner life to men; we must acknowledge his great merit: he introduced into Bohemian literature a more truthful presentation of life, and his works did much towards disseminating the advanced doctrines of modern philosophy. ”

“ The great variety of his subjects, and his striving for originality both in the plots and the ideas of his books, may be partially accounted for by the fact that, as regards his living, Arbes is wholly dependent on his literary work, and in order to stand the competition of a host of excellent writers he must always have something not only good but also original and interesting to offer to the reading public. ”

“ Even the National Theatre of Prague, which is expected to foster the interests of domestic art almost exclusively, devotes on an average four evenings in a year to Shakespeare. The favorite plays are ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ ‘Hamlet,’ ‘Othello,’ and ‘Coriolanus,’ and it may be said that theatrical enthusiasts treat the “Shakespearian days” as holidays. The best interpreters of Shakespeare on the Bohemian stage have been thus far Messrs. ”

“ And the intellectual benefit derived from the study of the language would fully compensate the student.
The author whose name heads this article is a Bohemian novelist of the romantic school, if we may be permitted to use that word. We call this class romantic to distinguish its writers from those of the national school,—that is, writers who choose their characters and subjects from the rich Bohemian history, past and present, whose works are pervaded by what we might call the national spirit. The most prominent among the living representatives of this class are. ”

“ The authors of the other category, on the contrary, picture simply men as such and not as members of a particular nationality. They work under the influences of modern times, which tend to rub off the peculiarities of different nations. ”

“ We cannot enter upon a minute consideration of any of his productions, but we give here, in few words only, rough contours of some of his novels, so as to convey some idea of what the books deal with.
‘Moderní upíři’ (Modern Vampires) is a story of two young men bred up in the cold atmosphere of modern thought. They are speculators and complete egotists. ”

“ Scientific problems of all kinds are solved in the so-called ‘Romanettoes.’ The hero of ‘The Ethiopian Lily’ is a young pharmaceutist, who tries to find out a medicine that would prolong life and take away all the pain that dying persons suffer. ”

“ The faults and defects of human society are palpably shown by the reader’s comparing the heroes of these stories with the average persons of cold reality. Among other characters of this gallery we find a judge who fines a poor widow for damage done by her geese to the crop of a wealthy lord. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1951, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 72 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”