Karel Hynek Mácha

“ Where, into yonder lake projects the narrow isle,
The shadows of whose towns and turrets high and steep
Bathe in the greenish lap of the waters cool and deep,
A din arises there, the morning to defile.
Through the city gates a throng crowds with a rising noise.
From far, the people haste—still larger grows the throng,
Then larger, larger grows this seething regiment;
Till countless is the mass—The throng grows more intent.
A man about to die will pass here before long. ”

“ As Novalis in his "Heinrich von Offerdingen" and in his beautiful "Hymnen an die Nacht" endeavored to create a "new poetry of poetry," highly elevated beyond the earthly striving, so Macha throughout his entire work tried to show that "art is the victory of spirit over nature and that the working of poetry is shown in a slow liberation of slaves from the grip of the matter. ”

“ Was stilled the noise and din along the lake's dark shores.
Above the distant mount, the sun flamed ere it sank:
And on this stillness deep, white moonlight cast its streaks,
Pouring its silver light about those lifeless cheeks,
And o'er the now stilled mound that stands above the bank,
The cities are far away, as the clouds upon the skies,
Beyond them. far beyond, now stare the lifeless eyes,
To a land of childhood days—a wondrous, wondrous age! ”

“ The poet was severely censured for this same lack of concreteness, for that hazy emotional rather than concretely pictorial effect, and this apparent defect no doubt retarded the recognition of the poet's true greatness. But in criticizing the poet, let us bear in mind that he had no precedent in his own language to fall upon, . . . that he is, in a marked sense, the founder of Czech poetry . . . that the phraseology is of his own invention . . . that he is a pioneer and as such, not as thorough as his followers could be. ”

“ Up to his appearance in the literary arena, poetry in Bohemia was considered a convenient medium for the expression of moralist and didactic teachings. Macha was the first Czech poet to create new realms of lyrical vision. His work showed exquisite sensibility and an elaborate musical rendering of ideas.
If we seek a comparison of Macha's creative qualities with those of other poets, the work of John Keats naturally suggests itself as that of a spirit basically akin to the nature of Macha's poetry. ”

“ While spread about the mound, sleeps a fra-grant floweret;
On the distant lake, a light its mystic beams compounds,
And glow worms flutter by, a^stars that quickly set,
Playing about the wheel, flying in glistening spheres.
At times upon the skull a glow worm sets its wings,
Quickly to fly away, to vanish as fallen tears. ”

“ Led to this barren void, my eyes—"
He and his voice despair.
Lightly the waves play o'er the deep
And 'neath the tower, near the shore,
The whispering waves that churn and break,
Seem to have lulled the man to sleep. ”

“ There is an old superstition that the last one buried on a cemetery must be left standing as a guard, and must remain standing every night till somebody else is buried, who then takes his place. In this manner, no cemetery is left without a guard, and it happens that on the cemeteries of small, isolated communities, the dead man is often left standing for several years."
TRANSLATOR'S REMARKS
In presenting this Czech "Romantic Poem" to the English reading public, I feel the need of stressing the musical rather than the poetic beauty of the work. ”

“ Upon which stands a wheel and pole . . .
Along the mountain, drear and blue,
A pine grove hums its mournful woe . . .
The sunshine floods the dale with glow
And a morning May spreads sparkling dew. ”

“ And wholly musically, the poem concludes with the original chords of the familiar quatrain. with the basic theme which, returning at the end, rounds out the poem and gives it unity of thought and mood. But the voice of the turtledove that formerly called for Geraldine and William, now calls for Hynek—the poet's name—a symbolic motive of his subjectivity, a purely musical formation that resounds in the last stanza of the poem to indicate how much its creator particle pates in it with his heart and his personal destiny. ”

“ Karel Hynek Macha, who was destined to become the first Czech poet In the original Greek sense of the word, that is, a maker of "things of beauty" of an everlasting joyfulness, was born of poor parents on the 16th of November, 1810, in Prague. During his student years, both in the gymnasium and the university, Macha devoted much of his leisure to the reading of romantic poetry, especially that of German and Polish authors. Since 1831 he became one of the most zealous followers of Joseph Jungmann, at that time professor at the University of Prague. ”

“ Slaves are we men."
At the same time, we cannot help noticing a very marked vein of glowing Slavonic sensitiveness and dreaminess in his work, and his "frightened feverish imagination," as he characterized it himself in one of his letters, may be directly traced to the influences of the Polish literature, especially to the two poets of the sister nation whom he most loved and revered: to Adam Mickiewicz and Julius Slowacki.
When four years after Goethe's death, in 1836, Macha's "romance in verses"—the lyrico-epic poem "May"—was published it was a literary event of prime importance. ”

“ The force of Byron's influence upon Macha, by which it is sometimes attempted to solve the existence of romantic elements in Macha's literary output, can, if at ail, be explained as a question of coincidences of time, but does not bear a strictly psychological analysis. ”

“ All this should be borne in mind when reading the translation of Macha's "May" and when criticizing or condemning the poetic quality and worth of this pride of the Czech literary world. The poem must be read with constant reference to one's own inner life, read for its emotion rather than its plot . . . for its music rather than its prosody. In the words of Prof. V. Vittinger. whose edition I have used in the preparation of this translation:
". ”

“ The musical element of Macha's masterpiece receives extended notice in F. V. Krejci's "Karel Hynek Macha," and I beg leave to quote several excerpts that throw an explanatory light on much that otherwise appears obscure. Speaking of the musical structure of the poem, "May," Krejci says:
"Yes, we can justly recall here a symphony—that expresses in its movements something of human destiny, and of a picture of life, and whose every movement is a crystallization of a definite feeling, a definite mood or the pic+orization of a definite scene. ”

“ In 1836, the year when "May" was published, Macha was graduated from the law school of the University of Prague with great honors, and he entered the office of a justiciary in Litomerice. That year, at the peak of his creative abilities, Macha contracted pneumonia while helping to fight a fire and died November 5th, 1836, at the age of 26 years.
The poet Macha stands as a unique figure on the threshold of modern Czech literature. ”

“ Thus, for instance, in the first part. the sedate, etc., love in nature is set against the wild, passionate, uncontrollable love of man; likewise other qualities of Maytime Nature are set against corresponding periods of human life in other parts. The story, then, or the action of the Poem, is not to be considered as the most important part of the poem, for only those parts of the story were used in the poem that were essential to the attainment of the main purpose. ”

“ In his concluding remarks about the musical formation of the poem. Krejci pays attention to the insertion of the poet's name, "Hynek," in the last line and interprets this as indicative of the poet's subjective attitude. This, according to F. V. Krejci. is an admission that throughout the poem it is the poet rather than the fictitious characters that are speaking, and once again let me quote Krejci's remarks:
". ”