Franz Kafka

Literature / Writer's Datebook: July 3

Brief biography of Austrian author Franz Kafka, novelist and short story writer, famous for his short story "The Metamorphosis" and the novel The Trial. 

 

 Austrian novelist Franz Kafka works, strange and disturbing, have had a great influence on 20^th-century Western literature, including the writers Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett. He is best known for "Metamorphosis" and The Trial.

His often portrayal of the world is one of a schizophrenic society in which a lost or bewildered individual has strayed.

 

Early Years

Franz Kafka was born on July 3, 1883, in Prague, (now in the Czech Republic, then part of Austria). The son of German-Jewish parents, he was a shy and hypersensitive man who lived with his parents for most of his short life. He studied law at the German University in Prague although his passion was writing. His break came when he got a job writing reports on industrial accidents and health hazards. The only time he had for creative writing was in the evenings.

 Although very much attached to his father, he eventually moved to Berlin with Dora Dymant in 1923, before he succumb to lung cancer the following year.

 

Kafka: The Writer and his Theme

 Some of Kafka's early stories were published when he was 26 years old. In the summer of 1912 he wrote the two short stories, "The Judgement" and "The Metamorphosis," that established his importance as a writer. The "Metamorphosis" became Kafka's most famous story. It is about a man who wakes to find that he has been transformed overnight into a giant insect.

Both stories feature a theme common to all his work: a lonely victim who suffers persecution for a crime he does not understand. This theme is carried further in Kafka's most famous novel, The Trial, in which the hero, Joseph K., is unaware of the offence for which he is persecuted and finally executed. This ideas has been described as an allegory for the bewilderment felt by many people living in the modern world.

  

Later Years 

Kafka refused to allow any of his three novels to be published during is lifetime and left instructions to his friend Max Brod that all his manuscripts should be burned after his death. Fortunately for literature, Brod decided to publish the manuscripts posthumously, and translated by Edwin and Willa Muir. A number of his other writings have also been published posthumously. He died at the age of 40, on June 3, 1923.   

 

Works by Franz Kafka

"The Boilerman", 1913

"Meditations", 1913 ("Betrachtungen")

"The Judgement", 1913

The Metamorphosis", 1915 ("Die Verwandlung" or "The Transformation")

"In the Penal Colony", 1919

The Country Doctor, 1919

Published After Kafka Died:

The Trial, 1925 ("Der Prozess")

The Castle, 1926 ("Das Schloss")

America, 1927 ("Amerika")

 

Image Credit:

Franz Kafka. Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain

 

Resources:

Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una McGovern, Chambers, 2002

Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse, 1994   

 

(c) July 2009. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Literature / Poets Datebook: December 4

 

Brief biography and work of Rainer Maria Rilke, Czech-Austrian poet, novelist and writer, famous for Sonnets to Orpheus and Duino Elegies.  

Rainer Maria Rilke was an outstanding lyric poet, one of the most important figures in modern German literature. He belonged to the Symbolist movement, who used images to represent what a person felt or thought.

Early Life of Rainer Maria Rilke

Rilke was born on December 4, 1875, in Prague, at that time a part of the Austrian Empire, and now the capital of Czech Republic. He was sent to a military academy, but this was apparently not his interest. He left to study art history in Germany. He was rather shy, and did not make friends easily, not a sociable young man, and in times of social difficulties his response was to stay away.

The Wanderer: European Travels

Rilke became a constant wanderer through Europe. He made two journeys to Russia, where he met Leo Tolstoy and was deeply impressed by what he learned of Russian religion. However, he settled in Paris where he became secretary to the sculptor Auguste Rodin, and in 1901 he married one of the pupils of Rodin.

Writing Style

Rilke's work was highly influenced by his education and classic authors. Ancient gods Apollo, Hermes and Orpheus are found in his poems according to his lyrical interpretations. He also represented his work with metaphors. 

Below,  Rilke's 'On the Beauty and Difficulty of Solitude'. YouTube, uploaded by That you are here now. Accessed December 4, 2022.  Solitude is a painful and beautiful thing. Rainer Maria Rilke thought so. In his 'Letters To A Young Poet', Rilke speaks of the beauty and difficulty of solitude - and its necessity in our lives.

Prose and Poetry

Rilke consecrated his life to poetry. His first book of poems, Life and Songs, was published when he was 19. His earliest poems were about nature and traditional religion. Later, these simple themes were left behind as his poems became increasingly mystical, and poems became things to him, particularly the sacred ones. Between the ages of 30 and 40 he produced some of his finest poetry and the important prose, The Tale of the Love and Death of Cornet Christopher Rilke. He also wrote the book Journal of My other Self, which is the story of an imaginary poet. Rilke's two masterpieces are verse sequences, Sonnets to Orpheus and Duino Elegies, written shortly before his premature death from blood poisoning.  He died on December 29, 1926 at the age of 51, in Montreux, Switzerland.   

Rainer Maria Rilke's influence has been far and wide – often quoted and celebrated by literary greats, quoted in music, television, and films.

He chose his own epitaph:

"Rose, oh the pure contradiction, delight, of being no-one's sleep under so many lids."

 

Works by Rainer Maria Rilke

Life and Songs, 1894

Stories of God, 1900

The Book of Hours, 1905

The Tale of the Love and Death of Cornet Christopher Rilke, 1905

New Poems, 1907

The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge, 1910

Journal of My Other Self, 1910

Sonnets to Orpheus, 1923

Duino Elegies, 1923

Where Silence Reigns, 1978 (Published after his death)

 

Resources:

1. Illustrated Biographical Dictionary edited by John Clark. London: Chancellor Press, 1994

2. Chambers Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una Mcgovern, Chambers Harrap, Edinburgh, 2002

3. Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring. Larousse, 1994

4. The A-Z of Great Writers, by Tom Payne. Carlton Book, 1997

(c) December 2008. Updated December 4, 2022. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.