The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Mácha, Karel Hynek
(kä´rel h´nk mä´khä) (KEY) , 1810–36, Czech romantic poet. After studying law at the Univ. of Prague he became a civil servant. He published a number of promising poems and wrote Pictures from My Life, introspective autobiographical sketches. This work was followed by Gypsies (1835–36), a novel. His long iambic poem May (1836, tr. 1932) is considered the finest lyric work in the Czech language; Czech iambic verse dates from this work. Mácha’s profoundly melancholy and nostalgic verse reveals his strong response to nature, medievalism, and Czech civilization as well as his fatalistic philosophy.
´n
k mä´khä) (KEY) , 1810–36, Czech romantic poet. After studying law at the Univ. of Prague he became a civil servant. He published a number of promising poems and wrote Pictures from My Life, introspective autobiographical sketches. This work was followed by Gypsies (1835–36), a novel. His long iambic poem May (1836, tr. 1932) is considered the finest lyric work in the Czech language; Czech iambic verse dates from this work. Mácha’s profoundly melancholy and nostalgic verse reveals his strong response to nature, medievalism, and Czech civilization as well as his fatalistic philosophy.
