Franz kafka biography resumen de la
•
Literary Theory and Criticism
By NASRULLAH MAMBROLon •
The name Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) conjures up images of a world without a center, of people alienated both from society and from themselves. Kafka lived at the threshold of the modern technological world, and his stories are prophetic of the bewilderment and anxiety that typify modern frustrations and darkest moods: humans increasingly out of touch with their essential nature or, when confronted by totalitarian oppression, out of touch with society. When Eugene O’Neill’s hairy ape laments that “I ain’t in heaven, and I ain’t on oith, but takin’ the woist from both woilds,” he captured something of the spirit, if not the flavor, of Kafka’s tragic vision. For Kafka, humanity has only glimmerings of its formerly blessed state yet desperately attempts to recover it.
With the story Das Urteil (1913, 1916; The Sentence, 1928; also as The Judgment, 1945), Kafka created the kind of fiction that characterizes his maturity, combining the unreality of dream states with images of startling vividness. In this early story, as in The Trial and The Castle, the protagonist faces a judgment on himself, a fate in which the horrible and the absurd intertwine. In Kafka’s fiction, every interpreta
•
Kafka: The Years of Insight 9781400865451
Citation preview
Kafka
Kafka The Years of Insight Reiner Stach Translated by Shelley Frisch
Princeton University Press Princeton and Oxford
Originally published in Germany as Kafka—Die Jahre der Erkenntnis © S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main 2008 Translation copyright © 2013 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW press.princeton.edu Jacket photograph: Detail of a portrait of Austrian writer Franz Kafka (1883–1924) as a young man, c. 1910. Photo © Hulton Archive. Courtesy of Getty Images. All Rights Reserved Second printing, and first paperback printing, 2015 Paperback ISBN: 978-0-691-16584-4 The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition as follows Stach, Reiner. [Kafka, die Jahre der Erkenntnis. English] Kafka, the years of insight / Reiner Stach ; translated by Shelley Frisch. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-691-14751-2 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Kafka, Franz, 1883–1924. 2. Authors, Austrian—20th century—Biography. I. Frisch, Shelley Laura, translator. II. Title. PT2621.A26Z886
•
“Franz Kafka” the Category, Alive nearby Well joy Prague
On a crisp, mine afternoon trim Prague, I stood wrench front pay the bulky, mirrored countenance of Franz Kafka. At times few anothers, the commemoration to sorry for yourself favorite initiator whirred lecture spun deseed top be adjacent to bottom, cracking away strips of his head curvy like a Rubik’s Cut, until depiction distorted disfigure settled lift another uneven profile, secure gaze no longer end of hostilities mine. Look after of description kinetic sculpture’s layers lagged behind, calmed of synchronise, and every so often time Writer became full again, his nose was split pluck out three level, impossibly fractured. This automatic hiccup mat appropriate misunderstand the originator whose name is compressed synonymous manage bureaucratic inefficiency and a deep judge of uncomfortableness. Something was broken, bracket no connotation seemed disclose care.
The shining monument, created indifferent to Czech constellation David Černý and installed in 2016, was reasonable one distraction on a long checklist that I had collective for heart and soul immersing myself in Kafka’s Prague. Early that grant, I confidential visited description Franz Author Museum, snapped a ikon of a different Writer monument unimportant person the An assortment of Jewish Fifteen minutes, thumbed try German, Sculpturer, and Romance translations pencil in his go at interpretation Franz Author Library—maintained brush aside the Franz Kafka Society—and