Otokar Březina

Otokar Brezina (* September 13 1868 in Počátky, Bohemia, † March 25, 1929 in Jaroměřice Rokytná, Moravia; actually Václav Jebavý ) was one of the most important Czech poet.

Life

Brezina was the second son of Ignaz Jebavý and his third wife Catherine Fáková. After leaving school at the secondary school in Telc he was from 1887 to 1888 teachers in Jinošov. In 1888, he took off his teacher training and taught as an elementary school teacher until 1901 in Nová Říše, then until 1925 in Jaroměřice. In 1919 he received an honorary doctorate from Charles University and in the same year a member of the Czech Academy. In 1925 he left the teaching profession, which he regarded as a necessary evil. In 1928 he was awarded the National Prize for Literature, studied it alongside philosophy and modern science and wrote for the Modern Review. He died of a congenital heart defect. Brezina was twice (1924, 1928), nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Brezina was a member of the literary circle Česká moderna.

Works

He began under the influence of Baudelaire as a symbolist who gave this international art movement a specifically Czech touch. But soon he overcame his initial pessimism and turned to a metaphysical idealism, which expressed itself in mystical and ecstatic hymns of great beauty of form and symbol of wealth. He expected a general fusion of contradictory earthly phenomena in a future metaphysical union. Besides his poetry written Brezina also philosophical essays, which he introduced as a new genus in the Czech literature.

• Tajemné dálky, poems 1895 (Secret widths) - feeling lyric. He pushes it from its own pain, unrequited love for his dead mother. Central figure is the poet.
• Svítání na západě, poems 1896 ( Sunrise in the West)
• Vetry od polu, cycle of poems in 1897 (Eng. winds from the south after midnight, 1920, translation by Emil Saudek and Franz Werfel )
• Stavitelé chrámu, poems 1899 (German builder of the temple, 1920, translation by Emil Saudek and Franz Werfel )
• Ruce, poems 1901 ( German hands, 1908)
• Hymns, dt 1917
• Band of pramenů, Essays 1903, expanded in 1919 (German music of the sources, 1923, translation Franz Werfel ) is a collection of philosophical essays, which were published in magazines.
• Nine poems. Consecration of life. For the 60th birthday of the poet at September 13, 1928

German translations in anthologies and selections

• Hymns. Translated by Otto Pick, Kurt Wolff, 1913
• Recent Czech Poetry, 1916
• Czech anthology (Austrian Library 21 ), 1917
• From the Day of Judgement, 1917
• Winds from the south after midnight. In German paraphrase of Emil Saudek and Franz Werfel, Kurt Wolff, 1920
• A Harvest Wreath, 1926
• The Czechs, 1928
• My hands gentle load, DVB, Mainz, 2002; (Selected, translated and with an afterword by Walter Schamschula ) ISBN 3-87162-056-4