Franz Kafka
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Franz Kafka (July 3, 1883 in Prague, Austria-Hungary - June 3, 1924 in Vienna, Austria) was one of the major German language writers of the 20th century most of whose work was published posthumously. His unique body of writing continues to challenge critics, and attempts to classify his work are generally inadequate.
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Life
Kafka was born July 3, 1883, into a middle class German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Bohemia - at that time a part of Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father was the dry goods (Galanteriewaren) merchant Hermann Kafka (1852-1931) and his mother was Julie Kafka, nee Löwy (1856-1934). Although his native language was German, he also learned Czech as a child, since his father came into Prague from south Bohemian Czech-speaking Jewish community ("kafka" means "jackdaw" in Czech) and he wanted his son to be fluent in both languages. He also had some knowledge of French language and culture; one of his favorite authors was Flaubert and he had a sentimental affinity for Napoleon. He had two brothers, Georg and Heinrich, neither of whom lived two full years and died before Kafka was six, and three sisters, Elli, Valli and Ottla. From 1889 to 1893, Kafka attended the elementary school (Deutsche Knabenschule) at Masná St. (Fleischmarkt) in Prague and then the high school at Staroměstské náměstí (located in Kinsky Palace) where he finished his Matura exam in 1901. He went on to study law at the Charles University of Prague, and obtained his law degree in 1906, then worked for a worker's accident insurance agency. He began writing on the side. In 1917 he began to suffer from tuberculosis, which would require frequent convalescence during which he was supported by his family, most notably his sister Ottla, with whom he had much in common.
The asceticism and self-deprecation with which Kafka is associated is well-documented in the letters of his and of his friends and family; however, it does need to be put into context. Chronic sickness—whether it was psychosomatic is a matter for debate—plagued him; aside from tuberculosis, he suffered from migraines, insomnia, constipation, boils, and other ailments. He attempted to counteract this by a regimen of naturopathic treatments, such as a vegetarian diet and consumption of large quantities of unpasteurized milk (the latter possibly the causal factor of his tuberculosis). Most likely today he would have been diagnosed as clinically depressed, but because of this his self-critical attitudes are severely exaggerated. While at school, he took an active role in organizing literary and social events, he did much to promote and organize performances for Yiddish theatre, despite the misgivings of even his closest friends such as Max Brod, who usually supported him in everything else, and quite contrary to his fear of being perceived as both physically and mentally repulsive, impressed others with his boyish, neat, and austere good looks, his quiet and cool demeanor, and his intelligence and odd sense of humor.
Kafka's relationship with his domineering father is an important theme in his writing. In the early 1920s he had an influential love affair with Czech journalist and writer Milena Jesenská. In 1923 he briefly moved to Berlin in the hope of distancing himself from his family's influence to concentrate on his writing. His tuberculosis worsened; he returned to Prague, then went to a sanatorium near Vienna for treatment, where he died on June 3, 1924, apparently from starvation (Kafka's condition made it too painful on his throat to eat, and since intravenous therapy had not been developed, there was no way to feed him). His body was brought back to Prague where he was buried June 11, 1924 in the New Jewish Cemetery in Prague-Zizkov.
Grave_of_Kafka.JPG
Kafka published only a few short stories during his lifetime, a small part of his work, and consequently his writing attracted little attention until after his death. Prior to his death, he instructed his friend and literary executor Max Brod to destroy all of his manuscripts. His lover Dora Dymant faithfully destroyed the manuscripts that she had, but Brod did not follow Kafka's instructions and oversaw the publication of most of his work, which soon began to attract attention and critical regard. All his published works, except several Czech letters to Milena Jesenská, were written in German.
Critical interpretation
There have been many critics who have tried to make sense of Kafka's works by interpreting them through certain schools of literary criticism—as modernist, magical realist, and so on. The apparent hopelessness and the absurdity that seem to permeate his works are considered emblematic of existentialism. Others have tried to locate Marxist influence in his satirization of bureaucracy in pieces such as In the Penal Colony, The Trial, and The Castle. Still others have interpreted his works through the lens of Judaism (because he was Jewish and had an interest in Jewish culture, though he only cultivated it late in life)—Borges made a few perceptive remarks in this regard; through Freudianism (because of his familial struggles); or as allegories of a metaphysical quest for God (Thomas Mann was a proponent of this theory). Themes of alienation and persecution are repeatedly emphasized, and this emphasis—notably in the work of Marthe Robert—partly inspired the counter-criticism of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, who argued that there was much more to Kafka than the stereotype of a lonely figure writing out of anguish, and that his work was more deliberate, subversive and yet "joyful" than it appears to be.
Kafka in cinema
For a full list of films The IMDb filmography (http://imdb.com/find?q=Kafka;tt=on;nm=on;mx=20)
- Orson Welles wrote and directed an adaptation of The Trial in 1962 starring Anthony Perkins. Welles considered it to be his best film.
- A film in which Jeremy Irons stars as the eponymous author was released in 1991. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, the movie mixes his life and fiction providing a semi-biographical presentation of Kafka's life and works. The story concerns Kafka investigating the disappearance of one of his work colleagues. The plot takes Kafka through many of the writer's own works, most notably The Castle and The Trial.
- Franz Kafka's 'It's a Wonderful Life' (1993) is a short film written and directed by Peter Capaldi and starring Richard E. Grant as Kafka. The film blends "Metamorphosis" with Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life with extremely amusing results.
- Metamorphosis, 1987 http://imdb.com/title/tt0093530/
- Die Verwandlung (1975) http://imdb.com/title/tt0174019/
- Förvandlingen (1976/I) http://imdb.com/title/tt0074561/
- Prevrashcheniye (2002) http://imdb.com/title/tt0328279/
- Menschenkörper [1] (http://www.menschenkoerper.de) (2004)http://imdb.com/title/tt0411641/
Online texts
to be added
Metamorphosis (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5200)
Bibliography
Short Stories
- Description of a Struggle (Beschreibung eines Kampfes - 1904-1905)
- Wedding Preparations in the Country (Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande - 1907-1908)
- The Judgment (Das Urteil - September 22-23, 1912)
- The Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung - November-December 1912)
- In the Penal Colony (In der Strafkolonie - October 1914)
- The Village Schoolmaster (The Giant Mole) (Der Dorfschullehrer or Der Riesenmaulwurf - 1914-1915)
- Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor (Blumfeld, ein älterer Junggeselle - 1915)
- The Warden of the Tomb (Der Gruftwächter - 1916-1917), the only play Kafka wrote
- A Country Doctor (Ein Landarzt - 1917)
- The Hunter Gracchus (Der Jäger Gracchus - 1917)
- The Great Wall of China (Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer - 1917)
- A Report to an Academy (Ein Bericht für eine Akademie - 1917)
- The Refusal (Die Abweisung - 1920)
- A Hunger Artist (Ein Hungerkünstler - 1922)
- Investigations of a Dog (Forschungen eines Hundes - 1922)
- A Little Woman (Eine kleine Frau - 1923)
- The Burrow (Der Bau - 1923-1924)
- Josephine the Singer, or The Mouse Folk (Josephine, die Sängerin, oder Das Volk der Mäuse - 1924)
Many collections of the stories have been published, and they include:
- Kafka, Franz (ed. Nahum N. Glatzer). The Complete Stories. New York: Schocken Books, 1971.
Novels
- The Trial (Der Prozeß - 1925) (includes short story Before the law (http://www.pith.net/pithfiles/b4law.htm))
- The Castle (Das Schloß - 1926)
- America (Amerika - 1927)
Diaries and notebooks
- Diaries of Franz Kafka
- The Blue Octavo Notebooks
Letters
- Letters to Felice
- Letters to Ottla
- Letters to Milena
- Franz Kafka: Letters to Family, Friends, and Editors
On Kafka
- Brod, Max. Franz Kafka: A Biography. New York: Da Capo Press, 1995.
- Brod, Max. The biography of Franz Kafka, tr. from the German by G. Humphreys Roberts. London: Secker & Warburg, 1947.
- Citati, Pietro, Kafka, 1987.
- Deleuze, Gilles & Felix Guattari. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature (Theory and History of Literature, Vol 30). Minneapolis, University of Minnesota, 1986.
- Greenberg, Martin, The terror of art; Kafka and modern literature. New York, Basic Books,1968.
- Hayman, Ronald. K, a Biography of Kafka., London: Phoenix Press, 2001.
- Murray, Nicholas. Kafka. New Haven: Yale, 2004.
- Pawel, Ernst. The Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka. New York : Vintage Books, 1985.
- Thiher, Allen (ed.). Franz Kafka: A Study of the Short Fiction (Twayne's Studies in Short Fiction, No 12).
See also
- Asteroid 3412 Kafka, named after the author.
- Max Brod
- List of famous Austrians
- List of Austrian writers
External links
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- The Kafka Project (http://www.kafka.org/) Project initiated in 1998 with the purpose of publishing online all Kafka texts in German, in the form of the manuscripts
- Das Schloss (http://www.themodernword.com/kafka/) The Modern Word's Kafka site, with an in-depth biography and various links to reviews, articles, and other Kafka info
- Franz Kafka (1883-1924) (http://www.levity.com/corduroy/kafka.htm)
- Kafka Critics (http://dnausers.d-n-a.net/dnetrgoA/critlist.htm)
- Essay on Kafka (http://www.k-eins.de/)
- Kafka at the Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database (http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med-db/webdocs/webauthors/kafka91-au-.html) including brief, insightful summaries and essays of several of his stories
- Kafka at Katharena Eirmann's Realm of Existentialism (http://www.dividingline.com/private/Philosophy/Philosophers/Kafka/kafka.shtml)
- Vladimir Nabokov's lecture on "The Metamorphosis" (http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vermeer/287/nabokov_s_metamorphosis.htm)
- Kafka in Film (http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0102181/) Internet Movie Database listing of Soderbergh's film, Kafka.
- Kafka Comedy (http://imdb.com/title/tt0106961/) Internet Movie Database listing of Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life.
- Franz Kafka and Libertarian Socialism (http://www.wpunj.edu/~newpol/issue23/lowy23.htm) A look at Kafka and anarchism.bg:Франц Кафка
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