Capek, Karel (1890–1938)

views updated

ČAPEK, KAREL (1890–1938)

Czech writer.

In 1921 Karel Čapek's scientific drama R.U.R. introduced the word robot to the world—although the word was actually coined by his brother Josef. Then, fifteen years later, on the brink of World War II, his dystopian novelistic satire War with the Newts (1936) presciently warned of runaway technology and militarism. Besides these two works, however, few Westerners are aware that Čapek was a prolific and versatile novelist, short story writer, dramatist, travel writer, poet, and even biographer of Czechoslovakia's first president, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850–1937).

Čapek studied philosophy at Charles University as well as attended lectures on art and aesthetics. In 1915 he defended his doctoral dissertation entitled Objective Methods in Aesthetics. It was a long article he composed on American Pragmatism, however, that seems to have most influenced his later writing and thinking. After a brief stint as a tutor, Čapek assumed the post on the editorial board of the daily Národní listy and remained a journalist for the rest of his life. Čapek began writing short fiction with his brother Josef, and their collaborative work is collected in two volumes, Luminous Depths (1916) and The Garden of Krakonoš (1918). Here we find a curious mixture of burlesque tales, anecdotes, and feuilletons, many of them parodic of symbolist and decadent literature. The overall tone is lyric, eccentric, and above all erotic. Thereafter Karel and Josef parted ways, with Josef going on to become a well-known avant-garde poet and painter, and Karel continuing in a more somber and philosophic vein. Čapek's subsequent collection of stories, Wayside Crosses (1917), considers epistemological and metaphysical questions and the stories usually hinge on an inexplicable mystery such as a solitary footprint. In 1921 Čapek published the short story collection Painful Tales. Here the mystery has disappeared and is replaced with something painful, embarrassing, or disturbing. Many critics claimed the book was nihilistic. As he was working on these stories, Čapek published his own translations of French avant-garde poetry, including poems by Guillaume Apollinaire and Charles Baudelaire. The impact on postwar avant-garde Czech poets such as Jaroslav Seifert and Vítěslav Nezval was C profound.

In 1921 Čapek achieved worldwide fame with his drama R.U.R. (written in 1920). The play presents artificial beings used as slaves, who ultimately revolt against their masters. The play was immediately translated and performed in dozens of languages throughout the world and introduced the world not only to Čapek, but Czech literature as well. Other dystopian works followed hard upon, such as the scientific fantasy novels Factory for the Absolute (1922) and Krakatit (1924). Čapek's drama The Makropulos Affair (1922) considers the effect of an elixir of life and inspired Leoš Janáček's opera of the same name in 1926.

In the 1920s Čapek also published several lighter works more in line with his journalistic vocation, volumes on gardening, everyday objects, and words. Each of his trips abroad resulted in a book—Letters from Italy (1929), Letters from England (1925), Letters from Spain (1930), which were quite well received. Čapek also delved into the detective genre with Tales from One Pocket and Tales from the Other Pocket, both published in 1929 and then collected in Tales from Two Pockets (1932).

When Czechoslovakia achieved its independence following World War I, Čapek was heavily involved in its cultural and public life, and his career is intimately linked to the First Czechoslovak Republic. His "Friday-Men Club" functioned as a sort of weekly debating society, which gathered together men of all political backgrounds, including President Masaryk. Čapek's friendship with Masaryk was close, and from 1928 to 1935 he published three biographical volumes of the president. Also in the 1930s during the rise to power of Adolf Hitler (1889–1945), Čapek wrote a series of essays critical of fascism and communism and expounding the public duty of intellectuals. It was at this time that Čapek's creative work reached its zenith with his trilogy of novels Hordubal (1933), Meteor (1934), and An Ordinary Life (1934), investigations into epistemology and identity. As Hitler's power grew next door in Germany, Čapek's warnings against war and the nature of totalitarian power continued with his novel War with the Newts (1936) and the dramas The White Plague (1937) and The Mother (1938). A group of French writers repeatedly asked the Nobel committee to award the prize for literature to Čapek, but the Swedes refused for fear of offending neighboring Nazi Germany. When the committee asked Čapek to write something that would offend no one, he replied, "I've already written my doctoral dissertation." Čapek died on Christmas Day 1938, shortly after the western powers' appeasement of Hitler with the Munich agreement, which ceded the Czechoslovak border regions to Germany, and shortly before Hitler's invasion and dismemberment of the country.

See alsoOrwell, George; Zamyatin, Yevgeny.