Julius Zeyer (26 April 1841 – 29 January 1901) was a Czech prose writer,

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

, and

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

Personal life

Zeyer was born on 26 April 1841 in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

. His mother, Elisabeth Eleonora (née Weisseles), came from a German Jewish-turned-Catholic family, and his father, Jan Zeyer, was a

carpenter Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenter ...

and timber merchant with relations to French ( Alsatian) nobility. He was taught to speak Czech by his nanny. Growing up, he was expected to take over the family's factory but decided to study carpentering instead. All of his attempts at graduation from high school or university were unsuccessful. He spent a significant portion of his life travelling across Europe and the East. In around 1877, he moved to Vodňany, where he spent over a decade focusing on his literary work. His last years were spent living in Prague.

Works

Zeyer's prose and poems convey a sense of restlessness, nostalgia, mysticism, and gloominess, and generally feature tragic endings. He combined European and Eastern mythologies with themes particular to Czech society and history, and, similarly to the Decadents, often employed a blend of religious and erotic imagery. He was associated with the "Lumír" school, a circle of writers grouped around a magazine of the same name who were influenced by western-European, primarily French, literary currents. Zeyer's epics, ''Vyšehrad'' (1880) and ''Karolinská epopej'' (1896), among others, draw from Czech and French legends respectively, and put bygone glory in contrast with Zeyer's bleak present times. He was inspired by Czech, Russian, Irish, and French history, as well as Scandinavian myths. His novels generally follow characters seeking to realize their romanticized ideas of life, many of who only find peace in death. His semi-autobiographical novel ''Jan Maria Plojhar'' (1891) deals with the tragic nature of being an artist. His collection of three short stories, “ Tři legendy o krucifixu” (1895), builds upon the story of Christ's crucifixion and explores themes of Czech Nationalism and the value of art. The first story, “Inultus”, explores the idea of an artist driven mad by her work. It follows an Italian sculptor as she attempts to create a realistic depiction of the crucifixion, eventually murdering her model, the titular character, in a fit of creative insanity. Plot-wise, Zeyer's dramatic works follow a similar pattern. Josef Suk composed his '' Pohádka'' based on Zeyer's play '' Radúz and Mahulena''.

Leoš Janáček Leoš Janáček (, 3 July 1854 – 12 August 1928) was a Czech composer, Music theory, music theorist, Folkloristics, folklorist, publicist, and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian folk music, Moravian and other Slavs, Slavic music, includin ...

used his theater play about a Czech mythical heroine ''Šárka'' as a libretto for his

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

References

External links

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Short biography (in English)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zeyer, Julius 1841 births 1901 deaths Burials at Vyšehrad Cemetery 19th-century Czech novelists Czech Catholics Czech Jews Novelists from Austria-Hungary Poets from Austria-Hungary Dramatists and playwrights from Austria-Hungary Czech male novelists Czech nationalists 19th-century Czech poets Czech male poets Czech male dramatists and playwrights Czech people of French descent Czech people of German-Jewish descent Writers from Prague Czech gay writers Czech LGBTQ poets Czech LGBTQ novelists Gay dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Czech dramatists and playwrights 19th-century Czech male writers Gay Jews Gay poets Gay novelists