Mácha, Karel Hynek

▪ Czech poet

born Nov. 16, 1810, Prague, Bohemia, Austrian Empire [now in Czech Republic]

died Nov. 5, 1836, Litoměřice

      literary artist who is considered the greatest poet of Czech Romanticism.

      Born of poor parents, Mácha was influenced as a student by the Czech national revival and by English and Polish Romantic literature. After wandering amid ruined castles in the Bohemian countryside and a journey to northern Italy (1834), he completed his law studies at Prague and took up a legal post in Litoměřice in 1836. But he soon succumbed to pneumonia, when not quite 26 years old.

      After schoolboy attempts to write in German, Mácha had begun (1830) to write poems, sketches, and stories in Czech. Most of his prose works remained unfinished, but they exhibit a mastery not previously attained by writers in the newly revived literary language. His best work is the lyrical epic Máj (1836; May). Coldly received at the time of its publication, May exercised an almost magical fascination on Czech poets and critics of the 20th century. Mácha's letters and diaries are an essential supplement and background to his poetry.

* * *