Talk:Franz Kafka

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Editors,

I believe the term "Kafkaesque" has nothing to do with the style and substance of Kafka's work just as the term "Orwellian" has nothing to do with the style and substance of Orwell's. The term "Kafkaesque" applies to Kafka's characterization of father characters in his works, including most notably in "The Judgment". I am certain of this fact but words are in a sense arbitrary and subject to popular usage. I don't want to amend the article without the support of whomever wrote it, but am prepared to cite John Updike (quite the well-respected Kafka scholar) in this capacity.--Zeplin007 22:09, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


His father was the Galanteriewaren merchant Hermann Kafka (1852-1931) (...) - I consider the word Galanteriewaren as absolutely inapropriate, as even I as a German native speaker did not know its meaning before. Therefore, wouldn't it be a good idea to change or remove this term? According to the German Wikipedia, Galanteriewaren means more or less stuff (that you don't really need), costume jewellery, something like that. --Lennex 22:54, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The term may be specific for Bohemian German or late 19th century Prague. It means what you found - stuff one doesn't need :). Czech equivalent is still used. Pavel Vozenilek 01:16, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have to agree with Lennex. In 30 years of using German, I have never heard the term Galanterie. It may well be, as Pavel states, a 19th century Bohemian term, but what is the point of including it in this article when even German speakers cannot be expected to understand it? What's more, the nature of the goods being merchandised plays no apparent role in Franz Kafka's art.

I am changing the text to state that Kafka's father was a retailer. --Philopedia 6 July 2005 23:02 (UTC)

Well, "Galanteriewaren" or "galant" and "Galanterie" is not such a far fetched word as the above entries may indicate. Though somewhat old and outdated and likely hardly being used anymore I've heard several people of certain cultural background using the term "Galanterie" in various places in Austria, specifically in Vienna! Since during Kafka's time I assume Prague and Vienna had similar demographics and culture they actually meant the same thing to people in both cities and likely still do. I'd suggest to reintroduce the term "Galanteriewaren" as a romantic (in a historical sense) term of a romantic time and include a short note on what this means, rather than eradicating it completely. The term "Galanteriewaren" closely refers to "articles or things of courtship" that can come with or without a sense luxury.

Contents

[edit] ambiguous publication dates

the bibliography section does not seem to make clear whether the dates listed are dates of publication, or the years that kafka actually wrote the pieces.


[edit] How to complete the list of Kafkas works

Hello,

check the german Franz Kafka-article for a list of his works which is almost complete. You can also have a look on another good source: a german page who lists all printings of Kafka in newspapers and magazines during his lifetime. --Thomas Fernstein 17:08, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

QUOTE: "One of the most interesting aspects of Kafka's work is that he wrote in Prussian, not German." /QUITE Prussian language here is not old Prussian language of Baltic group, but German dialect. So I deleted link to "Prussian language". By the way, I never heard about Prussian (German Prussian, not Baltic Prussian) as a different language.

Whoever contributed the "prussian" paragraph: It would be nice to cite sources and explain the matter some more. Although a native german speaker I am not aware of "prussian" as a separate entity.
I'm removing the passage about the prussian language due to lack of evidence. I'm also a native german, and have read a couple of Kafka's works (in german) and can find no difference between Kafka's German, and the normal "Hochdeutsch". snoyes 17:01 Feb 13, 2003 (UTC)
In fact, I'm removing the whole section "Kafka's Language". The material contained therein is either false or not particularly relevant to Kafka. snoyes 17:09 Feb 13, 2003 (UTC)
That was a left-over from a very early version of the article. Not being a German speaker I didn't feel qualified to remove it myself, but I had thought it was rather odd. -- Infrogmation 18:29 Feb 13, 2003 (UTC)
On the back of the books of him I've read, it says that he wrote in German. - Sigg3.net 11:38, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
"All his published works were written in German". Just German. He was "born in the Austrian province of Bohemia, inside the Austro-Hungarian Empire." See, how stupid categories can be? I added "Category:Austrian writer" - Czech alone would be to short. "German-speaking-secular-Jewish-born-in-Prague-Austro-Hungarian" would be better. -- Robodoc.at 09:47, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)


I deleted Josephine from the novels section because it is a short story, not a novel. The Trial and The Castle, as well as Amerika, are definitely novel-length (I'm reading The Castle now and it's about 480 pages).

Actually, i think most (all?) of his works were shorter than novels, including both those two.

Most of his work is short story in form, but The Trial definitely qualifies as a novel, both in terms of quantity and the way in which it is written, as does The Castle. sjc

Are you sure Kafka wrote a novel entitled Josephine? <KF> 20:47, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Both The Trial, Amerika and The Castle are undoubtly, and both in length and in terms of structure, to be considered novels.

I added Letter to His Father under 'Letters'. thought it was odd that it wasn't included in his bibliography Hahawall 18:21, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliography (esp. Novels)

For the bibliography section, are the dates suppose to show the time when they were written, or the date of original publication? I put a bit of effort into making the list of his longer short stories, including the date when it was written and the original German title. I also included the dates when the novels were written, but someone reverted them to the publication dates. Personally, it makes more sense to me to use the dates when the works were written, as it gives a better idea of the progression of Kafka's maturity, and especially because much of his work was published posthumously. The dates for the novels completely conflict with the dates they were written (publication goes The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika; Amerika was written first, then the Trial, then The Castle). Anyone have any suggestions? Putrescent stench 18:20, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Page on The Great Wall Of China

Where would/does Franz Kafka's story The Great Wall Of China belong? I would say The Great Wall Of China (Story) or somesuch, but there since there is no article at The Great Wall Of China (it is a redirect to Great Wall Of China), shouldn't it be here, with a disambig to Great Wall Of China at the top? When this is solved, I might write a bit on the story. --Taejo 9 July 2005 10:56 (UTC)

The Great Wall Of China (Story), no disambig. Surely there are many more books with this name. Pavel Vozenilek 19:38, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Attribution for vfd-ordered merge

Some material on this page was merged in from "Dora Dymant", per Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Dora Dymant. -- BD2412 talk 03:10, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling

All the spellings on this page were changed from American to British spellings with just the comment "copy-edit; spelling standardization (-ize, BrE)" [1]. Seeing as how this article does not concern a topic which is particular to a specific variety of English, and after consulting the article's history it is clear that the American-style spellings have been the spellings used predominantly in this article, it seems out of order to change them all to British. Nohat 08:27, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] home movies' rock opera about franz kafka

shouldn't there be reference to brendon small and home movies rock opera about franz kafka

Aren't there candidates a little higher up on the list? Staretsen 17:24, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I love Home Movies, but no, there shouldn't. Recury 22:10, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kafka's grave

The article says it's in Zizkov, the picture says it's in Strasnicka. Living in Prague I know that the new Jewish cemetary is on the border of these two regions. All the same, I think the article should say one or the other. I'd say Zizkov, probably. --Sachabrunel 19:32, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The book Jewish Prague, Guide to the Monuments from Ctibor Rybár, 1991 names it (page 300) new Jewish cemetery in Zizkov (in Jan Zelivsky street). Pavel Vozenilek 00:37, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

Does anyone know which of the works listed under "bibliography" or what was "external links" (now "further reading") were used as sources for the article? SlimVirgin (talk) 16:10, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "A controversial, dangerous and convicted anarchist"

I only found out who Franz Kafka was just now when I read the article. Before I have been in the conseption of that Franz Kafka was some kind of an anarchist revolutionary. Perhaps this is due to the name of his book "Franz Kafka's Trial". Perhaps people should change their habit of using that or the name "The Trial of Franz Kafka" and revert to using "The Trail by Franz Kafka". Or perhaps it is due to the publicity related to the nazi holocaust and that the nazies conficated his manuscripts, that his name is generally associated with political controversy. There doesn't seem to be any politically controversial in him, and he seems like a cult figure of existentialist literature. Teemu Ruskeepää 12:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

As a child, I always saw the spine of my parents' book as "The Kafka Trial," when it actually reads, "KAFKA the TRIAL"- my use of caps to illustrate the size difference of key words in book jacket design. I, of course, knew he was an author by my teenage years. I don't think people should change what the book is called just because some people don't understand it. I can only imagine highly unusual, comic situations in which the context one could talk about a work of fiction "The Trial by Franz Kafka" and a legal preceeding against the man, "The Trial of Franz Kafka" in the exact same terms of perfect ambiguity - the situation is even Kafkaesque and I think your decree is quite silly. JesseRafe 06:10, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good article nom

I failed the GA nomination because in my view this article isn't anywhere near comprehensive enough yet. Kafka has been the object of truly vast amounts of scholarship during the past century, and there's an lot more than this to say about him. It needs to be at least three times longer. Redquark 07:47, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

1 think I can say though is that bringing it 3 times longer will give it near FA status IMHO. Lincher 19:55, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, maybe I'm a little demanding. It's true that the article does contain most of the basic facts. But I recently read a 600-page biography of Kafka so this article strikes me as rather thin. I would add more if I had the time. Redquark 23:19, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] kefka

Do you supose it's worth noting that the villain of the video game Final Fantasy 6, Kefka Palazzo, seems to be inspired in part by Franz Kafka. The name simillarity is the primary reason though some would argue that Kefka's motivation for causing mass destruction is that life is an excercise in futillity reflects Kafka's darker writings.

[edit] František Kafka

I just visited the Kafka museum in Prague. In Kafka's writings in Czech (e.g., to his employer), he used the name "František Kafka." This was also the name used in the Czech version of his newspaper obituary. Nowadays, of course, even Czechs call him Franz. But should "František Kafka" be mentioned in this article as an alternate name used during his lifetime? -- Mwalcoff 05:21, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't he Czech, regarding Prague being under Austrian control?

[edit] a Czech?

This is the big question. Franz Kafka, despite having a Czech-sounding name, was a Bohemian Austrian who was Jewish. Calling him "Czech" in incorrect unless there can be a source provided that tells of his "grandfather" being an ethnic Czech. Then perhaps it can be vaguely argued that he is a Czech, though I myself see one grandparent as being null and void. He did not even write primarily in Czech. That would be like calling "Vladimir Nabokov" an English author being he wrote in English. 141.211.251.69 22:42, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photo

The photo in the Kafka info box is terrible. It is not illustrative in that it doesn't look like the common photos of him used in contemporary books, it is heavily airbrushed, and better photos are available, e.g. the one on the Radio Prague page: [2].

I would add it myself but photos and copyrights are such a pain in the neck and people are so contentious about their sacred cows.

--grimbleGrumble 18:28, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural depictions of Franz Kafka

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 16:51, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kafka as Czech Jew

"The Czech Jewish writer, Franz Kafka": Jewish Chronicle January 15, 1993, article "Film Festival: Intriguing challenge of Kafka" by Geoffrey Paul.

As to his language, "all Czech-Jewish writers wrote in German": Jewish Chronicle February 7, 1992, Literary Supplement page IV: article "Stories of my Life: 'I am Franz Kafka'" by Melech Ravitch.--20.138.246.89 10:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Egon Hostovsky is a Czech Jew and he wrote in Czech. "Czech-Jewish" should not be confused with "Bohemian Jewish." There is little to nothing to suggest Kafka was wholly Czech in the definition of Czech. Kafka is a Jew from Bohemia, not a Czech-Jew, though people have debated his ancestry and some Czech nationalists like to claim him as part of their culture/heritage/language. Given it is difficult to discern what is true with Kafka, it could be argued his Czech surname is relevant enough to suggest he is a German-Bohemian-Jew of Czech ancestry. 141.213.55.9 21:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Surely all we have to do is find a good source that explicitly calls Kafka Czech. Anything else would violate WP:V and WP:NOR. There is one such source above. Here are two more:
"KAFKA, Franz (1883-1924): Czech novelist.": Hutchinson 20th Century Encyclopedia (7th ed, 1986), p. 702.
"KAFKA, FRANZ (1883-1924): Czech author.": The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia (fifth ed, 1977, ed. Geoffrey Wigoder), p. 1101.
True, many sources call him Austrian, but the Czech lands were then part of Austria, so it would be like calling a Welsh person British. - 20.138.246.89 09:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
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