Franz Kafka's Diaries
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Franz Kafka's Diaries, written between 1910-1923, include casual observations, details of daily life, reflections on philosophical ideas, accounts of dreams, and ideas for stories. Kafka’s diaries offer a detailed view of the writer's thoughts and feelings, as well as some of his most famous and quotable statements.
Kafka Began keeping the diaries at the age of 27, as an attempt to provoke his stalled creativity, and kept writing in them until 1923, a year before his death. These diaries were in the background all through the composition of Kafka's major works and many of them are discussed and analyzed in detail.
The diaries offer an image of a profoundly depressed man, isolated from friends and family, involved in a series of failed relationships, and constantly sick. While this is certainly part of Kafka's character it is typical for a private journal, not meant for publication, to express more of the writer's anxieties and worries. The humor and light-heartedness sometimes expressed in Kafka's fiction, as well as the generally positive image arising from recollections by friends and acquaintences, are missing from the diaries.
[edit] References
Kafka, Franz. Diaries 1910-1923. New York: Schocken Books, 1988. ISBN 0805209069
[edit] External Links
- Excerpt from 1910 diary
- The Modern Word Review of Kafka's Diaries
| The Works of Franz Kafka |
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| Novels
The Metamorphosis • The Trial • The Castle • Amerika Short Stories 1904-1912: Description of a Struggle • Wedding Preparations in the Country • The Judgment • Contemplation • The Stoker 1914-1917: In the Penal Colony • The Village Schoolmaster (The Giant Mole) • Before the Law • Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor • The Warden of the Tomb • A Country Doctor • The Hunter Gracchus • The Great Wall of China• A Message from the Emperor • A Report to an Academy • A Dream • Up in the Gallery • A Fratricide • The Next Village • A Visit to a Mine • Jackals and Arabs • The Bridge • The Bucket Rider • The New Advocate • An Old Manuscript • The Knock at the Manor Gate • Eleven Sons • My Neighbor • A Crossbreed (A Sport) • The Cares of a Family Man 1917-1923: The Refusal • A Hunger Artist • Investigations of a Dog • A Little Woman • The Burrow • Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk • A Common Confusion • The Truth about Sancho Panza • The Silence of the Sirens • Prometheus • The City Coat of Arms • Poseidon • Fellowship • At Night • The Problem of Our Laws • The Conscription of Troops • The Test • The Vulture • The Helmsman • The Top • A Little Fable • Home-Coming • First Sorrow • The Departure • Advocates • The Married Couple • Give it Up! • On Parables Diaries, Notebooks and Essays The Diaries 1910-1923 • The Blue Octavo Notebooks • The First Long Train Journey (with Max Brod) • The Aeroplanes at Brescia Letters Letter to His Father • Letters to Felice • Letters to Ottla • Letters to Milena • Letters to Family, Friends, and Editors Collections The Complete Stories • The Sons • The Penal Colony • Parables and Paradoxes • The Great Wall of China • Dearest Father |
