Mácha, Karel Hynek

Mácha, Karel Hynek (kä`rel hē`nĕk mä`khä), 1810–36, Czech romantic poet. After studying law at the Univ. of Prague he became a civil servant. He published a number of promising poems and wrote Pictures from My Life, introspective autobiographical sketches. This work was followed by Gypsies (1835–36), a novel. His long iambic poem May (1836, tr. 1932) is considered the finest lyric work in the Czech language; Czech iambic verse dates from this work. Mácha's profoundly melancholy and nostalgic verse reveals his strong response to nature, medievalism, and Czech civilization as well as his fatalistic philosophy.