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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Karel Čapek's novel Hordubal is the first part of a trilogy which embodies a definition of human individuality and of the relation of the individual to the social order. As René Wellek has observed, the trilogy “centers around problems of truth and reality and constitutes one of the most successful attempts at a philosophical novel in any language.”
1 Columbia Diet, of Mod. Eur. Lit. (New York, 1947), p. 139.
2 The three novels were translated into English by M. and R. Weatherall; published separately by G. Allen (London, 1934–36). Later reissued in one volume as Three Novels (London, 1948).
3 See W. E. Harkins, “Form and Thematic Unity in Karel Capek's Trilogy,” Slavic and East Eur. Jour., xv (1957), 92–100.
4 Hordubal, Part i, Ch. ii. Since the chapters of the novel are short, and since there are several editions, further quotations will be identified by chapter numbers in Part I.
5 J. Mukaïovsky, “Vyznamova vystavba a komposicni osnova epiky Karla Capka,” Kapitoly ceské poetiky (Prague, 1948), ii, 378.
6 Ibid., pp. 379–380.
