mere Viennese or a Praguer, respectively, could not attain. This insight he displays in his fearless attacks on subterfuge and hypocrisy on the one hand and flagwaving and drum-beating patriotism on the other.
It is chiefly as a poet that Machar is known. He uses the medium of verse to fling his challenge to wordy, but deedless, idealism among his compatriots, to proclaim rebellion against empty religion, the fruitless promises of politicians, the inanity of a so-called social system forever degrading the Magdalens and letting weeds spring up where roses should bloom. He always places himself on the side of the oppressed or downtrodden, even though he many times invited and received a storm of violent abuse by refusing to idealize the sordid and insisting that squalor and meanness were foul, though just as true as the beautiful. Eminently a realist of the Neruda type, he has had to fight for the recognition of his principles, as well as of himself, as their promulgator.
Machar’s best-known poetical works are “V Záři Hellenského Slunce” (In the Glow of a Hellenic Sun), advocating a return to the robust faith of the Greeks; “Confiteor,” full of scepticism and heartaches; “Bez Názvu (Without a Name), an aggressive attack on life’s hard conditions; “Zde by Měly Kvésti Růže” (Here Roses Should Bloom), depicting the depth of sorrows of womankind; “Magdalen," a romance in blank verse, translated into eight languages, detailing the story of a woman who has once fallen and whom relentless fate,
