DOBROMILA RETTIG[1]
A COMEDY IN THREE ACTS
Authorized Translation from the Bohemian
By Bernice Heřman
and
George Rapall Noyes
Song by
Dorothea Prall
Characters
| Dobromila Rettig, a magistrate's wife. | |
| Mrs. Roller. | |
| Mrs. Roubínek. | |
| Lenka | town girls. |
| Tyny | |
| Mařenka | |
| Aninka | |
| Tonička | |
| Frony | |
- ↑ Copyright 1920 by the Poet Lore Company, all rights reserved.
- ↑ Alois Jirásek (born in 1851) is the most popular writer of recent years in Bohemia. His fame rests primarily on his historical novels, in some of which he treats the heroic past of his country in the same patriotic spirit with which Sienkiewicz has glorified the old days of Poland, while in another he describes the struggle of the Bohemian people, in the early years of the nineteeth century, to revive its own language and culture. His dramas deal with similar themes. Thus in Dobromila Rettig the interest is less in the rather commonplace love story than in the background against which it is relieved, that of the conflict in a Bohemian town between conservative, pro-German citizens and the patriotic circles who are seeking to revive the use of the Bohemian language for literature and for all purposes of everyday life. This play is woven about the personality of one of the minor figures in the Bohemian national movement. Magdalena Dobromila Rettig (1785–1845) was noted as a writer of stories and also as the author of "The Young Housewife," "Coffee and All that is Sweet," and "The Household Cook Book." Her husband, curiously omitted from the drama, also had some reputation as a writer. At the present time, when the efforts of the Bohemian patriots have been crowned with complete success, this picture of their humbler days has a peculiar value for readers in foreign lands.
All Bohemian names are accented on the first syllable. An oblique stroke over a vowel, as in the name of the author above, indicates the long quantity of the vowel, not the accent of the word.
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