Talk:Franz Kafka
 | Franz Kafka was nominated as a good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (No date specified. To provide a date use: {{FailedGA|insert date in any format here}}). There are suggestions below for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated. |
His father was the Galanteriewaren merchant Hermann Kafka (1852-1931) (...) - I consider the word Galanteriewaren as absolutely inapropriate, as even I as a German native speaker did not know its meaning before. Therefore, wouldn't it be a good idea to change or remove this term? According to the German Wikipedia, Galanteriewaren means more or less stuff (that you don't really need), costume jewellery, something like that. --Lennex 22:54, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- The term may be specific for Bohemian German or late 19th century Prague. It means what you found - stuff one doesn't need :). Czech equivalent is still used. Pavel Vozenilek 01:16, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I have to agree with Lennex. In 30 years of using German, I have never heard the term Galanterie. It may well be, as Pavel states, a 19th century Bohemian term, but what is the point of including it in this article when even German speakers cannot be expected to understand it? What's more, the nature of the goods being merchandised plays no apparent role in Franz Kafka's art.
I am changing the text to state that Kafka's father was a retailer. --Philopedia 6 July 2005 23:02 (UTC)
How to complete the list of Kafkas works
Hello,
check the german Franz Kafka-article for a list of his works which is almost complete. You can also have a look on another good source: a german page who lists all printings of Kafka in newspapers and magazines during his lifetime. --Thomas Fernstein 17:08, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
QUOTE: "One of the most interesting aspects of Kafka's work is that he wrote in Prussian, not German." /QUITE Prussian language here is not old Prussian language of Baltic group, but German dialect. So I deleted link to "Prussian language". By the way, I never heard about Prussian (German Prussian, not Baltic Prussian) as a different language.
- Whoever contributed the "prussian" paragraph: It would be nice to cite sources and explain the matter some more. Although a native german speaker I am not aware of "prussian" as a separate entity.
- I'm removing the passage about the prussian language due to lack of evidence. I'm also a native german, and have read a couple of Kafka's works (in german) and can find no difference between Kafka's German, and the normal "Hochdeutsch". snoyes 17:01 Feb 13, 2003 (UTC)
- In fact, I'm removing the whole section "Kafka's Language". The material contained therein is either false or not particularly relevant to Kafka. snoyes 17:09 Feb 13, 2003 (UTC)
- That was a left-over from a very early version of the article. Not being a German speaker I didn't feel qualified to remove it myself, but I had thought it was rather odd. -- Infrogmation 18:29 Feb 13, 2003 (UTC)
- On the back of the books of him I've read, it says that he wrote in German. - Sigg3.net 11:38, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- "All his published works were written in German". Just German. He was "born in the Austrian province of Bohemia, inside the Austro-Hungarian Empire." See, how stupid categories can be? I added "Category:Austrian writer" - Czech alone would be to short. "German-speaking-secular-Jewish-born-in-Prague-Austro-Hungarian" would be better. -- Robodoc.at 09:47, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I deleted Josephine from the novels section because it is a short story, not a novel. The Trial and The Castle, as well as Amerika, are definitely novel-length (I'm reading The Castle now and it's about 480 pages).
Actually, i think most (all?) of his works were shorter than novels, including both those two.
Most of his work is short story in form, but The Trial definitely qualifies as a novel, both in terms of quantity and the way in which it is written, as does The Castle. sjc
Are you sure Kafka wrote a novel entitled Josephine? <KF> 20:47, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Both The Trial, Amerika and The Castle are undoubtly, and both in length and in terms of structure, to be considered novels.
I added Letter to His Father under 'Letters'. thought it was odd that it wasn't included in his bibliography Hahawall 18:21, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Bibliography (esp. Novels)
For the bibliography section, are the dates suppose to show the time when they were written, or the date of original publication? I put a bit of effort into making the list of his longer short stories, including the date when it was written and the original German title. I also included the dates when the novels were written, but someone reverted them to the publication dates. Personally, it makes more sense to me to use the dates when the works were written, as it gives a better idea of the progression of Kafka's maturity, and especially because much of his work was published posthumously. The dates for the novels completely conflict with the dates they were written (publication goes The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika; Amerika was written first, then the Trial, then The Castle). Anyone have any suggestions? Putrescent stench 18:20, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Page on The Great Wall Of China
Where would/does Franz Kafka's story The Great Wall Of China belong? I would say The Great Wall Of China (Story) or somesuch, but there since there is no article at The Great Wall Of China (it is a redirect to Great Wall Of China), shouldn't it be here, with a disambig to Great Wall Of China at the top? When this is solved, I might write a bit on the story. --Taejo 9 July 2005 10:56 (UTC)
- The Great Wall Of China (Story), no disambig. Surely there are many more books with this name. Pavel Vozenilek 19:38, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
Attribution for vfd-ordered merge
Some material on this page was merged in from "Dora Dymant", per Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Dora Dymant. -- BDAbramson talk 03:10, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
Spelling
All the spellings on this page were changed from American to British spellings with just the comment "copy-edit; spelling standardization (-ize, BrE)" [1]. Seeing as how this article does not concern a topic which is particular to a specific variety of English, and after consulting the article's history it is clear that the American-style spellings have been the spellings used predominantly in this article, it seems out of order to change them all to British. Nohat 08:27, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
home movies' rock opera about franz kafka
shouldn't there be reference to brendon small and home movies rock opera about franz kafka
Kafka's grave
The article says it's in Zizkov, the picture says it's in Strasnicka. Living in Prague I know that the new Jewish cemetary is on the border of these two regions. All the same, I think the article should say one or the other. I'd say Zizkov, probably. --Sachabrunel 19:32, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
- The book Jewish Prague, Guide to the Monuments from Ctibor Rybár, 1991 names it (page 300) new Jewish cemetery in Zizkov (in Jan Zelivsky street). Pavel Vozenilek 00:37, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Sources
Does anyone know which of the works listed under "bibliography" or what was "external links" (now "further reading") were used as sources for the article? SlimVirgin (talk) 16:10, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
"A controversial, dangerous and convicted anarchist"
I only found out who Franz Kafka was just now when I read the article. Before I have been in the conseption of that Franz Kafka was some kind of an anarchist revolutionary. Perhaps this is due to the name of his book "Franz Kafka's Trial". Perhaps people should change their habit of using that or the name "The Trial of Franz Kafka" and revert to using "The Trail by Franz Kafka". Or perhaps it is due to the publicity related to the nazi holocaust and that the nazies conficated his manuscripts, that his name is generally associated with political controversy. There doesn't seem to be any politically controversial in him, and he seems like a cult figure of existentialist literature. Teemu Ruskeepää 12:15, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Good article nom
I failed the GA nomination because in my view this article isn't anywhere near comprehensive enough yet. Kafka has been the object of truly vast amounts of scholarship during the past century, and there's an lot more than this to say about him. It needs to be at least three times longer. Redquark 07:47, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
- 1 think I can say though is that bringing it 3 times longer will give it near FA status IMHO. Lincher 19:55, 19 April 2006 (UTC)