Kvapil should be counted as a poet, as a dramatist or as both.
Jaroslav Kvapil was born in September, 1868 in Chudenice in Bohemia. He completed the Gymnasium in Pilsen and then went to the University of Prague where he studied law. Since the beginning of his university studies he has continuously resided in Prague in Bohemia, making only occasional visits to surrounding European countries.
In his twenty-first year he published a small volume of lyric poems under the title of “Falling Stars” (Padajici Hvězdy). This collection was republished in 1897. Soon after the first appearance of Kvapil in his books of lyrics, other collections of lyrical compositions followed, “The Reliquary” (Reliquie) (1890); “The Diary of a Poet” (Básnikuv Dennik) (1890); “Above the Ruins of Charles’ Bridge,” (Nad Zřiceninou Karlova Mostu) (1890); “The Rose Bush” (Ruzový Ker) (1800); “Silent Love” (Tichá Láska) (1891); “Liber Aureus” (1893); “Devotion,” (Oddanost) (1896); “{{lang|cs|The Ruins of the Cathedral” (Trosky Chrámu) (1899); “Andante” (1903); and a cycle, “Veils” (Závoje) (1907). In 1907 the collected poems of Kvapil were published, representing chronologically the growth of his view point between the years 1886 and 1906.
The earlier collections are poems more or less echoing in form and spirit the French lyric poetry of the day, being distinctly erotic with a strong inclination towards melancholy dreaminess. From the stage in which he puts on the mask of blase weariness he advances to a grateful and devoted love full of joy and happiness; then, experiencing the period of quiet resignation, warming the wounded heart in the glow of the home-circle hearth, he passes to fervent elegiac verse.
Through all these phases, however, he preserves two strong and well defined tendencies. These developed more fully only at a much later date, when he had ceased to produce poetry, after he had left journalism which he had entered through the door of Hlas Národu and Národni Listy, both Prague publications, and had connected himself permanently with the stage in the capacity of a dramatic writer and collaborator with his gifted wife, the renowned actress, Hana Kvapilova. These two marks of power were his strong inclination towards the poetic tale—really towards the new romanticism and a rare faculty for the symmetrical decoration of the artistic whole.
As a dramatist Kvapil began with the sententious “Twilight” (Přítmí) in 1895 and the following year produced the drama of
