VRCHLICKY, JAROSLAV. — Pseudonym of Emil Frida, the most famous Czech poet, b. at Louny on 17 February 1853, d. at Domazlice on 9 September 1912. His activity as a translator from the most diverse literatures made him the typical exponent of cosmopolitanism in Bohemia; yet in this tireless activity and prodigious aptitude some also wished to see a sign of limited creative power.
A youthful sojourn in Italy exerted a great influence on the poet. The collection of poems Un anno nel Mezzogiorno is dedicated to the Italian landscape. Of his extensive poetic activity, several lyrics full of nostalgia and musicality remain alive even today. Much of his production nevertheless reflects the tastes of the period. V. did not wish to limit himself to being a lyric poet: indeed, he wished to confront the greatest problems of thought, life, and death, following in a certain sense in the footsteps of Victor Hugo; on both the poetic and speculative planes, he oscillates between a bitter pessimism (from which authentic poetry sometimes springs) and a vague optimism concerning the future destinies of humanity, characteristic of the positivist era. In 1893 he obtained the chair of Italian literature; he translated the Divina Commedia, the Vita Nuova, the Gerusalemme liberata, the Orlando Furioso, Parini, Leopardi, and Carducci (for whom he had a particular poetic and spiritual sympathy).
He also translated extensively from French, English, German, Spanish, and Portuguese literature. He was a dramatist and literary critic (among other things, he wrote a substantial study of Leopardi). Lacking a definitive aesthetic orientation, uncertain and wavering in his ideologies, V. nevertheless occasionally had felicitous intuitions. His cosmopolitanism helped to free Bohemian culture from Germanic predominance. A son of an age dominated by superficial progressivism, he did not penetrate deeply into the spirit of the Middle Ages, nor did he fully understand the values of modern Symbolist poetry, which interested him.