Marriage and the Devil: The Literary Exchange, Values, and Power Structures of Franz Kafka and Milena Jesenská

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

A somewhat classic but useful approach. Reiner Stach's immense and authoritative biography on Kafka should be consulted and quoted.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your comments on my article! Please see the attachment.

Kind regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an interesting piece, overall, and it seems to me that it is touching on an area little discussed in the secondary literature. The point that many Kafka biographers (and there are many of them, many of which are not included in the bibliography here, such as Reiner Stach, Nekula, Gilman, and Löwy) have discussed the person of Milena Jesenská and the biographical aspects of the romantic relationship, few have touched on her qualities as a writer. That's a shame, and this article attempts to do some correction of that, particularly using a piece to which Kafka was drawn, "the devil on the stove," written in Czech. I'm glad to see the author draw out the connections and place them in context. The piece is from 1923, which is when Kafka published "The Burrow" ("Der Bau"), began work on the Trial, and met Dora Diamant, all of which might merit more attention here, especially in light of the depiction of love and sex in the Trial. 

This is important research. My comment has mainly to do with the structure of the piece, which, at times, relies far too heavily on quotation and too little on synthesis. There are large sections in which the author quotes at length (see, for example, lines 283 to 328) without providing much commentary or drawing conclusions. The author would do well to integrate the quotations into their own argument, quoting incisively, as needed, and telling the reader what conclusions they might draw from it. The section just ends, without comment. Quotations in scholarship rarely speak for themselves, I find. Another example is line 655-710. And there are others. I'm sure the author is a fine writer, but I think the piece would do better if they took the extra step of explaining how precisely the authors' (Kafka's and Jesenska's) fit into an argument. They could then carry those claims into a revised conclusion, which brings everything together. 

Apart from that, and some concerns about English-language writing style, I believe that this is publishable, original research. The author might also rephrase the sentence at the essay's beginning which reads "Franz Kafka is a prominent author of the last century" (line 26) I don't believe that there is a reader in the Western world who will not find that sentence, in its current formulation, a humorous understatement. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Overall, this needs to be proofread. I have located a few errata that I would suggest correcting: 

- ln 40, "discussions and exchanges with each other" 

-why the constant references to Prague Circle(s)? Please choose either the Prague Circle or Prague Circles.

-ln 71, "using repetitions, rhythm, and sometimes humor"

-ln 75, please translate V boj.

-ln 200, "mental suffocation" is not a good translation of "seelischen Erstickens." I would suggest "moment in which your soul is suffocating."

-ln 219, drop the "e.g." 

-ln 230, "bodily desire" rather than "desire of the body"

-ln 249, "in her published feuilleton article ..." 

-ln 344, "educative tendency"? Needs rephrasing. 

-lns 395-404, not "the Judaism," but simply "Judaism" throughout the paragraph (3 times). 

-ln 558, "Irony abounds in 'In der Strafkolonie" 

Also, Humanities is a journal with an English language readership. The block quotations have all been translated, but the shorter quotations in German have not. Please translate German into English, even in the shorter quotations. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you very much for all your comments and suggestions. Please see the attachment.

Kind regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The submission approaches the well-established scholarly field in literary work. It is well-structured, well-argued, and well-written. I have no suggestions for any revisions or improvements to the submission. It was very engaging in the article. 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you very much for your review!

Kind regards

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This submission offers an insightful, nuanced look at the intellectual and emotional relationship between Kafka and Jesenská, making ample use of their letters to explore their influence on each other’s perspectives on humanity and society. It offers a new approach to Kafka and Jeneská that will enrich existing scholarship. It is clearly written, clearly argued, and well structured.

I have two suggestions for improvement:

1. The author might consider expanding the discussion of Jeneská's journalistic work, of which there are several anthologies, in German and English. However, this is not something I would insist upon, as it might also make the article less tightly focused. It was just something that had me wishing for more.

2. While the author is correct that there is little scholarship with a focus on the relationship between the two authors in the way in which this submission looks at it, there are scholarly sources that might well be consulted. As it exists, this submission makes excellent use of primary writings, but much less of secondary scholarship. On Kafka, there is of course a ton of works. On Jesenká, I would suggest: 

Entwürfe weiblicher Identität in der Moderne: Milena Jesenska, Vicki Baum, Gina Kaus, Alice Rühle-Gerstel : Studien zu Leben und Werk by Capovilla, Andrea Literatur- und Medienwissenschaft, 2004.

With some consideration given to recent scholarship and perhaps more discussion of MJ as an author, this would be an even better contribution. In its current state, though, I consider it already publishable.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you very much for all your comments and suggestions. Please see the attachment.

Kind regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article aims to analyze the relationship between Franz Kafka and the Czech journalist Milena Jesenská  based on selected texts and letters as well as on biographical events.  Kafka and Jesenská had a brief  affair in 1920 but continued their correspondence after their break-up. The author wants to show as well as their shared and different values in the contexts of various  power relations. Unfortunately, the author is not always able to make a convincinge case that these shared and different values are the result of the relationship between Kafka and Jesenská or that these values impacted their relationship.

 

The author attempts to establish a psychological portrait of Kafka and Jesenká by drawing on their works as well as  on their social and family background.  Kafka’s broken-off engagements and his vacillation between his desire for a traditional life as a respected family man and the absolute freedom to pursue his literary career are seen as fear of commitment. In contrast Jesenská, who married and divorced twice, is described as decisive, willing to take risks and also willing to change things when the situation becomes unbearable. In addition to references to Jesenská’s biography, the author supports this assertion by two short quotations from her articles “Der Teufel am Herd” (1923)  and “Das Fenster” (1921) and one quotation from a letter Jesenská wrote to Kafka’s friend Max Brod.  For the author, “Der Teufel am Herd”  not only reflects Jesenská’s prescriptions for a fulfilling and committed relationship between partners but also a critique of Kafka’s continuous searching as indecisiveness and lack of commitment to life.

 

The author then moves to Kafka’s letter of January/February 1923 in response to “Der Teufel am Herd’ pointing to Kafka’s argument that most people are too immature for marriage. This constitutes a difference between Kafka and Jesenská—she diagnoses and suggests improvement while Kafka is aware of the limited agency of individuals. The author then shows that in the same letter, Kafka tells a parable in which Jesenská features as the angel, who attempts to lift up and safe “Judaism” until finally being forced to abandon it. The letter incorporates lines from “Der Teufel am Herd” and reflects the two perspectives on relationships—one requiring an active, life-oriented commitment, the other searching and hesitating, and at the end losing power. At the end, it becomes clear that the protagonists of the parable cannot arrive at a common perspective. However, as the author points out, it was actually Jesenská who would not commit to Kafka as she was unwilling to leave her husband. This finds its literary representation in Kafka’s The Castle, where the male protagonist first receives encouragement  from Frieda (whom Max Brod also identified as being based on Jesenská) only to lose her to the sphere of the castle  and her former influences. In the last section, the author addresses Kafka’s experiences with antisemitism in Prague and Jesenská’s  activities of resistance during the Nazi period which resulted in her imprisonment and later death in Ravensbrück.

While the article makes some interesting points, it needs to be much more analytical. Quotations are not properly contextualized and often presented without analysis or commentary. This is most evident when the author is relying on biographical information to provide a psychological portrait of Kafka and Jesenská. It remains superficial and does not provide new insights to Kafka.  Moreover, some of the differences are just that, differences and do not tell us anything special about the relationship.  The section “Jews, Czechs, Germans, and others” is also disappointing. Again, the information about Kafka is well known and Jesenská’s journalistic activism is merely presented as a summary with some comments but very little in terms of an insightful analysis of her writings. Moreover, the attempt of the author to present Jesenská’s courage as fulfilling Kafka’s earlier faith in her seems rather forced. The last section “The (in)human world” is very repetitive. Overall, the article would profit from a tighter and more focused organization, in addition to a careful editing with regard to style.

 

My suggestion for the author is to focus on the Jesenská’ article and the Kafka’s letter of January/February 1923 (with references to the narrative of the “Jewish Angel” of July 1920). A careful analysis of these two texts as a literary dialog on questions of commitment, agency, as well as Kafka’s complicated relationship to Judaism could yield new perspectives on both, Jesenská and Kafka. This analysis could certainly be contextualized by their biographies and their brief relationship, but this discussion should also go beyond common place observations.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

thank you very much for all your comments and suggestions. Please see the attachment.

Kind regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The changes are rather superficial and do not address the concerns I articulated in my review. The article needed a tighter organization and a specific thesis not just a list of common themes/ characteristics.  Just adding a few sentences here and there did not achieve that. It also did not address my skepticism that some of the differences or similarities are the result of a special relationship between Kafka and Milena Jesenska or reflective of this relationship.

Author Response

Dear Sir or Madam,

 

thank you for your comments. I followed your instructions to make the article tighter. To make the structure more solid, I have rewritten some sections, and particularly the beginnings of the sections, in order to communicate with the reader what is the aim of the section. Furthermore I have shifted, rewritten and rebuilt some passages so that they are, in my view, more to the point.

Moreover, in the introduction I explained more clear the article's main interest, the relationship between Jesenská and Kafka in power contexts.

I have included some substantial comments on Jesenská’s writing topics and her journalistic writing style. Finally I have explained why I transgress the timeframe of Jesenská’s and Kafka’s relationship and comment on Jesenská’s political and journalistic activities after Kafka’s death before and during the Nazi-occupation.

 

I hope I met your expectations and I would be glad to hear from you soon.

Round 3

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I still have many of the reservations I voiced in my first report. The author has clarified that the paper's main focus is on the relationship between Jesenská and Kafka in power contexts. For me, the author addresses Jesenská and Kafka individually in power contexts and compares their reactions in these contexts. However, the main reason for this comparison is that they knew each other and not necessarily an affinity or mutual influence between the reactions.

The strongest parts of the paper are sections 2.1 and 2.2, where the author provides a well-structured analysis of the intertextuality between Kafka and Jesenská’s writings. These sections are supported by detailed textual evidence, offering a nuanced understanding of their literary relationship. However, section 2.3 falls short in comparison. The attempt to establish Jesenská as a model for Kafka’s female protagonist Frieda in Das Schloss lacks the same analytical rigor. Instead of offering a critical examination, the section devolves into a summary of Max Brod’s interpretation, which remains unsubstantiated. The claim that Frieda, like many of Kafka’s figures, is not “available for clear rationality,” and that power relations in Das Schloss are opaque, is insufficiently explored. Moreover, the section ends with Brod’s assertion that Jesenská inspired Kafka to write Das Schloss, but the paper does not clarify the significance or implications of this claim, especially since opaque power dynamics, as the author points out, are a consistent theme in Kafka's broader work.

In Section 3, titled “Jews, Czechs, Germans, and others,” the author added more details and context about  Jesenská’s anti-Nazi writings, noting  a progression from her early critical writings to her resistance against the Nazis. However, the connection to Kafka remains tenuous.

 

In section 4, which addresses the mutual admiration between Kafka and Jesenská, the author asserts that both expressed "directly or indirectlly their moral position to humanistic values" with freedom being of “extreme importance” to them. However, these claims are not adequately supported by specific textual evidence. The lack of detailed examples undermines the impact of the argument, leaving it more declarative than analytical.

 

The introduction, while informative, could benefit from greater focus. It begins with a discussion of Max Brod and then shifts between various topics—Jesenská’s publications, her language use, her journalistic work, and her personal life—without clear connections. This results in a fragmented presentation that could have been more cohesive. While the information about Jesenská’s life is compelling, it lacks depth, particularly in relation to her publications and language, which are only briefly touched upon.

 

Overall, my main critique of the paper is its lack of cohesion and analytical depth. While sections 2.1 and 2.2 are well-developed, the other sections, particularly 2.3, 3, and 4, feel underexplored and disconnected from the central thesis. The paper would benefit from a more focused argument, clearer links between Jesenská’s life and works and Kafka’s, and a stronger use of textual evidence to substantiate the claims being made.

Author Response

Response to reviewer 5, 12 02 2025
Dear Sir or Madam,
I would like to thank you for your valuable comments on my manuscript. Thank you
also for recognising chapters 2.1 and 2.2 as strengths of the article. I have
considered your comments in the following way:
-In section 3, pp. 20-21 I have made it clearer that in this section I am focusing,
choosing from many other topics Jesenská considered, on the ethno-religious and
political tensions between the groups, thus continuing the theme of the
correspondence between Kafka and Jesenská in a certain sense. I reflect on the
question (without giving a clear answer) whether her relationship with Kafka
contributed to her positioning against anti-Semitism. With this elaboration I hope to
have shifted the focus from the individual to the relationship between the
protagonists.
-I reflected on the comments on section 2.3 which are certainly justified. However
from my point of view this not so deep elaboration on Das Schloss from the
perspective of the relationship between Kafka and Jesenská can be also justified. A
deeper analysis could constitute a separate article, considering that there is a huge
amount of literature on this literary piece. This part is from my point of view
integrated in the entire contribution showing several aspects of the relationship. On
the one hand, it is an important element that should definitely be mentioned in my
contribution. On the other hand, given that this literary work has been dealt with
profound in detail in the secondary literature, it does not seem to me necessary to
analyse it in depth. Especially since the question of the length of the essay also
arises.
-In section 4 I hope that with the additional reference to Kafka’s comments on ‘fear’
and ‘courage’ I specified the link to the previous parts of my article to which my
thesis on freedom, as one of central aspects, belong.
Kind regards