Kafka’s The Judgment
Kafka drafted the story of The Judgment in a single night in September 1912. It was not long after his first encounter with Felice Bauer, to whom the story is also dedicated. The initials of Felice Bauer are the same as those of the fiancée in The Judgment (Frieda Brandenfeld). The story of the young businessman Georg Bendemann, with its autobiographical undertones, opened a round of completed masterpieces; the stylistic completeness achieved from this point on would become the norm for Kafka’s future works. On 4th December 1912, Kafka presented his story within the framework of an evening of readings in the Hotel Erzherzog Stephan on Wenceslas Square in Prague; in 1913 the story appeared in the literary yearbook Arkadia in Leipzig, and three years later it was eventually published as a single volume by the Kurt Wolff publishing house.
His language is crystal clear and on the surface there is no noticeable attempt, as it were, to be anything other than accurate, clear, fit for the purpose. Yet dreams and visions of immeasurable depth are towed beneath the merry mirror of this pure linguistic stream. On looking in, one is spellbound by beauty and character.
Max Brod
As the maid walked through the anteroom for the first time, i wrote the final sentence. [...] That is the only way to write, only in that sort of context, with such a total opening up of body and soul.
Franz Kafka, Diaries
