Zeyer, Julius
´lĭs zā´ĕr, tsī´ər), 1841–1901, Czech writer. Restless, nostalgic, and mystical, Zeyer wrote ornate, almost decadent epic poetry based on ancient and medieval legends of many lands. His semiautobiographical novel Jan Maria Plojhar (1880) deals with the tragic nature of the artist. His dramas, including Raduz and Mahulena (1898, tr. 1923), are celebrated as lyric poetry but are theatrically unsuccessful.
See study by R. Pynsent (1973).
