Vladimír Holan (1905-80) is best known in English for his postwar works, both the often teasingly obscure longer poem Noc s Hamletem (A Night with Hamlet, 1964), and his short, gnomic lyrical reflections, with occasional submerged notes of political protest. Under the Communists (whom he had briefly supported at the end of the Second World War) Holan retired to his house in Kampa park beside the Vltava in Prague, becoming a legendary poet-recluse.