On reading Narrative Poems I, a particular music enters the mind: The echo of a ballad. It doesn't happen by chance. It is the tragic and mysterious ballad Máj by the Czech romantic poet K. H. Mácha, that impressed Holan with its characters and its ritornello as a wonderful way of telling stories in the popular style. In 1938, the menace of war made Czech poets react and face the Nazi occupation bravely. Holan, in particular, changed his style to be clearer, to fight, and become the one people knew by heart. So the fight for the freedom went together with being closer to people. This