![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() If you’re interested in reading the play as it was originally presented to American audiences, read the 1920s version (most university libraries will have a copy - it was tremendously popular in its day). The translator (Paul Selver) changed the play quite a bit while preparing the English version, combining two Robot characters into one, and considerably toning down the ending. A more imaginative and scientifically plausible description of the artificial creation of armies of workers would have to wait for Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932). Itute for protoplasm, and a “stamping mill” for forming Robot bodies. The play describes “kneading troughs” and “vats” for processing a chemical subst ![]() The Czech word robota means “drudgery” or “servitude” a robotnik is a peasant or serf.Īlthough the term today conjures up images of clanking metal contraptions, Capek’s Robots (always capitalized) are more accurately the product of what we would now call genetic engineering. Although the immediate worldwide success of the play immediately popularized the word (supplanting the earlier “automaton”), it was actually not Karel Capek but his brother Josef, also a respected Czech writer, who coined the word. Virtually every encyclopedia or textbook etymology of the word “robot” mentions the play R.U.R. ![]()
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