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Samuel Beckett: the process of impoverishment in his theatre plays
Kmoníčková, Vendula ; Pilný, Ondřej (advisor) ; Wallace, Clare (referee)
Samuel Beckett's early plays are usually regarded as part of the tradition of the Theatre of the Absurd, while his later plays are largely considered to be minimalist. As there is no direct relationship between these two styles, they have never been put into perspective. Nevertheless, Beckett's drama for the stage tends towards progressive reduction regarding a number of aspects of the plays, due to which minimalism in Beckett is a logical development of Absurdism. The Theatre of the Absurd, such as Waiting for Godot, already meant reduction when compared to traditional drama. As Martin Esslin described, it lacked developed characters, plot with development and suspense, and dialogue as a means of dialectic exchange. The works that followed intensify the process of impoverishment, leading to mere static poetic images. Plays like Not I and That Time are valid examples of literary minimalism as described by Enoch Brater, Ulysse Duthuit, Leo Bersani, or John Barth.
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Gerald MacNamara and the Northern Revival
Diaz, Michael ; Pilný, Ondřej (advisor) ; Wallace, Clare (referee)
English Abstract Nationalist movements often utilize aspects of mythology and history in their attempts to create a nationalist ideology. Through a selective emphasis and narrow interpretation of historical events, nationalist groups strive to create a national mythology. In this regard, the nationalist movements in fin de siècle Ireland are no different. This thesis attempts to show how the work of Gerald MacNamara, an Irish nationalist writing from Unionist Belfast during the periods of Revival and partition, was able to utilize the dramatic forms of parody and satire to create an oeuvre that critiqued both nationalist and unionist ideologies and nationalist movements as a whole.
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John Millington Synge and Irish mythology - Deirdre of the sorrows
Pecovová, Petra ; Wallace, Clare (referee) ; Pilný, Ondřej (advisor)
This thesis is focused on the relationship between the mythological tale of Deirdre and John Millington Synge's play Deirdre of the Sorrows. It concentrates primarily on features, such as characters, themes and motives, which distinguish Synge's Deirdre from the previous versions of the tale. The first part lists all the versions that are echoed in Synge's play, which include the 12th century version from the Book of Leinster, the medieval version from the Glenmasan Manuscript and the versions by Synge's fellow writers and dramatists from the Abbey Theatre. It briefly outlines similarities and contradictions between the earlier versions and Synge's approach. The second chapter deals with the role of fate, its representation in the different texts, and how it affects the central themes and motives in the tale. The last part of the thesis analyzes female protagonist and questions her role as a heroine. The aim of this work is primarily to show that portraying realism was essential to Synge, even when dealing with a legend that is comprised of the exact opposite. The most important passages of the thesis are those which uncover the conflicting representations of characters and motives, because they indicate that Synge's fusion of the heroic and peasant world was not successful. Even though he managed to...
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Violence and formal challenge in the plays of Sarah Kane and Martin Crimp
Strnadová, Klára ; Pilný, Ondřej (referee) ; Wallace, Clare (advisor)
Both Crimp and Kane are genuine innovators of the dramatic form. The issues dealt with in their works are related; they share similar concerns about the dangers of nowadays' society - and, with it, theatre. This might not be apparent at first sight because of the divergence of styles. Crimp's style is language-centred, hyper-realistic at times, drawing a lot from the theatre of the absurd. He provides a characteristic mixture of satirical edge, ironic detachment and hidden threat. While Crimp works exclusively with the contemporary sensibility, Kane's proximity to the tradition of tragedy can be seen in what she employs in her plays - the big passions, "love, hate, death, revenge, suicide."1 Kane differs from both modernists and postmodernists by her refusal of detachment and by her requirement of emotional involvement. Both the playwright and her characters are absolutist, truth-seeking and provocative. Crimp prevents emotional identification even in the plays that at first sight seem realistic; in the experimental dramas, the distancing device of having stories narrated rather than just shown "allows Crimp to mix acerbic satire with rapid shifts of tone and focus,"2 asking intellectual questions in a convincingly dramatic form. The intense emotional content, which in Kane is delivered by the explicit,...
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(Post)Modern Inferno: Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman between modern and medieval netherworlds
Ruczaj, Maciej ; Pilný, Ondřej (advisor) ; Armand, Louis (referee)
I have discussed earlier Noman's hallucinatory experience of "woodenness" spreading across his whole body - "a dry timber poison killing me" (119). It provides another stage in the consistently allegorical construction of the motif. Noman's moment of enlightenment, the possibility of the discovery of an allegorical meaning, is of course immediately distorted by the fact that Noman is already dead and - if his dwelling-place is hell - there is no possibility of further degradation, he is all "wood" by now. "Woodenness" he correctly associates with death, yet as always he misses the point as it is primarily a "spiritual" death that is signalized here.
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Troubles on stage: theatrical representation of the conflict in Northern Ireland
Kristenová, Lenka ; Pilný, Ondřej (advisor) ; Wallace, Clare (referee)
The objective of this thesis was to provide a detailed analysis of three modern Irish plays which share one common feature - the portrayal of the conflict in Northern Ireland. Apart from the common background of the Troubles, the plays focus on different aspects of the conflict which also demands different theatrical design. Furthermore, each play was analysed from three social perspectives - religion, gender and locale - in order to examine the ways in which these notions were influenced by the conflict as well as on the ways in which this influence is manifested on individual people. Attached to each play are short conclusions to their respective analyses. Despite their difference, the analyses of the plays also revealed several interesting similarities. Firstly, in the issue of gender, there is a certain discrepancy between the officially proclaimed and recognised division of gender roles and the reality of everyday life. Whereas officially the women are in an inferior position to men, and are expected to be an element of passivity, the three plays suggest that it is rather the men who represent passivity. The plays also point out how the position of men and women in society is further determined by the sectarian conflict. In all three plays, women prove to have stronger characters than men: in Tea in a...
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Narrative strategies and the themes of Bildungsroman genre in Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy, Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark and Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes
Bindasová, Barbara ; Pilný, Ondřej (referee) ; Wallace, Clare (advisor)
The approach and use of Bildungsroman in the context of Irish contemporary literature is subject to lively development and invention on the behalf of the writers, thus offering an interesting and wide field of study for the literary criticism. This study of four representative works serves only as an introduction into the subject and does not, by far, cover the whole area. Nevertheless, Patrick McCabe's The Butcher Boy, Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Seamus Deane's Reading in the Dark and Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes manage to cover and demonstrate the variety and richness of this genre in Irish literature. Each of the writers tackles the subject with distinctive innovation, each picking a different theme as the centre of their respective novels.
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Words versus music: analysis of Samuel Beckett's "Words and Music", "Cascando" and "Rockbaby"
Fořtová, Linda ; Wallace, Clare (referee) ; Pilný, Ondřej (advisor)
It was my endeavour to demonstrate the manifold capacities of music with (or emanating from) a text. Indeed, I have proved that music is able to express what words cannot, and that there are many links between the verbal language and that of music, and thus both can be used in an interplay as it can be perceived in Cascando where Voice merges with Music in harmony and their arrangement constitutes a fugue; or both elements can challenge each other in an effort to ascertain which of them should be taken as superior to the other, as in Words and Music; or, even, that language freed of the customary syntactic chains is able to produce rhytmical patterns in accordance to what the words describe, as it is in Rockaby.
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Psychological aspects of the gothic in Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's fiction
Procházková, Ilona ; Pilný, Ondřej (referee) ; Wallace, Clare (advisor)
What is usually understood by the term "Gothic" is the distant and rather obscure period of Middle Ages connoting severe wars, fortified inhospitable castles and the burning of witches. Apart from that, the word is very often used specifically to describe the architecture of this time. However, especially in an English cultural context this word gained a secondary meaning which is not completely unrelated to the first one and which is to a large extent connected with literature. Under the influence of Romanticism, the second half of the eighteenth century bears witness to extended interest in uncanny Gothic castles or ruins, forlorn scenery and other melancholy places, with even greater stress put on its mysterious, obscure and frightening aspects that finally resulted in something which may be called the Gothic revival. Victor Sage writes that, "'Gothic' could connote any of a wide range of overlapping senses: horrid, barbarous, superstitious, Tudor, Druid, English, German, and even Oriental."1 One of the primary goals of Gothic literature was to create strong emotion of fear or even horror. Among the most popular settings of its fiction belong gloomy ancient chambers, buildings with rich pasts, abandoned decaying mansions, graveyards and similar places which help to establish the right atmosphere for...
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The development and style of Ossianic myth
Homolková, Šárka ; Pilný, Ondřej (referee) ; Procházka, Martin (advisor)
This thesis is mainly concerned with the development of the Fenian narratives about the adventures of Fion (later Finn or Fingal) and his war-band, the fian, as it was told by his son, the bard Oisín (later Ossian). The Fenian tales are unique in literary history because they have fascinated people for more than thousand years and are still being written. Since the 12th century when the first codex, The Book of Leinster, containing the first five stories about Finn mac Cumhaill and his fian appeared, hundreds of books with the same thematic saw the light of the world. Some are almost unknown today or even lost and others, on the other hand, became an inspiration for the whole era. The story about the hero Finn and his army of warriors was first written down in Ireland in the 13th century (according to other sources already in the 12th century) and was the main narrative of the Fenian cycle. However, the story itself is much older circulating as a part of oral tradition of Ireland and Scotland for centuries. The original story has changed immensely during the centuries due to its oral character. The same happened to the role of Finn and his troops of young warriors, the stories won on significance and become one of the major cycle of tales of Ireland and later Scotland. In the first story where one of the...
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