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The language of war in "Sir Gawain and the Green knight" and "Beowulf"
Hajniková, Kristína ; Čermák, Jan (advisor) ; Znojemská, Helena (referee)
It is said that in times of war, the muses are silent. Yet extraordinary poetic voices can be heard from the past if we listen close enough; they tell the tales of glorious victories, woeful defeats, terrible monsters and heroes of old. Two such tales are the poems Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Both poems are separated by an abyss of time, yet there is something in the tone and manner of the yarn that unites the two. It may be the character of the hero, his adventures, his enemies or his ultimate downfall; but the tales are told in a language that has great dignity, capacity for expression and a slow sonority seems to echo the roar of the ancient battlefields. The language of war, then, is the topic of the present work. The ways of characterizing a man as a warrior in Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight will be subject to analysis that should reveal the cornerstones of poetic diction in both poems. In order to achieve this, we shall look at the lexical fields that denote 'warrior' in the poems. These lexical items will be subject to analysis from three points of view: (1) First, we shall investigate the structure of the lexical fields denoting 'warrior.' The items will be looked at from a morpho-semantic point of view. The description will contain morphological characterization of the...
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Shakespeare's Drama and Homosexuality
Mašková, Barbora ; Znojemská, Helena (advisor) ; Nováková, Soňa (referee)
Slowly developing since the 1980's, queer theory became a very important sphere of gender studies of the end of the 20th century and affected not only the very perception of gender categories, but also intepretations of these in texts. The thesis concentrates on queering of the dramatic works of William Shakespeare, describing relations which can be broadly characterized as homosexual - romantic or sexual attraction between members of the same sex, including homoerotic or homosocial aspect of these relationships. After establishing the textual grounds for these readings the text goes on to describe various stagings in theatre, television and film of Anglophone and Czech origin. In order to achieve representative illustration of the problem the established division of Shakespeare's drama is maintained, dividing the plays into three categories - comedies, tragedies and historical plays. One play of each of these categories is then discussed further. These are The Merchant of Venice for comedies, Othello for tragedies, and Richard II as a representative of historical plays. In the Merchant of Venice the discussed relationship is the one of Antonio and Bassanio, examining the possible motivation for Antonio's incredible generosity towards his young friend. The most famous homosexual interpretation of the...
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Memento Amori: Transformations of the Imagery and Associations of the God Eros in English Renaissance Poetry
Chytrý, Jiří ; Znojemská, Helena (advisor) ; Beran, Zdeněk (referee)
The thesis aims to explore the motif of Eros in relation to the concept of death in English Renaissance poetry. Focusing predominantly on literature, namely the sonnet tradition, but also on period corresponding visual art, the paper attempt to map the systematic transformations of the imagery and conceptual associations of Eros and Thanatos. It traces the changes and transformations firstly throughout the Greco-Roman Antiquity, exploring the works of Hesiod, Sappho and Ovid, then from antiquity to the Renaissance, focusing on Cavalcantis' and Petrarch's poetry and ultimately turning to the Elizabethan era, analysing the sonnets of Thomas Wyatt, Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton and Samuel Daniel
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Writing Victorian London: The Representation of Nineteenth-Century Anxieties in The String of Pearls and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Vítek, Jaroslav ; Beran, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Znojemská, Helena (referee)
This thesis analyses the representation of Victorian anxieties in The String of Pearls (1846-1847) and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). The aim is to not look for identical anxieties in both texts but rather to point out how the two popular works of the Victorian era embody different anxieties in a similar manner although published forty years apart. Both texts stage London as a Gothic site accommodating anxieties initiated by monstrous characters, Sweeney Todd and Mr Hyde, in each text respectively. This thesis demonstrates how these anxieties become embodied in the architecture of London. Sweeney Todd and Dr Jekyll are both characters bearing traits of double appearance. Their duality mirrors in the city edifices which they own or inhabit. For example, the respectable house of Dr Jekyll and his hidden laboratory or Hyde's repugnant house embody anxieties concerning respectable gentlemen whose sexual scandals floated out in William Thomas Stead's "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon" (July 1885). Similarly, Sweeney Todd's barbershop constitutes this double appearance of respectability, as he is deemed to be an honourable citizen by others, and criminality with the complex underground system where Todd stores the dead customers. Both Dr Jekyll and Sweeney Todd represent danger which...
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Female anchoritic spirituality in Ancrene Wisse and Revelations of Divine Love of Julian of Norwich
Kecsöová, Dominika ; Znojemská, Helena (advisor) ; Nováková, Soňa (referee)
This MA thesis explores one of the few religious vocations available to medieval women, that of an anchoress. Anchoresses, or recluses, exchanged their life in the world for a cell adjacent to a church, in which they spent the rest of their lives, keeping a daily schedule of prayers and meditations. As an aid in their daily life, several "rules" or "guides" were produced - one of them is Ancrene Wisse. This guide contains practical advice on running the anchorhold, as well as passages concerning spirituality. As a normative text written by a male author, it was compared with another text concerning spirituality, this time written by an anchoress -Julian of Norwich. Julian likely became an anchoress after receiving a series of visions when laying seriously ill; she later recorded these visions for profit of her fellow Christians. Both texts were analysed in connection to anchoritic spirituality and revealed several similarities - for instance, both tend to use the basic metaphors of enclosure as body, Christ as a mother, or Christ as a king or a knight. The image of spirituality that emerges from the two texts is often paradoxical, due to the incommunicability of the Divine, which makes both the anonymous author of the Ancrene Wisse and Julian utilise images with opposite meanings and often shift...
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Developing the Image of the Virgin Queen: The Writings and Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I
Válková, Michaela ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor) ; Znojemská, Helena (referee)
THESIS ABSTRACT This thesis focuses on the self-representation of Elizabeth I. Elizabeth I ruled England during tumultuous time - her father Henry VIII separated England from the Catholic church and Elizabeth was faced with attempts of invasions and plots. Despite that, the Elizabethan Era is remembered as the Golden Age for the flourishing of art. One of the ways Elizabeth managed to consolidate power was her self-representation. Elizabeth turned herself into the Virgin Queen and created an unparalleled symbol out of herself as a result of clever manipulation of Tudor aesthetics and gender expectations. This thesis follows the development of Elizabeth's self-representation. The first chapter concentrates on the historical circumstances which formed Elizabeth's mindset. It discusses Elizabeth's complicated family background, the rule of her half-sister Mary during which Elizabeth was faced with treason charges, the ongoing pressure on her to marry, and finally the decision to relinquish her private life in favour of her body politics and transform herself into the Virgin Queen. The first chapter particularly tries to demonstrate how noteworthy events shaped Elizabeth's rhetorical strategies and self-representation techniques. The second chapter traces Elizabeth's representation via her portraits. Opening...
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Political Rhetoric in Shakespeare's Drama
Malá, Anna ; Znojemská, Helena (advisor) ; Nováková, Soňa (referee)
Political Rhetoric in Shakespeare's Drama Bc. Anna Malá MA Thesis Abstract This thesis focuses on political rhetoric in William Shakespeare's plays. It approaches History plays, Roman plays, and Tragedies in order to compare whether the rhetoric used differs among the genre in connection to the state system which it presents - Republic or Monarchy, with the intention to describe the difference. The main criteria for this description are the imagery and rhetorical strategies used in specific situation both by the ruler and by some of the subjects concerning the ruler.
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'The Origin of J.R.R. Tolkien's Character; Gandalf'
Mudrová, Kateřina ; Clark, Colin Steele (advisor) ; Znojemská, Helena (referee)
This thesis aims to analyse the origin, development and possible interpretations of J.R.R. Tolkien's character of Gandalf the wizard, focusing primarily on the influence of three major sources of inspiration, suggested both by the author himself and intertextual elements recognisable in his fiction; The Bible, Norse and Finnish mythology (represented by The Poetic and The Prose Edda, Saga of the Volsungs and Kalevala) and the literary tradition centred around the legendary figure of Merlin, as well as the later works of fiction which it has inspired. The aim of the thesis is to illustrate to what extent is Tolkien's Gandalf only a continuation or adaptation of the historical literary tradition represented by the sources named above or on the contrary, an original and independent character. This discussion is aimed to demonstrate how J.R.R Tolkien's portrayal of wizard figures has not only helped to popularize the generic characterisation of wizards in fantasy fiction but helped to pioneer a new type of wizard figure. Tolkien's influence on the fantasy genre was not necessarily inventive but rather transformative. The fundamental elements of Tolkien's fiction were not introduced by the author, but have already been a part of the developing genre. Before Tolkien, the authors of fantasy have strongly...
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