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Physical and Psychical Spaces in Modern English Literature
Štefl, Martin ; Hilský, Martin (advisor) ; Chalupský, Petr (referee) ; Beran, Zdeněk (referee)
The thesis discusses affinities between physical and psychical spaces in selected works of D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf and Wyndham Lewis in connection with the main philosophical and aesthetic problems posed by the changes in modernist representation of character with respect to space and place. In doing so, the argument assesses the "in-human humanism" of D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf which manifests itself in the interrelation between states of mind and material universe, the way in which the consciousness accommodates various material "admixtures" and how subjectivity "escapes" from subject to its own outside. Using the conservative thought of Wyndham Lewis as a vital source of comparison, the thesis examines how the interaction of these newly constructed modernist subjectivities with space changes and challenges traditional ideas of unity of self, personal identity and autonomous agency. Drawing on a number of themes from visual arts, the discussion connects these psychical factors with the notions of solidity and fluidity/stability and instability of material reality and individual objects, moving bodies or things in space. As a part of this, the thesis incorporates a detailed discussion of Italian Futurism, especially F. T. Marinetti's and Umberto Boccioni's theories of physical...
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Shakespearean Villains
Bilská, Eva ; Nováková, Soňa (advisor) ; Hilský, Martin (referee)
This thesis analyzes the Shakespearean villains, particularly Richard III, Iago, Shylock, Caliban, Edmund, Angelo and Macbeth. It explores the idea of evil as it was understood in Shakespeare's time and concentrates on language and strategy of these villains.
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"My fearefull shadow that still followes me": Literary and Artistic Representations of Richard III before Shakespeare
Štollová, Jitka ; Hilský, Martin (advisor) ; Nováková, Soňa (referee)
THESIS ABSTRACT This MA thesis examines the portrayal of King Richard III (1452-1485) in texts preceding William Shakespeare's canonical play on this subject. By analyzing a wide range of sources written between the 1480s and the 1590s, it traces how the reputation of Richard III as an epitome of a tyrant, a usurper and a royal murderer was created and consolidated. At the same time, special attention is paid to innovations and deviations from this interpretation that contributed to the diversification of the King's image. The first chapter covers some of the most significant historiographic works of the Tudor era: The Second Continuation of The Crowland Chronicle, chronicles by Polydore Vergil, Edward Hall, and Raphael Holinshed, Thomas More's historical narrative, as well as a less-known manuscript by Dominic Mancini who described the early months of the reign of Richard III. The second chapter examines the transformation of the historical topic into poetry. The image of Richard III is analyzed in as diverse sources as, on the one hand, a popular ballad and, on the other hand, a prominent poetically-didactic work A Mirror for Magistrates. The representation of Richard III on the English stage is discussed in the third chapter in connection with Thomas Legge's university drama Richardus Tertius and the...
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Anatomy of villainy: the concept of an antagonist in tragedies and histories of William Shakespeare
Štollová, Jitka ; Hilský, Martin (advisor) ; Nováková, Soňa (referee)
THESIS ABSTRACT The thesis is concerned with the analysis and comparison of the villain characters from William Shakespeare's plays Othello and Richard III. The basis for the examination is the polemics with F. R. Leavis's essay "Diabolic Intellect and the Noble Hero: or The Sentimentalist's Othello", the main ideas of which are summarised and critically assessed in Chapter 2. The conclusions arising from the evaluation become the impulses for the analysis of Iago and Richard III which aims to highlight some aspects of Shakespeare's method of portrayal of villains. Special attention is paid to the issue of the contrast between the true villainous self and the pretended virtuous semblance which is considered vital for the whole concept of Shakespearean villainy. In Chapter 3, the characters' individual strategies of concealing their actual "being" with their internally created and controlled "seeming" identity are explored. Special attention is paid to their relation to the language as a tool which serves these strategies and, simultaneously, reveals them. Chapter 4 proceeds from a detailed and focused analysis to a general overview of the characters. It approaches the theme of the creation of Iago's and Richard III's identities as a complex process in which both the villains and other characters...
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Romantic Impulses in Victorian Literature
Beran, Zdeněk ; Hilský, Martin (advisor) ; Mánek, Bohuslav (referee) ; Peprník, Michal (referee)
The thesis attempts to discuss the character of late Romantic literature and art as it developed in England throughout the Victorian period. It follows the assertion made by G. Hough that it is possible to identify a continuous presence of Romantic ideas and methods in the writings of some major Victorian authors, and reflects the fact that there was actually no consensus or prevailing unequivocal view of Romanticism at that time, as is evidenced in the contradicting statements of such writers as John Ruskin and Walter Pater. The first objective of the thesis is thus to define the characteristic features of English Romanticism as they can be tracked down in the formative period of the 18th century and the time of High Romanticism of the first decades of the following century, and to see what transforming changes these characteristics underwent during the Victorian era. The sources of Romantic sensibility are located in the revolutionary role of the scientific discoveries of the 17th century and a new focus of the philosophical writings of that period, concerning mainly operations of the human mind. This development resulted in new aesthetic conceptions based on the two prevailing approaches, empiricism and Neo-Platonism. These theories conditioned the main concern of Romantic thought, i.e. an...
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King Lear on screen
Boguszak, Jakub ; Hilský, Martin (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
As we have seen, the range of the visual (and the non-verbal) signs that could be brought into a dialogue with the verse is vast. In general, we can distinguish between those that have a local influence, an impact on our understanding of a line or a speech - these are the facial expressions, gestures, movements, close-ups, compositions and perspectives - and those that shape our perception of the larger semantic structures such as a scene, a character, sometimes even the whole play - these are the locations, costumes, masks, music, rhythm. It is tempting to conclude that it is this second group what makes the greatest contribution to the process of re-imagining of Shakespeare's play through adaptation. It is certainly easier to produce a coherent interpretation with the tools that help to create a sense of a period, a general atmosphere, the tone and pace of the narrative: one can think of all the Shakespearian films that transpose the story into a specific setting, often modern or near-modern, in order to prove that though the Elizabethan verse is old and difficult, the themes are still relevant today, the characterisations true to life and the plot, with all its improbabilities, strangely engaging. Yet what one realises when contemplating these adaptations is the fact that it is not enough to dress the...
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History in the English Fiction of the Last Decades
Nagy, Ladislav ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Hilský, Martin (referee) ; Potočňáková, Magdaléna (referee)
The dissertation focuses on the contemporary British fiction discussing books that in a certain way reflect the changing perception of history and the relationship between historiography and fiction. Several thematic aspects of this reflection are examined, namely, attitudes towards the Victorian era, city, country, archive (relation between fictional narrative and historical sources - meta-textuality) and history as a "palimpsest", i.e., as a set of multiple, mutually permeable layers of text. The changing attitude to the past, which finally leads to doubts on strict division between historiography and literary fiction, is mostly discussed in books published mainly in the last thirty years, the only exception being John Fowlesʼs The French Lieutenantʼs Woman which the author of the dissertation perceives as a book of major importance for the subsequent re-evaluation of the attitude to history. Iain Sinclair, Peter Ackroyd, Alan Moore (London), Michel Faber (the Victorians), Graham Swift, Bruce Chatwin and Adam Thorpe (country), Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith (novel and history), A.S. Byatt and Julian Barnes (archive, literary heritage) are also discussed. " For the authors of historical fiction, history is, above all, a rich source of stories. These stories are told and retold, they are rediscovered and adapted for...
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Elizabeth Bishop: Translation as Poetics
Machová, Mariana ; Quinn, Justin (advisor) ; Hilský, Martin (referee) ; Costello, Bonnie (referee)
The dissertation thesis is based on the concept of translation as an aesthetic stance not limited to translating from one language to another, but informing a certain type of original creation. In order to speak about this aesthetic stance which shares some of its features, methods and values with those often found in the work of a translator the term "translation poetics" is proposed. The American poet Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) is presented and examined as a representative of this poetic type. A study of her lifetime work as a translator creates a context and background for the formulation of the basic characteristics of Bishop's "translation poetics", and, consequently, for the reading of her poems. The detailed chronological examination of all her translations (from Ancient Greek, French, Portuguese and Spanish) is followed by an outline of the main poetic principles which lie both behind translation and the original creation, and these are exemplified by detailed close-readings of a selection of Bishop's poems. The key features of Bishop's "translation poetics" (the interest meetings and borders; tensions between domination and submission, and between the insider and the outsider position; sensitivity towards the plurality of voices and of perspectives; a stress on dialogue and interaction;...
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The aesthetics and short prose of D. H. Lawrence
Štefl, Martin ; Hilský, Martin (advisor) ; Beran, Zdeněk (referee)
The thesis presents an analysis of the selected themes of D. H. Lawrence's aesthetics and philosophy in relation to his short stories. The main focus of the presented argument is the notion of language (Chapter 2), knowledge (Chapter 3) and the Self (Chapter 4). These chapters form and constitute a coherent thematic unity of the Lawrentian "triptych". The above mentioned phenomena are demonstrated to form the foundation of Lawrence's aesthetical and philosophical thought as it is put into practice in his short fiction. The argument aims to introduce these as applied and integrated in the substance of Lawrence's shortest prose. The structure of the thesis is based on a concept in which the next chapter develops and relies on the previous one chapter, while extending and augmenting the original argument. In addition to this, all of the three notions are unified under the key concept of Lawrence's philosophy, i.e. the notion or the theory of the "idea" and "idealism". The discussion of these three phenomena is followed by a brief appendix chapter (Chapter 5). This chapter does not add any new topic, however, supplies the text and deepens the existing argument with what might be understood as a diachronic supplement and summary of an otherwise prevailingly synchronic study. Key Words: D. H. Lawrence,...
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