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The temporality of the Romantics. Notes on the conception and figuration of time
Hrbata, Zdeněk
The intensive awareness or experience of time is one of the central topics of 19th century literature, particularly among authors considered Romantic. By way of several examples we focus on the poetry of these individuals (e.g. A. de Lamartine, V. Hugo and J. Vrchlický), whose work attempts to confront the irreversible course of time (the ancient, Virgilian subject: „fugit irreparabile tempus“, also dealt with by e.g. Petrarch and Pierre de Ronsard) by invoking and resurrecting the past, conserving and immortalizing the past, and with memories. For example, this penetrates the present of the subject and is involved in the creation of the continuum, when the passage of time, which in the Romantic conception of art is to be resisted by creation itself, does not necessarily entail disappearance and loss. In contrast to this we have Baudelaire's figures and the figure of time as the universal evil, the destructive enemy of the people provoking constant anxiety, the destroyer who cannot be eliminated, but who can, at least temporarily, be resisted by various forms of escape.
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Images of Cities in Literature
Baštová, Kristýna ; Hrdlička, Josef (advisor) ; Hrbata, Zdeněk (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to look at the issue of the modern big city from the second half of the nineteenth century, when the knowledge of this new phenomenon began to form, to approximately first half of the twentieth century. The process of the development of the big city shall be studied by comparing two diverse urban areas: Prague and Paris. We shall focus mainly on two authors - Charles Baudelaire in the context of Paris, and Richard Weiner linking both Prague and Paris context in his work. The analysis of both authors shall be approached using scientific literature on literary image of the city. The city shall be looked as an ambivalent area that forms the existence of a modern human being fundamentally and that produces an entirely new type of experience and interpersonal relationships that need to be artistically expressed in a new way.
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Courtly Love in the context of ludic elements of courtly culture (Cantigas de Santa Maria and the troubadour chansonnier R)
Jaluška, Matouš ; Hrbata, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Nejedlý, Martin (referee) ; Sánchez Fernández, Juan Antonio (referee)
1./1 Courtly Love in the context of ludic elements of courtly culture (Cantigas de Santa Maria and the troubadour chansonnier R) Matouš Jaluška Abstract Dissertation Courtly Love in the context of ludic elements of courtly culture (Cantigas de Santa Maria and the troubadour chansonnier R) strives to refine on the common notion that the me- dieval courtly poetry is a kind of game. It is based in the tradition of thinking about playing, which is based on the essay Homo ludens of Johan Huizinga and continues through works of Roger Cailloise, Jacques Henriot and Eugen Fink to the current trend of Game Studies. Close reading of the authorities in the introductory chapter shows that each of them assigns an im- portant role to the notion of discontinuity or rupture that enables them to establish the game as a non-binding and safe world. The concept of troubadour poetic creation as a safe activity is explored in the second chapter based on the works of the two founding figures of the trouba- dour tradition, Guilhem de Peitieu ("the Count of Poitiers") and Marcabru. The comparison shows that the safety of troubadour poetry is closely connected with the idea of binding or non-binding language. Binding speech is strongly linked to the image of female power and the ability of women to breed offspring and thus to keep...
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Meanings of Literary Childhood Spaces: The Garden in Twentieth-Century Literature
Izdná, Petra ; Hrbata, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Heczková, Libuše (referee) ; Hrdlička, Josef (referee)
Meanings of Literary Childhood Spaces: The Garden in Twentieth-Century Literature focuses on the analysis of selected twentieth-century childhood novels for adults with regard to the relationship between child character and fictional space, and reflects generally accepted cultural concept of paradisal childhood and its images in literature. In theory, the dissertation is inspired by the treatises on spatiality of human existence by phenomenologists, such as Martin Heidegger, Jan Patočka, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and O. F. Bollnow. It also elaborates insights of the Garden archetype in literary history. The critical reading of selected works examines phenomenological issues, such as child specific perception of space, nature as an extension of the human consciousness, sacred space, home, intimacy of space and death of space. Furthermore, it describes features the literary garden acquires by the union with the child in twentieth-century literature (childhood paradisal gardens, character of divine chid, character of child hermaphrodite, dynamism between fictional house and garden, garden as a miniature of the universe and children games as the imitation of Creation).
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Dazzled by the Hellenic Sun: Reception of the Classical Antiquality in the Czech Literature Between 1880 and 1910
Čadková, Daniela ; Hrbata, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Stehlíková, Eva (referee) ; Hrdlička, Josef (referee)
The theme of the dissertation is the reception of the Classical Antiquity in the Czech Literature between 1880 and 1910. The aim was to analyse the ways in which Czech culture related to the Classical Antiquity in the period of increased concern with Classical topics, motifs and forms. The first, largest part, methodologically inspired by the demythicizing perspective of Vladimír Macura and Jiří Rak, concerns with stereotypical views of the Classical Antiquity particularly prominent in the contemporary discourse: the antithetical image of noble Greece and corrupted Rome, the topos of bright Hellenic Sun and clear Sky, the ideology behind the common opinion that Ancient sculptures were all white (and the reactions to the discovery that they were, in fact, polychrome), the topos of a Greek athletic body and its employment in the policy of the Czech sports movement 'Sokol' (Falcon), and last but not least the topos of a man unspoilt by civilization and living in accordance with the Nature. Separate chapters are also devoted to two then important intermediaries of reception, grammar schools and translation. In the second part, attention is drawn to the representation of the Classical Antiquity in dramatic plays by Jaroslav Vrchlický, especially the dramatic trilogy Hippodamie, and their reception in...
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The Italian Romantic Polemic
Piptová, Ivana ; Hrbata, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Pelán, Jiří (referee)
This master thesis discusses the roots, concepts and the subsequent interpretations of the so- called "romantic discussion", which took place in Italy between the years 1816-1826. Based on the overview of selected debate entries and their critical interpretations, we will try to explain the relatively scarce attention paid to the Italian romanticism by critics outside of Italy. The polemic on romanticism started with the article "On the Manner and Usefulness of Translations" by Madame de Stael, in which the author as a solution to the crisis affecting Italian literature suggested to translate more of French and German production, as it already reflected the upcoming romantic aesthetics. This modest proposal sparked a fierce debate which gradually dealt not only with the question of adopting foreign cultural impulses, but also with need to redefine the roots of Italian cultural traditions and build a modern Italian identity. The most important responses to Madame de Staël's article - written by Ludovico di Breme, Giovanni Berchet and Pietro Borsieri - are now considered "manifestos" of Italian romanticism. Unfortunately the inputs by Giacomo Leopardi and Alessandro Manzoni, even though they are considered very interesting and intellectually stimulating, cannot be considered part of the discussion as...
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Frankenstein: Changes of Fantastic Appearance and Terror in Movie Adaptations and Theatre
Ševčíková, Michaela ; Činátlová, Blanka (advisor) ; Hrbata, Zdeněk (referee)
Master's thesis presents comparison of motifs and images of fantastic appearance and terror in the novel Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley and its film and theatre adaptations, and studies their changes. It deals not only with theoretical problems of fantastic appearance, terror (horror) and adaptation, but especially the Frankenstein myth and its influence on creating these images in given texts. Thesis describes the development of fantastic and horrific images from the literary text towards visual and performance media. The thesis studies the transformation of these images within three film adaptations made by directors J. Searlse Dawley (1910), James Whale (1931) and Kenneth Branagh (1994), and one play written by Nick Dear and directed by Danny Boyle (2011). Key words: Frankenstein, Frankenstein myth, fantastic appearance, fantastic, terror, horror, adaptation
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The Constitution and the Subversion of the Exotic Myth
Binarová, Moe ; Voldřichová - Beránková, Eva (advisor) ; Hrbata, Zdeněk (referee) ; Kyloušek, Petr (referee)
The present dissertation outlines the main phases of the development of exoticism: its evolution from the discovery of Tahiti and its basic manifestations and transformations in French and Czech literature from the end of the eighteenth century to the 1930's. It focuses on the birth of the myth of Tahiti as a heavenly place (Bougainville), on its immediate philosophical interpretation in the period of Enlightenment (Diderot) and on its transposition to literature in a broader shape. At times, the island of Tahiti was gradually vanishing from the exotic myth behind another, more indefinite, exotic and ideal place, culture etc., while at other times, the presence of Tahiti was absolutely crucial. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the myth of the exotic paradise renewed literature and enriched it with new themes and motives (Chateaubriand, Romanticism), which, however, led progressively to the creation of simplified schemes and clichés. These, due to their repetitive nature, degraded the image of the myth (Loti). Although the superficial and unsophisticated adaptation of exoticism lasted until the twentieth century (Havlasa, Novák), in the meantime, from the second half of the nineteenth century, the myth of Tahiti was being radically reassessed and transposed to literature in a new way....
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« CONSTRUCTIONS INACHEVEES » : The meaning of the literary fragment and of the incomplete, their signification in the construction of the human self. Stendhal, Deml, Michaux
Prokop, Lukáš ; Vojvodík, Josef (advisor) ; Hrbata, Zdeněk (referee) ; Rinner, Fridrun (referee)
The objective of this work is to analyze the relation of a literary text to one's identity, to its understanding and to its formation through the written language. The relation between man and the world founded on the awareness of one's own visibility serves as the basis for this analysis. Further, the analysis draws on a hypothesis that one's own visibility within the world is perceived as both a threat and as something inauthentic. Thus, human beings make considerable effort to form themselves according to their own principles or to become someone else with the help of literary text, to take on various disguises and masks, but also to use language as a tool enabling them to uncover their own authenticity. On the onset, such approach was represented by Stendhal's work that is considered as the founding stone of literary egotism. The reason is that, in his work, Stendhal focuses exclusively on himself, which is manifested by a double gesture: self-analysis and self-construction. Both these gestures, performed by the means of language, have a number of successors in various literatures, including Czech literature and the work of Jakub Deml. In Deml's texts, too, the double gesture of self-analysis and self-construction can be recognized. By modifying his own identity, mainly through the inclusion of other...
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The Hidden Avant-Garde. Czech Avant-Garde Fiction between Individualism and Collectivism
Malá, Zuzana ; Janoušek, Pavel (advisor) ; Hrbata, Zdeněk (referee) ; Flaišman, Jiří (referee)
in English This work focuses on the Czech afterwar avant-garde and its fiction in the wider European context. The main goal of our writing was diversifying literary historical field by integrating genre of short story and its authors into the interpretive frame of the prepoetistic avant-garde. We could intrude a canonic picture of the Czech avant-garde by enriching the interpretive frame of the new genre (short story) and new, often hardly known or forgotten, writers. Last but not least by doing so we were able to questioned and problematized basic oppositions such as expressionism × avant-garde, and mainly individualism × collectivism. We introduce the principal opposition individualism × collectivism, which in our opinion, organizes afterwar literary discourse, as a main connecting line between Czech avant-garde art and European art (collective and one of its manifestation - crowd, as one of the main themes of modernism and avant-garde). We interpretate beyond this scope the fictions of French unanimism as the main inspiration of the Czech afterwar avan-garde and its (collective) fiction as well.
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