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The Talking Dead: An Exploration of the Graveyard as a Literary Device in Máirtín Ó Cadhain's Graveyard Clay and George Saunders's Lincoln in the Bardo
Rogan, Patrick ; Markus, Radvan (advisor) ; Theinová, Daniela (referee)
in English The intent of this thesis is a comprehensive comparison between Máirtín Ó Cadhain's novel Cré na Cille and George Saunders's novel Lincoln in the Bardo. A particular emphasis is placed on both Ó Cadhain and Saunders's use of the literary device of 'voices in the graveyard' as a method of depicting an entire community. The first chapter focuses on the afterlives portrayed in each novel - Saunders's fantastical reimagining of the Tibetan Buddhist concept of the bardo is contrasted against Ó Cadhain's metaphysical, yet nearly nonreligious afterlife. The second chapter uses Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of heteroglossia to analyze the language used by the characters in both novels. The third chapter begins by providing historical background on the settings of each novel (Cré na Cille takes place during World War II and Lincoln in the Bardo is set during the early days of the Civil War), before exploring how some of each of the text's major characters fit within those specific epochs. The thesis then summarizes the key reasons that the device of 'voices in the graveyard' can serve as an ideal means of portraying a community in toto. In conclusion, the thesis briefly investigates Edward Mendelson's idea of the encyclopedic narrative and where Cré na Cille and Lincoln in the Bardo fit within this...
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The Monsters of Beowulf: Heroic and Christian Values
Howe, Patricia ; Znojemská, Helena (advisor) ; Markus, Radvan (referee)
This thesis deals with the Old English poem Beowulf, exploring the dichotomy between the Christian poet and the pre-Christian material he tackles. Beowulf was written at least a few hundred years after Christianity was already established in England, yet still had to reckon with the remnants of a culture that had radically different values. The attitude Christianity had to these was ambivalent, at times choosing to conform and integrate some aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture, and at others taking a confrontational approach and condemning them. This is reflected in Beowulf, which has both praise and censure for the society it depicts. The poem's overarching theme is community1 , and the fight against forces that would threaten to destroy it. These forces are personified by monsters, who are literal as well as metaphorical threats to social order. I argue that in Beowulf, by putting secular material in a Christian framework, the poet is able to explore which values are the most conducive to the fight against these threats. The monsters of Beowulf have long been recognized as "crucial to the very structure of the poem"2 . They are the point where the secular and the Christian world meet, as they are both material creatures and evil spirits. The Grendel-kin and the dragon are material monsters, analogous...
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Love in Huxley's Brave New World and Island
Petrová, Diana ; Markus, Radvan (advisor) ; Veselá, Pavla (referee)
Utopia and dystopia are terms that often occur together. Utopia usually refers to a perfect or at least improved society in which all people are happy; dystopia, on the other hand, commonly represents a somehow perverse, undesirable society. The term "utopia" is older, appearing for the first time in Thomas More's book Utopia (1516), although the concept itself existed long before it got its name. "Dystopia" is a much younger term, which was used for the first time in John Stuart Mill's parliamentary speech in 1868. The term "utopia" consists of two Old Greek words that translate as "no place." The meaning of this term directly illustrates the utopian ambiguous nature - while utopia represents a much better world than the present one, at the same time it also points to the improbability of such world. It is typical of utopias that they are sustained by certain rules slightly restricting one's freedom, which could potentially be regarded as direct proof of the impossibility of a complete utopia. Dystopia is then to some extent based on this ambiguity of utopia. The main characteristic of dystopia is its undesirability stemming from the repressive laws that ensure the obedience of the population. Aldous Huxley's most famous novel, Brave New World (1932), is traditionally considered a dystopia and...
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The Afterlife in Samuel Beckett, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, and Flann O'Brien
Doleček, Jan ; Markus, Radvan (advisor) ; Vichnar, David (referee)
This thesis aims to examine and compare the use of afterlife motif in Samuel Beckett's late drama, Máirtín Ó Cadhain's experimental novel Cré na Cille (1949), and Flann O'Brien's absurdist novel The Third Policeman (published posthumously in 1967). As all three are considered to be one the most prominent authors of late Irish modernism, their work is thus placed within this cultural context. The introductory chapter provides this necessary background to outline the major aspects of this particular literary tradition as well as present possible socio-cultural influences, which may have informed these seminal writers of highly experimental texts: the turbulent history of post-World War I Ireland, its political stasis during World War II, and the general pessimism emerging in this period in Europe all have considerable influence on the works examined. The first main chapter focuses on Beckett's plays Play (1963), Not I (1973), Footfalls (1976), and A Piece of Monologue (1979) and on their treatment of the afterlife motif, which is distinguishable even despite the ambiguity and minimalism of these dramatic pieces. Through the examination of Dantesque elements, Beckett's manipulation of temporality, and the fragmentary narratives of his ghastly characters, it is argued that Beckett's major theme was the...
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The Weekend of Dermot & Grace: Eugene R. Watters' Long Modernist Poem
Světlík, Martin ; Markus, Radvan (advisor) ; Theinová, Daniela (referee)
The oeuvre of the Irish poet, novelist, playwright and essayist Eugene Rutherford Watters (later publishing under the name Eoghan Ó Tuairisc), who wrote both in English and Irish, has been mostly neglected by literary criticism. This thesis focuses on Watters' ambitious long modernist poem The Week-End of Dermot and Grace (1964), which has so far received only perfunctory critical treatment. Formally, The Week-End shows clear affinities with the works of high modernism (especially with the poetry of T.S. Eliot), especially in terms of poly- and multivocal qualities of Watters' overtly allusive language and the liberal employment of wide-ranging intertextual references. On the thematic level, the poem centres around Watters' preoccupation with the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6th August 1945 by the American forces, a momentous event that impelled the poet to questions about faith, civilisation, technology, and collective guilt in the context of the Irish neutral stance during the Second World War. Reflections on Hiroshima also led him to contemplate the role of the poet and poetry in the modern "atomic age". Given the aforementioned qualities of the work, the method chosen for the analysis consists of a close reading of the poem in the light of the historical, literary, and...
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"The ground possessed and repossessed": The Trope of the Feminized Land in Seamus Heaney's North
Hezinová, Adéla ; Markus, Radvan (advisor) ; Theinová, Daniela (referee)
- propaganda tract "Echtra mac nEchach Muigmedóin" ("The Mugmedón"), the vision in Aodhagán Ó Rathaille's "Gile na Gile" ("The Glamoured"), and the sorrowful mother lamenting being abandoned by her children in Patrick Pearse's "Mise Éire" ("Ireland"). This thesis focuses on how t second part of the thesis focuses on Seamus Heaney's poetry collection illuminates the relationship between Heaney's poetry and the politics and history of Ireland. The aim of this thesis is to offer a new perspective on Heaney's poems by examining the parallels between the trope's form in older texts and Heaney's innovations and modifications of the trope. In three parts, Heaney's complex metaphors are analyzed: "Antaeus", "Hercules and Antaeus" and "Bone Dreams" are explored - "Come to the Bower", "Bog Queen", "Punishment", and "Kinship", which offer us the trope is its most archetypal form. The last - "Ocean's Love to Ireland", "Aisling", "Act of Union" and "The Betrothal of Cavehill". In the third part, the thesis touches upon the feminist critique of Heaney's poems, as became a focus of many critics' work, including
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Class, Sexuality and Nationalism: Identity Building in the Prose Writing of Brendan Behan
Lamprecht, Nathalie ; Pilný, Ondřej (advisor) ; Markus, Radvan (referee)
Nathalie Lamprecht Abstract Class, Sexuality and Nationalism: Identity Building in the Prose Writings of Brendan Behan focuses on Irish author, playwright and rebel Brendan Behan's prose fiction. It uses notions of Irish autobiography, memory and narrativity in order to analyse his collected short stories, his only crime novel The Scarperer and his columns, originally published in the Irish Press, as well as his most extensive work, the autobiographical novel Borstal Boy. Due to the autobiographical nature of most of these texts, throughout this thesis biographies of the author function as co-texts. The aim of this thesis is to find out how Behan uses the themes of class, sexuality and nationalism in order to create identity in his prose. Mostly, the author is critical of his time's accepted version of Irishness, creating characters principally based on himself that do not fit the mould.
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The Political Poetry of Derick Thomson
Poncarová, Petra Johana ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Dunbar, Rob (referee) ; Markus, Radvan (referee)
This dissertation focuses on the political verse and journalism by the Scottish Gaelic poet, scholar, publisher, and activist Derick Thomson (Ruaraidh MacThòmais, 1921-2012). The chosen set of themes can be broadly described as "political issues", although Thomson should not be regarded only as a political poet in the narrow sense of a propagandist, nor does his political poetry deal with elections and campaigns. The political aspect of his poetry is much broader, including concerns with language and power. Politics also represent the connection between Thomson's multiple activities, and therefore a suitable framework in which to explore them. So far, the prevailing paradigm for studying Thomson's works has been the poetry of place, a concept deeply rooted in the Gaelic tradition, and both popular and critical attention was paid especially to his Lewis poems and, to a less extend, his writing about Glasgow. This dissertation strives to provide answers to the following questions: Which political issues can be traced in Thomson's poetry? What were his main concerns? How does he handle politics in his verse? Are there poems where a political interpretation might be constructed, but that also allow other ways of reading? What were Thomson's actual political convictions, as far as we can reconstruct...
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The Reception of Irish Literature and Drama in Czech Translation
Laurincová, Alžběta ; Pilný, Ondřej (advisor) ; Markus, Radvan (referee)
1 Abstract The main aim of the thesis is to introduce the problematics of Czech translations from Irish literature published in the Czech Lands in the period between 1945 - 2014. The author of the thesis provides the list of the authors that were translated in the Czech Lands in that period, and comments upon the literary tradition related to it. Due to the extensive amount of works, the thesis is divided into several chapters, introducing four specific periods: 1945 - 1948 (the end of WWII - the beginning of the Soviet control), 1949 - 1968 (Soviet control - the occupation of the Troops of Warsaw Pact), 1969 - 1989 (the occupation - Velvet Revolution) and 1989 - 2014 (Velvet Revolution - "Velvet Divorce" - the present day). In each chapter the historic introduction is provided mainly to foreshadow the context of the whole era. The discussion about the translations from Irish literature consists from general list of works by individual authors and comments upon their presence at the Czech literary market, the frequency of publishing, the reception of individual authors etc. The author also considers the socio-political occurences that might have influenced the final shape of the Irish-Czech literary canon, and, when possible, tries to demonstrate the extent of such influence.
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Aided Derbforgaill: Recurrent motifs in Early Irish Literature and their Relation to the Status of Women
Němečková, Hana ; Markus, Radvan (advisor) ; Pilný, Ondřej (referee)
THESIS ABSTRACT The main focus of this thesis is the examination of the representation of women in the Ulster Cycle, especially in the instances where they cross the boundaries of their gender and participate in activities usually associated with the world of heroes and kings, such as bragging and competitions to establish one's highest status. As the recurrent motifs in the Ulster Cycle are numerous, this thesis discusses only those present in The Violent Death of Derbforgaill (Aided Derbforgaill), a short yet moving tale about a violent death of the female protagonist. The motifs include bragging, competitions, violence, love-triangles and deaths caused either by jealousy or a strong emotion, but perhaps the most surprising of them all is the motif of urination, which also appears in the longest epic of the Ulster Cycle, The Cattle Raid of Cooley (Táin Bó Cuilnge). Special attention is paid to the way how these transgressions influence the honour of women in the heroic society, as well as to the notion of women's honour itself, e.g. to what extent is their honour dependent on their husbands, what qualities are honoured in aristocratic women and whether the female characters tend to accept their secondary position in the society. A useful comparison is provided by the examples of Otherworldly women, as...
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