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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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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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The Romantic Prometheus: Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", P. B. Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound" and Lord Byron's "Manfred".
Hupcejová, Anna ; Horová, Miroslava (advisor) ; Beran, Zdeněk (referee)
Following the time of political turmoil and social change sweeping through Europe (the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the Industrial Revolution), the mythological figure of Prometheus was especially popular in English Romantic literature. The Promethean symbol and values of liberty and defiance were evident inspirations of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Percy Bysshe Shelley's Prometheus Unbound and George Gordon Byron's Manfred. Being generally interested in English Romantic literature, I seek to discuss in what ways and to what extent have the Romantics rewritten the themes associated with the Titan for the purposes of modernity. Prometheus' chief characteristics are his caring and self-sacrificing, yet rebellious and cunning nature - he is in short an individual that the Romantics could relate to, also because he suffered for his beliefs and was mentally strong enough to stand up against the Olympian authorities. His name translates as 'forethought' or 'foresight' and this is without doubt connected to why the Romantics found him relevant to their time. There are a few issues that will need to be confronted. First of all, there are countless versions of the ancient myth, so instead I will direct my attention to the values and symbols associated with Prometheus. Secondly, there are also other...
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Allusions of fantastic German literature of the romantic period in fantastic proses of Jakub Arbes and Julius Zeyer
Cingrošová, Veronika ; Brožová, Věra (advisor) ; Mocná, Dagmar (referee)
- Aj In this work we focused on the literary genre of the fantastic short story, a genre that has its specific features, working with mystery and ambiguity, and relying on the interactive relationship between the reader and the text. We looked at terms fantastic literature, fantastic short story and we studied which attributes are typical for this literature (such as individual motifs, composition, atmosphere and language-specific resources). Than we were looking for the presence of these attributes in individual works of selected authors. The most important representatives of Czech fantastic stories were compared with selected German Romanticists who were the inception for our authors who followed them and in whose work we find the fantastic phenomena. Then we tracked the similarities and differences in work of these authors. We found, that despite substantial conformity in the use of specific attributes of fantastic stories, the individual works of our authors differs significantly, not only in the frequency of use of these attributes, but also in the overall tone of the work and its effect on the reader. To better understand all the work, we have included in addition to the parts of the works and typically observed phenomena, the key biographical details of all authors, because as it was finally...
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The comparison of chosen aspects of Kytice by Karel Jaromír Erben and Ballady i romanse by Adam Mickiewicz
Kaiserová, Michaela ; Benešová, Michala (advisor) ; Chmel, Rudolf (referee)
The bacheloral thesis The comparation of the chosen aspects of Kytice by Karel Jaromír Erben and Ballady i romanse by Adam Mickiewicz will in the opening part describe the complex characterization of ballads on the both primary texts. Next will introduce authors and their works. In the following part the bacheloral thesis will focus for example on the comparation of the literary motives, the characterizations of the real and supernatural characters, the concept of the death or the motive of character's transformation. The bacheloral thesis will focus on description of the atmosphere and time, in which the ballads take place. Afterwards the thesis will be concerned for example with the motive of guilt and punishment or the character of women-heroines. Key words Ballad, Kytice, Ballady i romanse, Karel Jaromír Erben, Adam Mickiewicz, supernatural characters, guilt and punishment, transformation of characters, death motive.
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Comparison of lives and works of E. A. Poe and Stephen King/ What can make people write horror stories?
Kopečná, Kateřina ; Ženíšek, Jakub (advisor) ; Chalupský, Petr (referee)
The bachelor thesis is concerned with the comparison of lives and works of Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King. In the theoretical part of the thesis the horror genre and its typical features are introduced together with outlining both writers' brief biographies. The main part focuses on the analogies between the authors' lives and similarities in the topics and motifs of their work. Poe and King are world-wide famous horror writers; and besides the obvious similarities, such as the nationality and the choice of genre, there are many parallel events and influences in their lives that might have affected the literary production. The thesis provides a deeper analysis of those facets and it puts them in context with their works. The last part interconnects the findings made throughout and explores the tentative thesis as to whether there can be something that can "make" a person write horror stories.
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Myth and National Identity
Chytrý, Lukáš ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Znojemská, Helena (referee)
The thesis aims to explore the relationship between national identity and the myth. Key to the analysis are the questions of the manner in which a collective identity becomes dependant on literary narrations as well as the particular motives that constitute these narrations. The analysis of the relationship is carried out in reference to particular literary texts. The discussion is based on the critical approach of literary theory and the analyses of relevant socio-political aspects. The discussion is based on a comparative approach to the chosen literary texts. The comparative method focuses on the socio-political and historical contexts of the literary works, as well as on the different concepts of communal identity portrayed. Key texts to the debate are the collection of poems of James Macpherson, Poems of Ossian, Sir Walter Scott's historical novel, Waverley, and the Czech Manuscripts of Dvůr Králové and Zelená Hora. This thesis commences the discussion with a theoretical approach to the relationship between myth and history. The discussion aims at the manner in which both the mentioned elements constitute collective identity. The thesis emphasises those aspects which give rose to manipulative statements and conceptions that shape the discourse. To the fore thus comes the question of...
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The Ideal of Beauty in the Period of Romanticism
Páchová, Kateřina ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Horová, Miroslava (referee)
(in English): The aim of the thesis is to study the ideal of beauty in the period of Romanticism. The study is based on a close analysis of one of the crucial texts of the Romantic period - the Lyrical Ballads written by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The thesis is concerned with the vision of the beautiful in relation to the aesthetics of the sublime. It focuses on the development of what was perceived as beautiful in the periods preceding Romanticism and how this vision changed for the Romantics. The question is what is the ideal of beauty in the period of Romanticism and how it is presented in the Lyrical Ballads? Is there a common ideal for Wordsworth and Coleridge, or do they differ in their notion of the beautiful? The main focus of the thesis is the discrepancy between the beautiful, on one hand, and the sublime or the grotesque, on the other, both in perceiving the nature and human beings. The Romantics have several similar features as well as the vision of the beautiful, whether they praise women or men or nature, whether they deal with the beauty inside or the surface. Similarities between those are considered as well. The reflexion of aesthetics of the beautiful and the sublime is drawn primarily from Edmund Burke's The Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas...
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From fallen angel to blonde beast: characters of prostitutes in Balzac's The Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans and Zola's Nana
Fousová, Tereza ; Voldřichová - Beránková, Eva (advisor) ; Pohorský, Aleš (referee)
Subject to this degree work is the character of prostitutes in French society in the 19th century reflected in eight selected works of French authors of the time. In the first part of my thesis the history of prostitution from "religious prostitution" in ancient Greece to its "golden age" in France in the 19th century is described. The decay of moral principles in the post-Revolutionary period (as a result of religious and social taboos collapse) causes a great spread of prostitution and venereal diseases. Because of these reasons it was necessary to take the legalizing and organizing precautions - the French System. The second part of this work takes addresses the different (romantic and naturalistic) representations of the character of the prostitute in the literature of the 19th century. The representative of the romantic interpretation of the courtesan who is driven to sin due to poverty (the myth of the "fallen angel" redeemed by pure love) is Honoré de Balzac and his novel "The Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans". The opposite pole to the romantic interpretation of prostitutes is a naturalistic beast which chooses the oldest profession herself as a means of executing social revenge. In this second, analytical, part of this work the comparison of both of these kinds is made. Key words:...
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