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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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Japan in the novels of the British writer Kazuo Ishiguro
Kráľová, Martina ; Hilský, Martin (advisor) ; Beran, Zdeněk (referee)
As we have seen, the fact that Japanese culture plays an important role in all three of Ishiguro's early novels appears to be virtually incontestable. In the first two novels, Japan is present not only on the obvious level of setting and characters. Ishiguro employs and simultaneously subverts the Western stereotypes about Japan, like the notion of obedient Japanese women, or the myth about the Japanese propensity to suicide. The novels also share a controlled and almost minimalist style of narration, which shows distinct traces of the Japanese cinema of the 1950's and of the Japanese aesthetic concept of mono no aware. Moreover, Ishiguro cleverly manipulates the speech of his characters and makes the Japanese language filter through the perfect English diction. As for The Remains of the Day, a critical perspective, which views this novel as purely English without any relation to the Oriental culture, provides enough means to cover the novel to a satisfying degree. However, if the reader has a chance to take into account the Japanese background of the author and the context of Japanese culture, he may discover Oriental elements at the very heart of butler Stevens: in his motives, in his conduct, in his understanding of his vocation and in his view of his position in the context of humanity. Such a reader...
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Beyond words: visual aspects in the work of Virginia Woolf
Šilpochová, Michaela ; Hilský, Martin (advisor) ; Beran, Zdeněk (referee)
Throughout her career Woolf was captivated by questions about the relationship between literature and painting, word and image. Her intense interest in the field of the visual arts was reflected in her development of a new literary method. Woolf's use of the visual arts in her writing largely transcends a mere decorative function. Her employment in her texts of visuality represents a significant stylistic innovation by means of which she rejects the conventional way of depicting reality and the descriptive realism of the nineteenth- century writers. In attempt to develop a modern way of writing, which would render reality more in accord with the modern sensibility, she employed in her texts principles underlying the contemporary theory and practice in the visual arts relying particularly on the aesthetics of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. The principles of these two styles exist side by side and complement each other even in Woolf's later works which have been considered as predominantly post-impressionist. The objectives of Post- Impressionist art became known to Woolf through the theories of Roger Fry which turned out to be a major formative influence in the shift towards her new aesthetics.
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Aldous Huxley's early novels of ideas: from Crome Yellow to Those Barren Leaves
Renner, Luboš ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Hilský, Martin (referee)
The literary reputation of Aldous Huxley, the novelist, has scarcely ever been as good as that of Aldous Huxley, the essayist. In fact, as some critics claim, Huxley's novels have the crucial flaw of not being proper novels at all - they are (the critics say) 1 actually essays, some of them more skillfully dramatized than others. Whether the novels really suffer from their essayistic quality is a question to be answered by the reader; certain it is, though, that mixing the two genres, the novel and the essay, was Huxley's intention: As he once acknowledged in an interview, his aim as a novelist was ~to arrive, technically, at a perfect fusion of the novel and the essay"z. What are the main features of a Huxleyan essayistic novel? First , it is scarcity of plo t. In most Huxley' s novels nothing ever happens: people come and go, they meet and part, they (try to) make love, and - most importantly - they talk. This is, of course, true especially of Huxley's early conversation novels, a late novel like Ap e and E s s en c e probably being the most noticeable exception. Another aspect of the essayistic novel follows on the first. The scarce plot does not lead to any overall des i g n ; the novels end, as it were, in the middle of 'action'; there seems to be no single 'message' to be arrived at. Again, this...
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Relationships of the principal characters of Graham Greene's selected "Catholic" novels (Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter) to themselves, other characters and God with respect to the general features of Greene's novels and their typical protagonists
Fabián, Erik ; Beran, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Hilský, Martin (referee)
The novels of Graham Greene have been of great interest to many literary scholars for years and are even nowadays. For their provocativeness in the broadest sense of this word, they have been either praised and recommended (even by the author himself) or condemned and censured. Nevertheless, his works in general have gained popularity of readers from all over the world (not excluding the Czech Republic) probably thanks to Greene's captivating style of writing and the themes with which he is concerned. Therefore, it appears to be important to examine the writings of an author who was even nominated for a Nobel Prize, for such discussion may raise interesting problems or give answers to yet unanswered questions. Understandably, it would be impossible to cover all Greene's novels in a greater depth in this thesis. For the present analysis, three of his four "Catholic novels" have been selected: Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory and The Heart of the Matter. The main aim of this thesis is to provide a deeper analysis of the selected novels. As relationships of the central characters to themselves, other characters and God help to demonstrate the themes and motifs which Greene presents in the given novels, they will be examined. Further, it will be shown on particular examples in what way these protagonists...
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The image of the city in contemporary British literature. The city in the works of Martin Amis and Ian McEwan
Chalupský, Petr ; Hilský, Martin (advisor) ; Nováková, Soňa (referee) ; Grmela, Josef (referee)
The city and its milieu have always been a source of inspiration and motifs for artists and writers are no exception. The process of urbanization brought along rapid social, political, cultural and economic changes which evoked immediate responses of various kinds, from welcoming and celebrating ones to those of rejection and condemnation, from those who were traditionally the most sensitive about such phenomena ~ men of letters. As a result of this fact, the image of the city has been present in literature since the first urban societies appeared and to trace it back in detail would mean a different aim from that which this work is going to follow. The main concern of my thesis is contemporary British literature and therefore I would like to focus on how the city is reflected in the works of British writers in the last two decades of the twentieth century. To provide certain general coherence, continuity and context of the theme, I will also put down a brief outline of how the image of the city has been developing and changing in English literature since the late Victorian period trying to show that the phenomenon is very deep-rooted in the tradition of the English imagination. If we should mention the most notable contemporary British writers whose works are set in cities or in some other way depict the...
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Canon of Anglophone Literatures in the Czech Context
Onufer, Petr ; Procházka, Martin (advisor) ; Hilský, Martin (referee) ; Nagy, Ladislav (referee)
English Summary The present thesis deals with the various ways in which Anglophone literatures form their canon(s) in the Czech context. In doing so, it treats literature as one inseparable whole, consisting of poetry, prose and literary criticism. The latter is not understood as auxiliary literature, but rather as a self-sufficient form that deserves equal attention to so-called "creative writing"; after all, all the three major literary forms inevitably participate in canon formation, albeit in their own respective ways. The process of canon formation takes different turns and yields different results in the original, i.e. Anglophone, milieu and in the Czech context - and the canons that thus arise differ as well. Moreover, the debate on canons is always being complicated by their essentially unstable, variable nature; by definition, the process of canon formation is unfinished and interminable. Canons are not to be viewed as the be-all and end-all of literary analysis but rather as guideposts, useful tools that stimulate further study and permanently invite questioning and revisions of themselves. In spite of this fundamental - and quite simple - purpose, the literary canon is an extremely complex and intricate concept. The complexity of its meanings and its implications is dealt with in the thesis'...
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Shakespearean chorus/prologue: its functions and effects in the play
Ohlídalová, Anna ; Znojemská, Helena (advisor) ; Hilský, Martin (referee)
The aim of this BA Thesis is to analyse and compare Shakespeare's prologues and choruses according to their formal features (narrative strategies, Chorus persona, and distribution in the play) and their position and function in the individual plays. The introductory chapter will briefly comment on the use of the chorus and prologue in Elizabethan drama, providing the context for subsequent specific analysis of Shakespeare's plays. The discussion will open with the analysis of the earliest of the containing this feature plays, Romeo and Juliet. This will provide a basis for categorising and documenting the development of the above characteristics, which will then be compared with other Shakespeare's prologues and choruses from all the genres of his plays. The other compared plays are Henry VIII, Midsummer Night's Dream, Troilus and Cressida, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, and Henry V.
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The Czech translations of John Donne: a translator's poetics and its consequences
Šťastná, Zuzana ; Tobrmanová, Šárka (advisor) ; Hilský, Martin (referee) ; Beran, Zdeněk (referee)
The PhD thesis studies the translations and the overall reception of John Donneʼs poetry in the Czech literary culture. Its introduction explains the choice of the topic, outlines the structure of the text and the main question to be answered: to what extent Donne has become a significant presence in the Czech cultural context and how his work has been transplanted through translations. The first chapter gives a brief overview of the historical changes in the appreciation of Donneʼs poetry and, drawing on a range of Donnean literature, attempts to define the main features of his poetics. The second chapter traces the gradual building of an awareness of Donneʼs poetry among Czech readers through translations, translation paratexts and references in the works of Czech literary scholars. It introduces the Czech translators of Donne and discusses their motives for translating his work where these could be ascertained. The first part of Chapter 3 describes the method used in analyzing the Czech translations. It introduces the model of translation criticism presented by Antoine Berman in his analysis of French Donnean translations (Pour une critique des traductions: John Donne, 1995) and comments on its application in the study of the Czech translations. The second part sums up the findings of two...
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