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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 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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Ironic Myths and Broken Images: Reflections of the 1798 Rebellion in Twentieth-Century Irish Fiction and Drama
Markus, Radvan ; Pilný, Ondřej (advisor) ; Procházka, Martin (referee) ; Mac Craith, Micheal (referee)
The 1798 Irish rebellion together with the preceding decade is justly regarded as a watershed event in the forming of Irish national identity. Therefore it is not surprising that it has inspired numerous, and often conflicting, interpretations in both historiography and literature. This study concentrates on both English- and Irish-language historical novels and plays written about the rebellion in the course of the twentieth century, especially after the year 1916. Attention is drawn to the interpretations of the event contained in these literary works, comparing them to the various views of 1798 as they have evolved in Irish historiography. As the rebellion, especially from the 1970s onward, has been increasingly seen in the light of the later conflict in Northern Ireland, this connection has an important place in the analysis. On the theoretical level, the thesis draws from the findings of Hayden White, who has famously questioned the border between historiographical and fictional treatments of historical events. At the same time, this relativism is complemented by selected features of the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, who highlighted the inevitable ethical questions connected to representations of history. In accordance with the theoretical preliminaries, the study explores the relative value of...
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