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The Topos of Being on the Way in selected prosaic works of Peter Henisch
KÜGEL KARKUŠOVÁ, Petra
This study in literary sciences conducts an analysis of selected prosaic works published by the Austrian author Peter Henisch. The study evokes the affirmation that the author makes use of a literary strategy in his writings which consists of four universal topics. These universal topics may be depicted as Grenzenüberschreiten (crossing borders), Generationenkonflikt (conflicts between generations), Gesellschaftskritik (criticizing society) and Interkulturalität (interculturality). The said topics are summarized by the commonplace {--} respectively topos {--} `Being on the way{\crq}, in German language expressed as Unterwegssein. Each of them plays a dominant role within the novels `Die kleine Figur meines Vaters{\crq} (1975), `Schwarzer Peter{\crq} (2000) and `Die schwangere Madonna{\crq} (2005) which are subject to text-based interpretation. The analysis is carried out in two steps. First, after having precisely defined the four universal topics, citations from the texts prove evidence of certain aspects of said topics. Second, the method of parallel comparison (Parallelstellenmethode) examines these aspects to show consistence between citations throughout the selected novels. The outcome of comparison confirms that several aspects are equally used in all of the three novels and that some aspects show up in one or two novels only, confirming the existence of universal topics as well. Thus, the chosen methodology approves the persistent use of all four topics. Finally, this prove of evidence verifies the affirmation of a literary strategy.
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The Place of the Forest in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Literary Sources, a Czech-French-English Perspective
Turek, Matouš ; Nejedlý, Martin (advisor) ; Woitsch, Jiří (referee)
The master thesis presents and analyses a range of different ways in which the motif of the forest was treated in late-medieval literary sources as an element of thematic and compositional construction of the text. At the theoretical basis of the thesis is the concept of diachronic text reception and adaptations which bring along the transmission and simultaneous transformation of the use of topoi, while this process is being related to the development of the literary chronotopos signalizing a change in the public's horizon of expectation. The majority of sources for analysis are drawn from Czech sources of the long 14th century - courtly and chivalric romance, the Old Czech verse legend of St. Procopius and the Dalimil Chronicle - while a shorter part of the thesis is devoted to the presentation of individual tendencies in the development of the use of the forest topos in English and French literary allegory of the 14th and 15th centuries. In detailed comparison of specific passages from Old Czech texts with their actual models in other languages (Old Middle German, Latin), the thesis demonstrates, upon the example of the forest topos, that topoi do not represent fixed, inalterable clichés, but actually exhibit intense shifts in function, content and theme.
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The Poetics of Space in The Alexandria Quartet.
Malý, Lukáš ; Bílek, Petr (advisor) ; Pokorný, Martin (referee)
Poetics of space in The Alexandria Quartet is created by multilevel structures. This poetics is closely connected to the main space of the story - Alexandria, which is at the same time one of the novel's topics. Each level is suggested in connection to various theoretical conceptions which are subsequently used for my own analysis. Alexandria is initially an aesthetic coulisse of the story which is portrayed by descriptive passages. Strongly subjective and lyrical descriptions of the city establish overall impression of the story and potentially support reader's experiential illusion. Alexandria and its specificity is further modulated and thematised by its special macroscopic conditions which border Alexandria as an autonomous fictional space with its own rules within the novel's fictional world. Part of poetics of the space in this novel is also portraying spatio-temporal aspect of the reality (chronotope) no only on the level of the story, but also on the level of storytelling. Alexandria is further explicit rhetoric and also through semantic indexation personified and enters semantic relations with the main characters and events. Each level is complementary to another and all are part of the semantic gesture of the novel. Alexandria becomes a separate symbol, mythical entity which importance is...
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Characters of Space in the Trilogy Trýznivé město by Daniela Hodrová
Macháčková, Klára ; Bílek, Petr (advisor) ; Wiendl, Jan (referee)
This bachelor thesis aims to interpret the trilogy Trýznivé město (subsuming parts called Podobojí, Kukly and Théta) by the Czech novelist and literary scholar Daniela Hodrová. A complex structure of the novel is in the analysis "opened" through the categories of space and characters; an axis of the thesis is the idea that in the poetics of D. Hodrová, some places can acquire certain features of living creatures (such as memory, free will, temper etc.) and vice versa, that some characters can coalesce with the space they inhabit. In spite of a firm mutual connection between the two categories, they will be discussed separately, in the following order: after having defined the background (using mainly theoretical works of D. Hodrová as secondary sources), firstly, we will focus on the localization of particular topoi (i.e. "literary loaded" places, e.g. the mountain, the pass, the abyss etc.) and on the description of their connotations in terms of the general sense of the trilogy; the attention will be also given to the non-topographical places (i.e. objects or parts of the body). Then, we will consider the issue of characters, primarily their ambivalent status between personalities, though fictional, and mere literary constructs performing certain functions, and also their transformations...
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Prague as a Literary Topos by French authors
Šimr, Patrik ; Fučíková, Milena (advisor) ; Listíková, Renáta (referee)
This master thesis written in French language "Le topos de Prague dans la littérature francaise" is analysing literature pieces: Le Passant de Prague and Zone, Guillaume Apollinaire, L'insoutenable légèreté de l'être, Milan Kundera, HHhH, Laurent Binet, La vie brève de Jan Palach, Anthony Sitruk, Mémoires d'outre-tombe, René de Chateaubriand, Les Lettres, Prosper Mérimée and poem Charles Bridge from Cycle de Prague, Serge Patrice Thibodeau. In the main part of the work emphasis is placed on the use of the unique topos of Prague, the purpose of its selection, its role and function in the literary text, as well as intertextual interconnection with other works working with the motifs of Prague. In the introduction, a literary theoretical concept is defined and demonstrated on other examples than this capital city, as there are more definitions and ambiguity in the understanding of this concept could cause difficulties in interpreting the results of text analysis. The result of the work is a limited number, yet three centuries and several genres covering a set of francophone texts that work with the topos of Prague. This is at the end enriched of work with a didactic outline of the use of results, actually the topic of this work in general, in French language lessons in Czech schools. KEYWORDS topos;...
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Boundaries of the labyrinth. Literary Space in the Italian Postmodern Novels
Čaplyginová, Olga ; Flemrová, Alice (advisor) ; Pelán, Jiří (referee) ; Pechar, Jiří (referee)
The Phd thesis titled Boundaries of the labyrinth and subtitled Literary space in the Italian postmodern novels strives for specification and closer definition of the genre of post-modern novel through the analysis of literary space. Formally, the thesis is divided into three parts. The first part aims to provide a theoretical introduction into the problems of three areas related to the given topic, namely the definition of postmodernity and postmodernism, the genre of the novel itself and last but not least the study of space in literature. The content of the second part is the actual literary and scientific analysis of the selected novels (Città invisibili and Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore by Italo Calvino, Notturno indiano by Antonio Tabucchi, Comici spaventati guerrieri by Stefano Benni and Oceano mare and City by Alessandro Baricco) which follows three basic and most frequent spacial topoi occurring in these novels, namely the topos of the city, the house-hotel and the road. The third and final section sums up the observed aspects and characteristics and strives to use them as a basis for determining a certain and generalizing spacial and temporal principle which would facilitate at least a partial characterization of the postmodern novel as an independent genre.
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