http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/96252 Issue 23 Sun, 12 Apr 2026 12:37:36 GMT 2026-04-12T12:37:36Z http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/97146 Reading the Body: Corporeal Imagery, Language, and Identity in Ivan Blatný’s Pomocná škola Bixley; ; ; The present study examines the manner in which Ivan Blatný approaches three interrelated themes — identity, language, and the human body — throughout Pomocná škola Bixley, his last verse collection. I argue that as Blatný grappled with the decline of his mental and physical strength, these themes merged in his writing. Through a series of critical readings I demonstrate the way Blatný treats poetic ability and fractured identity in terms of mastery over broken language and body. The poet splits his lyrical “I” in numerous ways, making his poems more self-aware and self-deprecating than before. There is also a tension between the joy that language brings him and his being powerless to comprehend it. The use of body imagery (arteries, bones, etc.) repeatedly accentuates this correlation, intermingling as it does with reflections on the perplexing nature of writing. By equating the failure to comprehend the human body with the incapacity to explain his own language, Blatný transforms these twin issues into a struggle to understand the person(s) he has become. This expanded thematic unity provides an approach which allows us to understand Pomocná škola Bixley as a cohesive collection, complete with an interconnected system of metaphors and imagery, rather than the disorganized mass it may appear to be at first reading.; Článek se věnuje otázce, jakým způsobem přistupuje Ivan Blatný k trojici navzájem propojených témat — identitě, jazyku a lidskému tělu — ve své poslední sbírce Pomocná škola Bixley. Při zápase s úpadkem duševních a tělesných sil se Blatnému tato témata v jeho psaní spojila. Kritickým čtením předvádím Blatného pojetí básnických schopností a roztříštěné identity prizmatem vlády nad rozbitým jazykem a tělem. Básník různými způsoby štěpí své lyrické já, čímž zvyšuje sebereflexivitu a sebeironii básní, jež navíc vykazují napětí mezi radostí, již mu jazyk přináší, a jeho neschopností jazyku porozumět. Tato korelace je opakovaně zdůrazněna využitím obrazů tělesnosti (cév, kostí atd.), jež se proplétají s úvahami o matoucí povaze psaní. Ztotožněním nepochopitelnosti lidského těla s nevysvětlitelností vlastního jazyka Blatný oba problémy proměňuje v zápas o pochopení té osoby či osob, jimiž se stal. Tato rozšířená básnická jednota rýsuje přístup, který nám umožňuje vnímat Pomocnou školu Bixley jako soudržnou sbírku s vnitřně propojeným systémem metafor a obrazů a nikoli jako dezorganizovanou masu, jak se při prvním čtení může jevit. Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/97146 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/97155 Denkbilder des kulturellen Gedächtnisses Tschechische Lesebuchtexte aus Remarques Im Westen nichts Neues; Denkbilder of Cultural Memory: Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front as Anthologized in Czech School Textbooks; ; ; This article presents a research project on the history of mentalities in Czech culture of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. The project analyses textbooks for the teaching of Czech literature for secondary schools. It focuses in particular on the excerpts from the literary works and analyses their potential for the learners to acquire cultural and historical knowledge as well as personal skills. These excerpts are conceptualized here as Denkbilder, a term that has been used repeatedly in German literature studies recently to define short prose texts that stimulate imagination as well as reflection. Responding to the high number of literary works from world literature in the Czech textbooks analysed for the project, this article addresses the contrasting presentations of one classic of German literature, Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues). It illustrates how a single literary work can be presented in different ways in literature textbooks, offering the learners different approaches for relating to the text and activating their cognitive and imaginative resources. Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/97155 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/97055 Ideology as Metaphor, Narrative, and Performance in the Writings of Václav Havel; Ideologie jako metafora, narativ a performance v tvorbě Václava Havla; ; ; From his pre-1989 essays to his post-1989 presidential speeches, V. Havel develops an account of ideology that avoids a standard dictionary definition (ideology as a system of political or economic beliefs) and relies almost exclusively on elaboration via metaphor, narrative, and performance. The import of Havel’s treatment of ideology has not been appreciated. Metaphors, stories, and performances are special forms of appeal that prompt us to rethink the meaning of a given domain. This paper explores how Havel exploits the creative potential of these forms of appeal in order to radically reconceptualize our understanding of ideology as a force in the modern world.; Od esejů z období komunistického režimu až po prezidentské proslovy po roce 1989 rozvíjí Václav Havel určitou koncepci ideologie, která obchází standardní slovníkovou definici ideologie jakožto systém politických či ekonomických názorů a je skoro výlučně rozvíjena pomocí metafor, narativů a performance. Význam Havlova chápání ideologie doposud nebyl zhodnocen. Metafory, příběhy a představení jsou apelem sui generis, který nás nutí nově promyslet smysl určité domény. Článek zkoumá, jak Havel využívá tvůrčí potenciál těchto apelativních forem s cílem radikálně nově pochopit ideologii jakožto sílu moderním světě. Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/97055 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/97026 Josef Bors Roman Opuštěná panenka zwischen Faktizität und Fiktionalität; Josef Bor’s Novel The Abandoned Doll in Between Facticity and Fictionality; ; ; The paper presents the Czech-Jewish writer Josef Bor (1906–1979) and his first published book, the novel Opuštěná panenka / The Abandoned Doll (1961). Bor’s topic here was his own personal experience of the Holocaust: from his deportation to Terezín and later to Auschwitz, where he loses his entire family including two little daughters, via captivity in other concentration camps and „marches of death“ all the way to liberation, occurring in his case close to Jena, Germany. On the basis of these prominently autobiographic references, the reviewers often emphasized that the work has primarily documentary character. The present essay, on the other hand, views The Abandoned Doll primarily as a literary fiction wherein the fate of the protagonist and his family is, rather than documentary, of an exemplary, symbolic nature. The primary goal of the novel is not to represent a particular authentic case but rather to give a broad idea, anchored in a particular case, of the functioning of the Holocaust as a machinery of total humiliation and systematic killing. Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/97026 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z