Zářivá hlubina. K druhému vydání monografie Jiřího Opelíka Josef Čapek

Abstract

On the occasion of the second edition of Jiří Opelík’s first monograph of Josef Čapek (1980, 2017), this article traces its original context and outlines its significance for Czech literary historiography of the modernist movement: the limits of its contemporary reception contrasting with its massive later impact on literary scholarship, the context of the monograph series published by the Melantrich house (1961–1995), the links with the art historical debates concerning the art nouveau style and the art of the fin de siècle, the situation of literary criticism in the 1970s both in the communist Czechoslovakia and abroad, and, finally, the context of Jiří Opelík’s long term engagement with the works of the Čapek brothers and Josef Čapek in particular.