Czech Literature Research Articles

Ethics at the Crossroads: The Czech "Dissident Writer" as Dramatic Character

In a survey of contemporary national literatures it seems only sensible to speak of a "Czech literature," as well as of "Czech drama." After all, Czech writers have lately been making their marks with increasing clarity on the international literary scene. Milan Kundera's novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting has reached the best-seller list in the United States; Vaclav Havel's and Pavel Kohout's plays are performed in many countries and languages; Josef Skvorecky has received the prestigious Neustadt Prize; Ludvik Vaculik publishes essays in the New York Review; Ivan Klima's plays are performed in Canada; Jiti Grusa's prose attracts international praise. If we consider the biographies of the writers, however, we find that speaking of a "Czech literature," though true in one way, misleads in another.

The Writing on the Wall: An Anthology of Contemporary Czech Literature. Edited by Antonin Liehm and Peter Kussi. Translated by Vera Blackwell, Jan Drabek, William E. Harkins, Peter Kussi, Kaca Polackova, Suzanne Rappaport, Miroslav Rensky, and Paul Wilson. Introduction by Ludvík Vaculík. New York: Karz-Cohl Publishing, 1983 (compiled from material first published in samizdat in Czechoslovakia by Edice Petlice. Many

The Writing on the Wall: An Anthology of Contemporary Czech Literature. Edited by Antonin Liehm and Peter Kussi. Translated by Vera Blackwell, Jan Drabek, William E. Harkins, Peter Kussi, Kaca Polackova, Suzanne Rappaport, Miroslav Rensky, and Paul Wilson. Introduction by Ludvík Vaculík. New York: Karz-Cohl Publishing, 1983 (compiled from material first published in samizdat in Czechoslovakia by Edice Petlice. Many of the pieces have been reprinted in Hodina Nadeje: almanack česke literatury 1968–1978 [Toronto: Sixty-Eight Publishers, 1978] and in Cam na zdi [Cologne: Index, 1978]). xviii, 252 pp. $19.95. - Volume 43 Issue 3

The Writing on the Wall: An Anthology of Contemporary Czech Literature

The Writing on the Wall: An Anthology of Contemporary Czech Literature

Czech Literature since 1956: A Symposium

Czech Literature since 1956: A Symposium

Czech Literature since 1956: A Symposium

Czech Literature since 1956: A Symposium

The German-Jewish Writers of Prague Interpreters of Czech Literature

The German-Jewish Writers of Prague Interpreters of Czech Literature

Czech Literature. By Arne Novák. Translated from the Czech by Peter Kussi. Edited and with a supplement by William E. Harkins. The Joint Committee on Eastern Europe Publication Series, no. 4. Published under the auspices of the Joint Committee on Eastern Europe, American Council of Learned Societies. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, 1976. x, 375 pp.

Czech Literature. By Arne Novák. Translated from the Czech by Peter Kussi. Edited and with a supplement by William E. Harkins. The Joint Committee on Eastern Europe Publication Series, no. 4. Published under the auspices of the Joint Committee on Eastern Europe, American Council of Learned Societies. Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications, 1976. x, 375 pp. - Volume 36 Issue 4

Czech Literature

Czech Literature

Czech Literature

Czech Literature

Narrative Modes in Czech Literature

Narrative Modes in Czech Literature

Narrative Modes in Czech Literature

Narrative Modes in Czech Literature

Nezval's Amazing Magician: A Czech Shamanist Epic

From the labyrinth of literary revaluations to which modern Czech literature has been subjected, the work of the gifted but unpredictable lyric poet Vítězslav Nezval (1900-1958) has emerged relatively unscathed. His literary career was a bewildering trail of shifting allegiances and paradoxical novelties —from Expressionist infantilism to elegant sophistication, from Dadaist anti-art to obsequious socialist realism: an anarchist in his youth, a surrealist in middle age, he ended as a laureate of the Czechoslovak Communist Establishment.At the age of twenty Nezval came to Prague for university studies. Always a loner, he led a solitary life in the big city. His early poems are full of nostalgia for his Moravian home and lost childhood, sometimes recalled with more than a touch of childish nightmare. Prague in the early twenties was a place of tumbling pedestals and mushrooming social manifestoes: the newly silenced guns and the freshly inaugurated state seemed to be an earnest of a new start, and the end of a world discredited.

Czech Literature in the 1968 Crisis

Czech Literature in the 1968 Crisis

Polskie wybory czeskiej prozy kobiecej w przekładach po 1989 roku

Polish Choices of Czech Female Prose in Translations after 1989In the article we pay special attention to the presence of Czech female writing in Poland after 1989. In the latest Czech literature, women are becoming more and more significant. In recent years, books by Czech female writers, particularly of a young generation, have been translated. Based on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of field, capital and habitus, the article is concerned with the role of a translator as an active agent in literary communication.KEY WORDS: Polish choices, Czech female prose, Pierre Bourdieu’s theory, translation, a translator

Václav Havel and the Language of the Absurd

The thaw in political and cultural matters in Czechoslovakia in the early 1960's resulted in a number of noteworthy achievements in literature. The drama has been marked by an especially strong revival, and a number of plays have even penetrated to West Europeantheaters. The most remarkable among the plays are those by Viclav Havel, who has quickly become internationally the most successful Czech dramatist since Karel Capek. The work of Havel epitomizes the state of Czech literature in the middle 1960's, which is characterized by two main features: first, an orientation toward the West in general philosophical questions and literary techniques, and, secondly, an outspokenly critical attitude toward Stalinism and its contemporary vestiges. Havel's work would be unthinkable without the influence of the so-called theater of the absurd, but at the same time it is deeply involved in an examination of the social ills of Czechoslovakia. Thus far Havel has written two major plays, Zahradni slavnost (The Garden Party, 1963) and Vyrozumrni (The Memorandum, 1965), which will be discussed in this article.'

Bibliographies on Czech Literature and Language

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The First World War and Czech Literature

The great wars in the history of mankind constitute clear landmarks of the political, cultural and national life. The revolution from which >during the First World War *-> the independent Czechoslovak Republic was created, did not terminate by the end of the War. The political and cultural consequences, resulting from this revolution, appeared with great excessive egocentrism and expressed themselves in eccentric aristocratism World War are still surviving at the present time. The Czech literature is a living witness to the great reconstruction of Europe. The First World War also accelerated the process of penetration of a new philosophy and literature in Bohemia. This process which was a defence against the literary decadence and philosophical negativism, culminated through the war's influence in positivism and a strong faith in the Czech nation.

Recent Czech and Slovak Literature on the History of the Habsburg Monarchy: A Bibliography

The bibliography listed below is a continuation of the review of recent Czech and Slovak literature on the history of the Habsburg monarchy which appeared in the fourth issue (1963) of the Austrian History News Letter (pp. 77–90). It is based on the additions recently made to the collection in the J. G. Herder Institute at Marburg. It includes books and articles which deal with the period between 1815 and the present that were published up to June, 1964.

Essays on Czech Literature

Essays on Czech Literature

The Linden Tree: An Anthology of Czech and Slovak Literature, 1890-1960

The Linden Tree: An Anthology of Czech and Slovak Literature, 1890-1960