O wielowymiarowości współczesnego czeskiego eseju literaturoznawczego

Abstract

The book On the multi-dimensionality of contemporary Czech essays in literary studies analyzes texts published in the following essay collections: Místo domova by Sylvia Richterova, Citlivé město by Daniela Hodrová and Příběh znaků a prázdna by Michal Ajvaz. The first chapter, entitled “Language”, introduces the category of language experience based on the analyses concerning language and words performed by Czech essayists. The essays are analyzed in the context of phenomena such as: polyphony, polyglotism, bilingualism, multiplicity of narrators and characters, “women writing” and others. The second chapter, “Subject”, describes the relation of the subject to the language, the search for one’s own identity and the attempts of the three essayists to perform self-identification. The author’s “Me” is clearly seen in selected essays and it reveals itself through the contextualization of the subject and of its connection to the past. The following chapter, concerning identity, stresses the various aspects of emigration, the interpretation of the concept of “small nation” and the understanding of the center and the periphery. The example of Sylvia Richterova’s essays is used to expose the situation of an individual in a totalitarian state and Michal Alvaz’s essays are read through the texts of Italo Calvino. This chapter also contains the description of Peter Zajac’s concept of synoptic maps which aptly captures the complexity of literary processes. The fourth chapter, “Text”, attempts to show how the three Czech essayists – directly or indirectly – refer to the famous remark by Derrida that “there is nothing outside the text”. A major part of the analysis is devoted to the essays contained in the Citlivé město collection, where Hodrová introduces her concept of the “city-text”, but also contains remarks on Ajvaz’s essays where his concept of a city is presented and the sign is contrasted with the emptiness. The last chapter discusses the category of experience which seems to be superior to the ones described before. The language, the subject, the identity and the text are present in the works of all three essayists, although they are given different weights. Richterová writes most about the language, the text dominated in Hodrova’s work, while Ajvaz’s central motif is the sign and the emptiness. The motif which accompanies all those categories is experience.