Abstrakt: | 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. |