This article deals with Jonathan Culler’s Theory of the Lyrics (2015) and the current debate on the lyric. When Culler’s book was published, it became the subject of much debate, as testified by reviews in American and European specialist journals. In some respects Culler´s theory differs substantially from most accepted ideas -particularly in its downplaying of the notion of the lyrical subject, its emphasis on poetics as opposed to hermeneutics and its rejection of fictiveness as a constitutive feature of the lyric. The first part summarizes the starting points and thebasic points made by Culler’s book; the second part presents a critical analysis of several of its concepts as well as the associations with other authors.
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Ivan Diviš’s My Eyes had to See (1987–1989) can be considered one of the finest poetic creations and performances of Czech poetry at the end of the 20th century. Its powerful effect lies in the fact that it combines poetic testimony, (auto)biographical intimacy, a suprapersonal, generally applicable message and a reflection on universal history and the modern Czech history of the last century in both fiction and fact. It is as if the identity of the poet is actually determined by the testimony: the poet is the one who sees, must see, and bear witness to what he sees.
This article presents an analysis of Václav Renč’s lyrical poetry from the period of his imprisonment by the Communist regime in 1951–1962. From Renč’s extensive collection of prison poems (including such lyrical-epic compositions as Cinderella of Nazareth, first published in book form in 1969; Prague Legend, 1974; and Loretan Light, 1992; as well as several poems collected in Meeting with the Minotaur, 1969) we take a look at the nineteen poems Renč included in an anthology of his works from 1941–1962 under the title Lark Tower (1970). To the section of lyrical texts from the years 1951–1962 the poet gave the title Without Echoes. In particular, the study focuses on how Renč’s lyrical poetry from the period of his imprisonment builds upon his previous critically acclaimed poetry, simultaneously aiming to address the question of what makes this work unique. The unique quality can be found in the formal precision of the texts, which represents the poet’s effort to maintain his moral integrity and identity while in prison, while at the same time, by virtue of carefully constructed allusions to the verses of certain poets with whom Renč had worked as a poet and translator before his imprisonment, strengthening his sense of inner freedom. A key starting point for the aesthetic composition of the prison poems is the combination of various expressive and often elementary contradictory motifs, perspectives or attitudes, a process typical of prison poetry in general. In Václav Renč’s poetry, this initial moment is re-envisioned on the principle of the so-called lyrical dichotomy, which, on the basis of subtle gradational and compositional techniques and intersections, connects distinctive opposites into subtle poetic images. However, this is not the expression of a selfcentered aesthetic game, but an attempt to articulate — and cope with — a new and exacting life situation. In this way, Václav Renč’s poetry, which had always been characterized by its compositional and figurative rigor, would later become more austere in its semantics, at the same time gaining in intensity, depth and reach.
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This study, which is freely inspired by the results of thematological and cognitive linguistic research, observes the way the potential for relations between man and the external world of objects is realized in lyric poetry. Object motifs acquire a dimension of mood or value, which grows from practical experience with things and which then adheres to their designations in the form of secondary symbolic meanings. However, this does not just apply to individual objects, but to the entire in-depth time-space structure implied in language. For example, an opposition appears between horizontal and vertical, light and darkness and the like. Moreover, each of the members of these oppositions as a rule also indicates an internal value-ambivalence: e.g. “bright night” and “dark night” have different symbolism, “height” and “distance” are symbols of desire, but also of possible dangers and so forth. On this basis there arise stable but always poetically re-accentuated image parallels between the object world and human existence, as represented e.g. by the topos of the “journey” or the seasonal and diurnal cycle.
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Studie volně inspirovaná výsledky tematologických a kognitivnělingvistických bádání sleduje, jak se v lyrických básnických textech aktualizuje potenciál vztahů mezi člověkem a vnějším, předmětným světem. Předmětné motivy nabývají v lyrice náladového, hodnotového zabarvení, které vyrůstá z praktické zkušenosti s věcmi a které poté v podobě sekundárních symbolických významů ulpívá na jejich pojmenováních. To se ale týká nejen jednotlivých předmětů, nýbrž také celkové a hlubinné, v jazyce implikované strukturace časoprostoru. Objevuje se například opozice horizontálního a vertikálního směřování, opozice světla a tmy apod. Navíc se každý z členů těchto opozic zpravidla ještě vyznačuje vnitřní hodnotovou ambivalencí: například „jasná noc“ a „temná noc“ mají odlišné symbolické vyznění, „výška“ a „dálka“ jsou symbolem touhy, ale také symbolem možných nebezpečí, atd. Na tomto základě pak vznikají ustálené, vždy však básnicky nově aktualizované obrazné paralely mezi předmětným světem a lidskou existencí, jaké představuje např. topos „cesty“ nebo cyklus denních a ročních období.
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