DOCSLIB.ORG

Czech Literature and the First World War

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Czech Literature and the First World War Czech Literature and the First World War Jlftl SKYOR The 19th century has been called the "Age of Anxiety". The First World War was, in a way, an echo of this anxiety. Social instability and anxiety always take the upper hand when spiritual support is lacking. The time shortly before the First World War was just such a time in the history of mankind. World War I shook European cultural life. It undermined spiritual and material stability, caused cultural and social chaos, and introduced into the whole civilized world a revolution of mind and thought. From the horror and misery of war sprang a realization of the absurdity of life. Nihilism spread into other spheres of life besides the purely cultural. It appeared that humanity lost its inner security and unity; that it was split into several personalities in conflict with one other, and that the obscure powers of the subconscious predominated. If we analyze the main works of literature from the era of World War I, we find a spontaneous negation of war, of its absurdity and cruelty. Let me mention, for instance, the novels by Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front), by Arnold Zweig (Die Erziehung vor Verdun), by Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms), by Romain Rolland (Lucienne), Henri Barbusse (Le Feu), Georges Duhamel's (Vie des martyrs and Les Croix de bois) by Roland Dorgeles. The First World War tested the ethical equilibrium of a great part of the world. Many times it appeared that a materialistic concept of life had come to dominate each individual soul. The writers engaged on the battlefield and the writers on the "home front" both felt that they fought not only for themselves, but also for the collective soul of the nation. The role of Czech writers was even more difficult since they had to fight on two fronts without betraying their real aims. On the home front, Czech poets had to make a pretence of supporting the "two- headed eagle", the symbol of Austro-Hungarian monarchy. In the trenches of the battlefield, Czech writers were paradoxically fighting Czech Literature and the First World War 963 for their own defeat. Deceit and passivity, so well exposed by Jaroslav Hasek in his Good Soldier Schweik, became the most powerful weapon of the Czech soldier dressed in the Austro-Hungarian uniform. In contrast to many other national literatures, the first literature pro- duced in independent Czechoslovakia was not affected by the influence of decadence, nihilism, or direct morality to the extent that it inter- rupted the existing character of Christian humanism, religion, or patriotic tradition. The sober, rather analytical Czech spirit submitted all foreign literary influences to a rigorous acid test. The War brought the old controversy between individualism and collectivism to a climax. In the immense "war machine", the human being became a smaller cog than ever. Armies consisting of millions of such cogs influenced the individual by their very massiveness. Under these circumstances, soldier-writers lost the sense of being separate in- dividuals. They felt that even birth, conflict, and death were events which happened collectively. The War thus helped in the formation of "herds"; in dehumanization and de-individualization. A mass psychosis captured the human soul and its influence was clearly evident for a long time after the First World War. Let us briefly examine some of the main themes, trends, and problems of the Czech war and first postwar literature. 1) The concept of a collective soul of the nation. 2) The love for the Czech country. 3) The active humanism of love of one's neighbour. (This humanism produced new heroes in Czech novels: doctors, nurses, priests, or just common soldiers as representatives of true "Kamaradsschaft") 4) The conflict between individualism and collectivism. 5) The new concept of Chris- tian morality. (Many Czech writers turned toward the supernatural for salvation. They turned to the Omnipresent God who sees everything; to the Merciful God who is always close to the wounded soldiers.) 6) The conflict between Slavonic humanism and messianism, on one hand, and German expansionism on the other. 7) Finally, the War witnessed the conflict between nationalistic and international ideas. (The main scene of this ideological fight was the Russian front, and a good docu- mentary of the struggle is the co-called "Czech legionary literature.") 1. THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND CZECH POETRY Poetry, primarily lyric poetry, very often gave a better picture of the tragedy of war than did prose. The political nature of Josef Svatopluk 964 Jifi Skvor Machar's poetry and the nationalism in the poetry of Viktor Dyk, written during the most fateful hours of the war, are among the best testimonials to the close ties between Czech poets and the whole nation. The patriotic voice of Karel Toman's poems belongs to the purest melodies ever produced in Czech poetry. The war not only emphasized the political duty of Czech poets, but also assisted in warming the lyrical melody which sounded in the war-verses of Petr Kricka, Frana Sramek, and Bozena Benesova. Czech poetry of the First World War proved again that each historical period has its own poets, and that it is poetry which most accurately reflects the state of mind and the feelings of a whole nation. That War marked the end of the decadent, introspective poetry which had flour- ished at the turn of the nineteenth century. It also heralded the advent of new literary trends and forms, such as surrealism, cubism, dadaism, poetism, and other foreign imports, the representative of which was especially Vitezslav Nezval. The War gave quite a shock to the prevailing social order. A new social class - the proletariat - emerged to claim its right in literature. The proletarian note of the poetry of S. K. Neumann, Petr Bezruc, Jiri Wolker, and Josef Hora sounded with a revolutionary spirit and stressed the realistic relation between a worker and his personal environment. The ordinary, simple man became the focal point of Czech war poetry. During the War, it was impossible "to dream, while sitting on the cloud of dreaming" (with Vitezslav Nezval), or to look for literary themes in an artificially constructed situation. The poets tried to soothe and heal the wounds; they tried to effect moral reforms which would preclude any future war. During the First World War, their analytic spirit made Czech poets aware of the fact that in the future the Czech nation would play an important part in the cultural exchange between the West and the East. The traditional preference for Western ideas could be explained also by Czech interest in new poetical forms. Nevertheless, new currents started intruding from the East. The Russian October Revolution and the influence of Blok, Maiakovsky, Briusov, and Lunacharsky could be given most of the credit for the birth and growth of the new trend in Czech proletarian poetry. The lyric note in the proletarian poetry of Josef Hora and Jiri Wolker on one hand, and the proletarian cosmopolitanism and technical civiliza- tion depicted most clearly in the poetry of S. K. Neumann, on the other were direct products of the social changes caused by the War. Czech Literature and the First World War 965 From the pressure of war there also grew a new wave of humanism. This, however, became mostly the domain of poets of the older genera- tion. The poetry of Christian humanism dreamed about the ^'holiness of poverty", about a world in which there would be no more hunger, no more suffering, no more war. To this group of Czech poets belong the Catholic poets Jaroslav Durych and Jan Zahradnicek, and partly, also the mystic, Otakar Bfezina, as well as Bozena Benesova, and Jan Cep. A new resurgence of vitalism in poetry was the natural reaction of men whose lives had often been saved by hardly a hair's breadth. Many poets advocated full enjoyment of life. This tendency was com- plemented by a renewed cult of the "return to the nature", which re- sounded so vigorously in the poems of sensitive sensuality by Frana Sramek, and S. K. Neumann. The First World War enriched Czech poetry in many ways; it brought new themes, new scenery, new dynamics of imagination, new, subtle, lyrical half-tones. From a true picture of social reality to the most com- plicated feelings which are difficult to express in words, the gamut of Czech poetry rapidly broadened. 2. THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND CZECH PROSE The First World War also exerted a remarkable influence on the devel- opment of Czech prose. It gave birth to a thematically new and ethical- ly significant "literature of legions", which showed clearly the contri- bution of the Czech and Slovak people to their nations' fight for libera- tion and political self-determination. The literary works of Rudolf Medek, Josef Kopta, Frantisek Langer, and F. V. Krejci are descrip- tions of an enforced war, a glorification of the just and victorious fight of Czech and Slovak soldiers. Czech patriotism and idealism clashed here with Marxist internationalism, the ideals of humanitarian democracy faced godless Communism and violence. A unique product of Czech war prose is Jaroslav Hasek's Good Sol- dier Schweik. This work is just the opposite of the "literature of legions" in its ethos and morality. The main works of Czech prose dating from the period of the First World War show the penetrating influence of war on the typical indi- vidual environment: urban, rural, proletarian. Many of the Czech war novels, as, for instance, Pole orna a vâlecnâ ("The Ploughed Fields and 966 Jifí Skvor the Battlefields") by Vladislav Vancura, the war-trilogy Zelezny kruh, ("The Iron Circle") by Karel Novy, and Cerná zemé (Black Earth") by Vojtéch Martinek, belong to the best of modern Czech literature.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Czech(-Oslovak) National Commemorations During the Interwar Period: Tomáš G
    ACTA HISTRIAE • 18 • 2010 • 3 received: 2009-07-09 UDC 394.21:323.1(437) original scientific article CZECH(-OSLOVAK) NATIONAL COMMEMORATIONS DURING THE INTERWAR PERIOD: TOMÁŠ G. MASARYK AND THE BATTLE OF WHITE MOUNTAIN AVENGED Dagmar HÁJKOVÁ Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic v. v. i., CZ-18200 Praha 8, Gabčíkova 2362/10 e-mail: [email protected] Nancy M. WINGFIELD Northern Illinois University, Department of History, US-IL 60115 DeKalb, Zulauf Hall 715 e-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT This article examines attempts to construct »Czechoslovak« national identity in the wake of the First World War through the creation of new celebrations and holi- days. Drawing on archival material as well as a variety of contemporary books, newspapers, and pamphlets, the analysis reveals that the bourgeois, predominantly Czech rhetoric associated with these holidays, indeed, with the state itself, limited the attraction they exerted not only on the non-state-forming peoples of the countries, especially Germans and Hungarians, but also on the communists and, increasingly, some Slovaks. Key words: commemoration, First Czechoslovak Republic, First World War, Czecho- slovakia, national identity, Zborov LE COMMEMORAZIONI NAZIONALI CECHE (CECOSLOVACCHE) TRA LE DUE GUERRE MONDIALI: TOMÁŠ G. MASARYK E LA VENDETTA DELLA BATTAGLIA DELLA MONTAGNA BIANCA SINTESI L'articolo esamina gli sforzi per costruire un'identità nazionale »cecoslovacca« nel periodo successivo alla prima guerra mondiale attraverso la creazione di nuove festività e forme celebrative. Sulla base di materiale d'archivio e vari testi, giornali e opuscoli dell'epoca, l'analisi rivela che la retorica utilizzata della borghesia, preva- 425 ACTA HISTRIAE • 18 • 2010 • 3 Dagmar HÁJKOVÁ, Nancy M.
    [Show full text]
  • Y 2 0 ANDRE MALRAUX: the ANTICOLONIAL and ANTIFASCIST YEARS DISSERTATION Presented to the Graduate Council of the University Of
    Y20 ANDRE MALRAUX: THE ANTICOLONIAL AND ANTIFASCIST YEARS DISSERTATION Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of North Texas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By Richard A. Cruz, B.A., M.A. Denton, Texas May, 1996 Y20 ANDRE MALRAUX: THE ANTICOLONIAL AND ANTIFASCIST YEARS DISSERTATION Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of North Texas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By Richard A. Cruz, B.A., M.A. Denton, Texas May, 1996 Cruz, Richard A., Andre Malraux: The Anticolonial and Antifascist Years. Doctor of Philosophy (History), May, 1996, 281 pp., 175 titles. This dissertation provides an explanation of how Andr6 Malraux, a man of great influence on twentieth century European culture, developed his political ideology, first as an anticolonial social reformer in the 1920s, then as an antifascist militant in the 1930s. Almost all of the previous studies of Malraux have focused on his literary life, and most of them are rife with errors. This dissertation focuses on the facts of his life, rather than on a fanciful recreation from his fiction. The major sources consulted are government documents, such as police reports and dispatches, the newspapers that Malraux founded with Paul Monin, other Indochinese and Parisian newspapers, and Malraux's speeches and interviews. Other sources include the memoirs of Clara Malraux, as well as other memoirs and reminiscences from people who knew Andre Malraux during the 1920s and the 1930s. The dissertation begins with a survey of Malraux's early years, followed by a detailed account of his experiences in Indochina.
    [Show full text]
  • Copyright by Deborah Helen Garfinkle 2003
    Copyright by Deborah Helen Garfinkle 2003 The Dissertation Committee for Deborah Helen Garfinkle Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Bridging East and West: Czech Surrealism’s Interwar Experiment Committee: _____________________________________ Hana Pichova, Supervisor _____________________________________ Seth Wolitz _____________________________________ Keith Livers _____________________________________ Christopher Long _____________________________________ Richard Shiff _____________________________________ Maria Banerjee Bridging East and West: Czech Surrealism’s Interwar Experiment by Deborah Helen Garfinkle, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2003 For my parents whose dialectical union made this work possible ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express heartfelt thanks to my advisor Hana Pichova from the University of Texas at Austin for her invaluable advice and support during the course of my writing process. I am also indebted to Jiří Brabec from Charles University in Prague whose vast knowledge of Czech Surrealism and extensive personal library provided me with the framework for this study and the materials to accomplish the task. I would also like to thank my generous benefactors: The Texas Chair in Czech Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, The Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin, The Fulbright Commission and the American Council of Learned Societies without whom I would not have had the financial wherewithal to see this project to its conclusion. And, finally, I am indebted most of all to Maria Němcová Banerjee of Smith College whose intelligence, insight, generosity as a reader and unflagging faith in my ability made my effort much more than an exercise in scholarship; Maria, working with you was a true joy.
    [Show full text]
  • Surrealism in and out of the Czechoslovak New Wave
    Introduction Surrealism In and Out of the Czechoslovak New Wave Figure I.1 A poet’s execution. A Case for the Young Hangman (Případ pro začínajícího kata, Pavel Juráček, 1969) ©Ateliéry Bonton Zlín, reproduced by courtesy of Bonton Film. 2 | Avant-Garde to New Wave The abrupt, rebellious flowering of cinematic accomplishment in the Czechoslovakia of the 1960s was described at the time as the ‘Czech film miracle’. If the term ‘miracle’ referred here to the very existence of that audacious new cinema, it could perhaps also be applied to much of its content: the miraculous and marvellous are integral to the revelations of Surrealism, a movement that claimed the attention of numerous 1960s filmmakers. As we shall see, Surrealism was by no means the only avant-garde tradition to make a significant impact on this cinema. But it did have the most pervasive influence. This is hardly surprising, as Surrealism has been the dominant mode of the Czech avant-garde during the twentieth century, even if at certain periods that avant-garde has not explicitly identified its work as Surrealist. Moreover, the very environment of the Czech capital of Prague has sometimes been considered one in which Surrealism was virtually predestined to take root. The official founder of the Surrealist movement, André Breton, lent his imprimatur to the founding of a Czech Surrealist group when he remarked on the sublimely conducive locality of the capital, which Breton describes as ‘one of those cities that electively pin down poetic thought’ and ‘the magic capital of old Europe’.1 Indeed, it would seem a given that Czech cinema should evince a strong Surrealist tendency, especially when we consider the Surrealists’ own long-standing passion for this most oneiric of art forms.
    [Show full text]
  • Czech Language and Literature Peter Zusi
    chapter 17 Czech Language and Literature Peter Zusi Recent years have seen a certain tendency to refer to Kafka as a ‘Czech’ author – a curious designation for a writer whose literary works, without exception, are composed in German. As the preceding chapter describes, Kafka indeed lived most of his life in a city where Czech language and society gradually came to predominate over the German-speaking minor- ity, and Kafka – a native German-speaker – adapted deftly to this changing social landscape. Referring to Kafka as Czech, however, is inaccurate, explicable perhaps only as an attempt to counterbalance a contrasting simplification of his complicated biography: the marked tendency within Kafka scholarship to investigate his work exclusively in the context of German, Austrian or Prague-German literary history. The Czech socio-cultural impulses that surrounded Kafka in his native Prague have primarily figured in Kafka scholarship through sociological sketches portraying ethnic animosity, lack of communication and, at times, open violence between the two largest lin- guistic communities in the city. These historical realities have given rise to the persistent image of a ‘dividing wall’ between the Czech- and German- speaking inhabitants of Prague, with the two populations reading different newspapers, attending separate cultural institutions and congregating in segregated social venues. This image of mutual indifference or antagonism has often made the question of Kafka’s relation to Czech language and cul- ture appear peripheral. Yet confronting the perplexing blend of proximity and distance, famil- iarity and resentment which characterized inter-linguistic and inter- cultural contact in Kafka’s Prague is a necessary challenge.
    [Show full text]
  • 885 -1/-9 Tsekkiläinen KAUNOKIRJALLI- STJUS Pol ‘ P * 885 (082.1) Nowočeská Bibliothéka, Rydáwaná Nákladem Čes- Kého Museum
    885 -1/-9 tSekkiläinen KAUNOKIRJALLI- STJUS Pol ‘ P * 885 (082.1) Nowočeská bibliothéka, rydáwaná nákladem Čes- kého museum. 5 IS-lG 13 Praha 1845" 57 082.1 885 -1/-9 (082.1) Pol. P Novočeská knihovna, 7-8, 10-15 Praha 1925-58 Erit. * rikoisbibi.: 885 ; 016 -1/-9 .05=00 tsekkil,f kirj. Česká kniha v cizině 1939-1945« Zprac. Zdenka Broukalova a Olga Malá. Praha 1968. 297 P« (Bibliografický katalog CSSR. Česká knihy. Zvláštní sešit, 196857.) 013 (437) .03=00 1 Runous 885 -1 Pol. kot. 18 Sadoučková, Jitka Být deštěm. [Ústí nad Latem] 1975« 52 p» Pol, - 8559 885 -1 Bass « Eduard To Arbes nenapsal, Vrchlický nebásnil... / Eduard Bass. Praha, 1958. 225 s, (Dílo Eduarda Basse | 4) Pol. - 8989 885 -1 Bezruž « Petr Přátelům i nepřátelům s Paralipomena / Petr Bezruí, Praha, 1958. 142 s. 885 -1 Pol. - 231 Bezruč, Petr Slezské písně. - Stužkonoska modré. Praha 1960. 189 P* (Národní knihovna, 62.) 885 -1 Pol. - 8540 Biebl t Konstantin Bez obav : básně z let 1940-1950 / Konstantin Biebl. Praha, 1951» 251 s. - 8860 885 -1 Pol. Biebl t Konstantin Dílo / Konstantin Biebl, 1 : 1923-1925. Praha, 1951. 146 s. 2 : 1926-1929. Praha, 1952. 120 s. 885 -1 Pol. - 245 Biebl, Konstantin Dílo. 4* Bez obav. 1940-1950. Praha 1953. 207 p. Pol. - 1716 885 -1 Biebl t Konstantin Nebe - peklo - ráj / Konstantin Biebl. 2. vyd. Praha, 1951. 54 s. (Růžová zahrada ;2) Himiölehti puuttuu. 885 -1 Pol. K. - 1005 Biebl , Konstantin Nový Ikaros / Konstantin Biebl, 5« vyd, Praha* 1970« 47 s. : ill. Pol, - 10 688 Biebl , Konstantin Zrcadlo noci / Konstantin Biebl, Praha ; F.
    [Show full text]
  • “Long Live Futurist Prague!”1
    “LONG LIVE FUTURIST PRAGUE!”1 David Vichnar The article challenges the widespread notion, repeated in much literary history, regarding the non-existence or irrelevance of Czech Futurism. It traces the reception of Marinetti’s manifestoes through the pre-war and post-WWI context of Prague avant-garde, culminating in the Futurist leader’s triumphant visit to the city in 1921. It discusses the careers of S.K. Neumann, Otakar Theer, and Růžena Zátková, three important Futurist figures on the native avant-garde scene. It analyses selected mid-20s works by two most prominent Devětsil members, Vítězslav Nezval and Jaroslav Seifert, and brings into relief their Futurist poetics. Critiquing, in conclusion, Karel Teige’s anxiety of influence vis-à-vis the movement, the article shows that Futurism formed the very core of avant-garde theory and practice in 1910s and 1920s Bohemia. A hundred-and-ten years after its birth, Futurism still remains an impoverished chapter in the rich history of Prague’s international avant-garde, for reasons both general and endemic. The former would include the dubious light the ravages of WWI cast upon the Futurist adoration of war as hygiene, its much criticised if also ill-understood alignment with Fascism later on, etc. The latter would have to do with the brief and problematic flourishing of pre-war Czech avant-garde, the tortuous career paths of its most dedicated sympathisers and practitioners, and not least its post-WWI doctrinaire developments. Immediately after the war, Futurism found itself supplanted, suppressed, if also absorbed by the 1920- established Devětsil group and its Poetist hardliners.
    [Show full text]
  • Man Is Indestructible: Legend and Legitimacy in the Worlds of Jaroslav Hašek
    Man Is Indestructible: Legend and Legitimacy in the Worlds of Jaroslav Hašek The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Weil, Abigail. 2019. Man Is Indestructible: Legend and Legitimacy in the Worlds of Jaroslav Hašek. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42013078 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use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
    [Show full text]
  • Prague's Public Space and Franz Kafka's Readings of Prague
    MAREK NEKULA The Divided City: Prague’s Public Space and Franz Kafka’s Readings of Prague It is no surprise that the monuments on Prague’s squares, riverbanks, and hills reflect the national ideologies from which they emanated. In the nineteenth century, when the first memorial monuments were founded, middle-class civic society used them to present and pass on its values to viewers in public space, viewers who themselves may have been nationally indifferent. In nineteenth-century Prague, these values were above all national in character: for the Czech and German mid- dle classes, language-based nationalism dominated all other values; it determined the political programs of most Czech and German political parties, as well as more private choices, such as where parents sent their children to schools. Czech middle-class nationalists demanded that the Czech language and Czech people be given equal standing with the Germans, while German middle-class nationalists wanted to maintain the status quo. Both groups were becoming more and more interested in creating linguistically distinct spaces that would be dominated by the language and symbols of Czech and German nationalism. In Prague, public space became the staging ground for national discourse, where adherents of monolingual national ideologies competed with one another and attempted to control public opinion in various ways, including the domina- tion of public space. One of the ways to control and speak to the public was to properly stage ceremonial acts, for example the funerals of Václav Hanka, Karel Havlíček Borovský and Božena Němcová or the laying of the first stone of the Czech National Theater.
    [Show full text]
  • Download File
    Eastern European Modernism: Works on Paper at the Columbia University Libraries and The Cornell University Library Compiled by Robert H. Davis Columbia University Libraries and Cornell University Library With a Foreword by Steven Mansbach University of Maryland, College Park With an Introduction by Irina Denischenko Georgetown University New York 2021 Cover Illustration: No. 266. Dvacáté století co dalo lidstvu. Výsledky práce lidstva XX. Věku. (Praha, 1931-1934). Part 5: Prokroky průmyslu. Photomontage wrappers by Vojtěch Tittelbach. To John and Katya, for their love and ever-patient indulgence of their quirky old Dad. Foreword ©Steven A. Mansbach Compiler’s Introduction ©Robert H. Davis Introduction ©Irina Denischenko Checklist ©Robert H. Davis Published in Academic Commons, January 2021 Photography credits: Avery Classics Library: p. vi (no. 900), p. xxxvi (no. 1031). Columbia University Libraries, Preservation Reformatting: Cover (No. 266), p.xiii (no. 430), p. xiv (no. 299, 711), p. xvi (no. 1020), p. xxvi (no. 1047), p. xxvii (no. 1060), p. xxix (no. 679), p. xxxiv (no. 605), p. xxxvi (no. 118), p. xxxix (nos. 600, 616). Cornell Division of Rare Books & Manuscripts: p. xv (no. 1069), p. xxvii (no. 718), p. xxxii (no. 619), p. xxxvii (nos. 803, 721), p. xl (nos. 210, 221), p. xli (no. 203). Compiler: p. vi (nos. 1009, 975), p. x, p. xiii (nos. 573, 773, 829, 985), p. xiv (nos. 103, 392, 470, 911), p. xv (nos. 1021, 1087), p. xvi (nos. 960, 964), p. xix (no. 615), p. xx (no. 733), p. xxviii (no. 108, 1060). F.A. Bernett Rare Books: p. xii (nos. 5, 28, 82), p.
    [Show full text]
  • From Flaubert to Sartre1
    THE WRITER’S RESPONSIBILITY IN FRANCE From Flaubert to Sartre1 Gisèle Sapiro Centre national de la recherche scientifique As Michel Foucault observed in his famous essay, “Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur?” before discourse was a product, it was an act that could be punished.2 The author’s appropriation of discourse as his personal property is secondary to its ascription to his name through penal responsibility. In France, authorial responsibility was introduced in 1551 through royal legislation directed at controlling the book market. The Chateaubriant edict made it compulsory to print both the author’s and the printer’s names on any publication. The notion of responsibility is thus a fundamental aspect of the emergence of the figure of the modern writer. The state first imposed this conception of respon- sibility in order to control the circulation of discourses. But after writers inter- nalized the notion, they deployed it against the state in their struggle to establish their moral right on their work and to have literary property recog- nized as individual property, a struggle that culminated in 1777 with a royal decree recognizing literary compositions as products of labor from which authors were entitled to derive an income.3 This professional development reinforced the writer’s social prestige and status, in Max Weber’s sense.4 The withdrawal of the state from the control of the book market and the abjuration of censorship entailed the need for new legislation restricting the principle of freedom of speech, which had been proclaimed in Article XI of the 1789 Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du citoyen.
    [Show full text]
  • '“Do You See Anything?” Asked Poussin': the Informe, Bataille and the Czech Surrealists
    19 ‘“Do You See Anything?” Asked Poussin’: The Informe, Bataille and the Czech Surrealists LENKA BYDOVSKÁ 302 Lenka Bydžovská Lenka Bydžovská is a researcher at the Department of Art of the 19th to the 21st Centuries at the Institute of Art History at the Czech Academy of Sciences. In this synthesis of formal analysis and art-historical investigation, Bydžovská explores the hitherto unexamined connections between Czech Surrealism and the infuential French theorist Georges Bataille. Te strategies of formal ‘decomposition’ practised by Czech artists Toyen and Vincenc Makovský are discussed with reference to Bataille’s concept of the ‘informe’ or ‘formless’, a quantity that calls all categories into question. Bydžovská reveals the points of contact that the Czech avant-garde established with Bataille’s renegade Surrealist circle, even as it oriented itself around the ‘orthodox’ Surrealism of André Breton. She traces particularly strong afnities between Bataille’s thought and the work of Jindřich Štyrský, evident in a preoccupation with low or repulsive matter, scatology, bodily fragmentation, and the fuid boundary between ‘civilisation and animality’. Tis essay frst appeared in the Czech journal Umění in 1997.1 (JO) ‘“Do You See Anything?” Asked Poussin’: Te Informe, Bataille and the Czech Surrealists In Honoré de Balzac’s story Te Unknown Masterpiece (Le Chef-d’œuvre inconnu, 1831), the young Nicolas Poussin longs to see a supposed crowning achievement by the old master Frenhofer, who ‘sees higher and farther than other painters’, but who, with his endless deliberations over colour and line, is also consumed by many doubts.2 When, after a long efort, Poussin fnally succeeds in gaining entry to Frenhofer’s studio, together with the famous court painter Frans Porbus, both are astounded by the ravishing paintings which hang on the walls and which, to their amazement, the artist declares to be the errors of youth.
    [Show full text]