| Popis: |
In literature, heroism has many forms, not being limited in the least to prosaic genres or epic poetry. Th e meaning of the word “hero” can be endlessly infl ated according to the particular needs of various speakers, interpreters, or poets. Every person can become a heroic participant of his or her life or in a poem. Furthermore, this possibility cannot be limited to human beings, as sombre poems about the lot of warhorses in the Great War or the nonsensical corpus of Christian Morgenstern amply demonstrate. In this book a team of authors with backgrounds in comparative literature and various national philologies examines diverse meanings that can be ascribed to heroism in poems of the European literary tradition. Th e basis of the presented essays is a series of radio essays written for the Český rozhlas Vltava radio station (Czech Radio Vltava). Originally, these were conceived as a group of eight cycles with fi ve essays each. For this book, the texts have been rearranged into three loosely interconnected spheres or circuits that were deliberately constructed to not stand on the same level with one another, thus not allowing them to be confused with any “complete” system or entity. Th e fi rst circuit, called “Who Brought Me into this World?” follows the heroes as they gain experience, lose their simplicity, or refuse to accept their loss and fi ght for their purity. Th e second circuit bears the name “Peacock Train,” which should evoke both the external decoration and inner pride of the hero, as well as the occasional need to use his or her brightly coloured mask as camoufl age for an inner weakness. Th e third circuit is called “In the Ashes.” It brings into focus various processes interfering with the heroically desirable and whole body making its wholeness or completeness seem precarious. Various injuries and subsequent scars are a necessary consequence of the heroic way of life. Th e essays are preceded with an introduction probing various forms of ambiguity related to heroism from the times of Ancient Greece. Th rough examples of Achilles, Paul the Hermit or Lancelot the Knight, these essays demonstrate how the heroic discourse enables the crossing of various boundaries separating this world from others, or the seemingly isolated realm of lyric poetry with the dynamics of striving for survival. |
