The Figurativeness of the Language of Mystical Experience. Particularities and Interpretations

Kapitola

Death as radical border. About Jan Čep’s novel The Border of a Shadow

Ján Gallik
Rok vydání: 2021

https://doi.org/10.5817/CZ.MUNI.P210-9997-2021-4
Death as radical border. About Jan Čep’s novel The Border of a Shadow pdf, 122KB

Abstrakt

The Czech Catholic writer Jan Čep (1902–1974) belonged to the group of authors who built their work on spiritual-religious motifs. Literary critic František Xaver Šalda stated in the bookmark of Čep’s novel The Border of a Shadow (1935) that he is a “poet of death”, namely “a very special, possessing a very special, unusual view of things of life and death”. The language and imagery of his artistic work are based on philosophical-reflexive and meditative lyricism, often with a contemplative overlap. We consider the image of a double home to be one of the key images of Čep’s poetics. Its development can be traced from the author’s juvenile prose work to the latest texts, which are mainly essay-like. In addition to this image, however, in Čep’s work, reflecting on the phenomenon of life and death also appears to be the mainstay, while it is obvious that these entities are very closely related to the image of a double home. In this context, it will be important to observe how the phenomenon of death is depicted in Čep’s only novel The Border of a Shadow.

Klíčová slova

Jan Čep. Phenomenon of death. Catholic novel. Philoshophical-reflexive and meditative lyricism.

Reference

Čep, Jan. 1947. Hranice stínu. Praha: Vyšehrad.

Čep, Jan. 2019. Meditace. Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury.

Gallik, Ján. 2020. “Obraz transcendentného domova v diele Jana Čepa.ˮ World Literature Studies 12, 3: 95–105.

Hajko, Dalimír. 2016. Antické provokácie. Bratislava: Spolok slovenských spisovateľov.

Komenda, Petr – Lenka Malinová – Richard Změlík, eds. 2013. Literární tematologie – Antologie textů tartusko-moskevské sémiotické školy a francouzské tematické kritiky. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci.

Komenda, Petr – Jan Zatloukal. 2019. “Meditace poutníka k Absolutnu.ˮ In Meditace, Jan Čep, 5–94. Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury.

Maršálek, Ján. 2020. Spoločnosť bez svetla (O súmraku našej kultúry a civilizácie). Bratislava: Post Scriptum.

Pašteka, Július. 2009. “Metafyzická orientácia Pavla Straussa.ˮ In Rekviem za neumieranie, Pavol Strauss, 5–14. Prešov: Vydavateľstvo Michala Vaška.

Putna, Martin. 2012. Česká katolická literatura v kontextech 1918-1945. Praha: Torst.

Rusňák, Radoslav – Tatiana Bachurová. 2021. Tematika straty, smrti a bolesti v literatúre pre deti a mládež. Prešov: Prešovská univerzita v Prešove.

Rybák, Július. 2001. “Straussova oslava pohanenej smrti.ˮ In Duchovnosť ako princíp tvorby, ed. by Tibor Žilka, 57–65. Nitra: Univerzita Konštantína Filozofa v Nitre. 

Strauss, Pavol. 2009a. Rekviem za neumieranie (Zobrané literárne a mysliteľské diela). Prešov: Vydavateľstvo Michala Vaška.

Strauss, Pavol. 2009b. S výhľadom do nekonečna (Zobrané literárne a mysliteľské diela). Prešov: Vydavateľstvo Michala Vaška.

Strauss, Pavol. 2013. “O smrti.ˮ In Listy Pavla Straussa (supplement) 10, 21–22: 1–16.

Šalda, František Xaver. 1947. “O Janu Čepovi.ˮ In Hranice stínu, Jan Čep, s. p. Praha: Vyšehrad.

Změlík, Richard – Petr Komenda, eds. 2020. Kapitoly z literárněvědné tematologie. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci.