Poetika a estetika českého strukturalismu v pojetí Herty Schmidové

• Authors: Jankovič, Milan

Title variants

EN

The poetics and esthetics of Czech structuralism as conceived by Herta Schmidová

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

1_The first part of Struktury a funkce (Carolinum, Prague 2011) by Herta Schmidová presents the theory of Prague structuralism in seven loosely connected studies, and focuses on the poetology and esthetics of Jan Mukařovský. It adopts and develops his ideas, but also carries on its own dialogue with them. In the study entitled "The three-stage model of Czech literary-studies structuralism" the author confronts the first (formalistic) with the second (semiotic) stages of Czech structuralism and raises the need for a third stage, i.e. a turn to the work as a non-sign, as manifested in Mukařovský´s study "Intentionality and Unintentionality in Art". The third stage, "the work as a thing and a non-sign" is then interpreted by the author as Mukařovský´s antisociological and anti-Saussurian turn, aimed at a "new structuralism". In her paper "Agreements and differences between Czech structuralism and postmodern thinking" the author finds similarities between Derrida´s conception of the structure as "a system without determinable boundaries and in a state of constant self-transformation" and Mukařovský´s esthetics, which - in contrast to his poetics - works with the concept of an open structure. However, despite all the similarities of certain elements (i.e. openness of structure) Mukařovský´s anthropological functionalism is fundamentally different from Derrida´s poststructuralism in its idea of the subject as a "generative centre of all social norms". The issue of the subject is extensively examined in the paper "Approaches to the subject in Prague structuralist anthropology and the genetic structuralism of Ernst Cassirer". Both conceptions are linked by the anthropological project, which the author assigns to the enlightenment tradition and rounds off as a polemic against the devaluation of the human subject in postmodernism and poststructuralism.

EN

2_Both Cassirer and Mukařovský credit man with self-realization skills with regard to his biological and social environment. In both cases these skills are conceived as powers that are called functions. The source of these functions is in both cases the subject. Mukařovský shared faith in man as a polyfunctional being with Casssirer, while prioritizing the esthetic function. The problem of the individual in Czech structuralism is clarified by the author in her paper of the same name from several standpoints. Basically, the following problem areas are dealt with here: 1. anthropological functionalism, 2. the literary work of art as an individual, 3. the role of the individual in the history of literature, 4. the author of the work as an individual and personality. The author has devoted extraordinary attention to the internal and external aspects of the "semantic gesture", a key term in Czech structuralism. In the paper "Is there a conflict between Mukařovský´s concept of poetics and esthetics?" the author returns to an issue that also concerned her in her first study: she believes that Mukařovský´s semiotic orientation opens up literary structures at the price of losing attention to the uniqueness of its forms. This is shown by the author´s semantic gesture which the researcher has to reconstruct through objective analysis, and this author rules out any share in this "gesture" by the perceiver. The hundredth anniversary of the birth of poet Karel Hynek Mácha was an opportunity for students of structuralism to present their own ideas in the collection of papers entitled Fragment and mystery of Mácha´s work on his strong poetic individuality which distanced itself from all collective norms and conventions. In one of the eight papers, "The Genesis of Meaning in Mácha´s Poetry" Mukařovský presented a new approach to the semantic unity of the work centring around the concept of "semantic gesture".

EN

3_The final study defends references to the specific nature of the work of art, as found e.g. in Czech structuralism, against levelling tendencies in present-day culturology. Works of art and their interpretation may effectively contend with conventional stereotypes that impoverish man and his culture.

Keywords

CS

Literatura (teorie); literární věda; strukturalismus; estetika; Pražský strukturalismus; sémantické gesto

EN

literary studies; structuralism; aesthetics; Prague structuralism; semantic gesture

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Institute of Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Česká literatura (Czech Literature)
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 60
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 737-754
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Jankovič, Milan

• Česká literatura, redakce, Ústav pro českou literaturu AV ČR, v. v. i., Na Florenci 3/1420, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic