Atmosphere of societal anxiety and representations of the body: The image of man in surrealist works of Vítězslav Nezval in the 20th century interwar period in Bohemia

• Authors: Anna Maria Brzezińska
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Aim: The interwar period in Czechoslovakia was a time of societal anxiety. The aim of this paper is to find the central themes of societal fear, as reflected in the surrealist works of Vítězslav Nezval, a czech poet. The analysis will be based primarily on the lyric poetry from the collections: Žena v množném čísle [Woman in Plural] (1936) and Absolutní hrobař [Absolute Gravedigger] (1937). Methods: The analysis is based on the Josef Vojdovík’s anthropo-phenomenological method of exploring the surrealist perceptions of the body, which is based on vertical and horizontal anthropological dimensions and phenomenological conceptions of fears. Results: Surrealist poetry and other literary works contain images of the body that are changed by fear: deformations, metamorphoses, fragmentarisations, hybridisations, expressing the body as a collage, a mosaic, an amalgam, a phantom, a grotesque, an inlay, and as lifelessness. It undergoes multiple metamorphoses, not only within its own form, but also with regard to the categories of life and lifelessness. Conclusions: The analysis leads to the conclusion, that V. Nezval’s works show a clear tendency to portray the body as an object which undergoes a metamorphosis. The body is balanced on the edge between living and dead, organic and inorganic, it is determined by time and space. It is often shown along the narrowing-widening relation, in stupor, petrification, reduced to a flat surface or miniaturised.

Keywords

EN

czech surrealism, Vítězslav Nezval, social anxiety, Absolute Gravedigger, Woman in Plural, metamorphosis,

• Publisher: Fundacja Pro Scientia Publica
• Journal: Journal of Education Culture and Society
• Year: 2018
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 181-189

Dates

published

2018-06-27

Contributors

author

Anna Maria Brzezińska

• Institute of Slavic Studies, University of Wrocław, ul. Pocztowa 9, 53-313 Wrocław, Poland

References

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Identifiers

DOI

10.15503/jecs20181.181.189