We compare the features of drama and libretto, based on the text The Makropulos Affair by Karel Čapek (drama) and Leoš Janáček (libretto). We would like to show not only common dramatic features, but also the specific librettist features, which Janáček used by transformation Čapek's drama into opera libretto. We demonstrated, that dramatic features are in libretto at the level of structure and the specific librettist features are at the level of story, single figures and its constellation. The analysis confirmed the preliminary hypotheses.

The aim of this thesis is a translatological analysis of three major works of Czech literature: the play R.U.R. by Karel Čapek, the novel Babička (Grandmother) by Božena Němcová and the poems collection Maminka (Mother) by Jaroslav Seifert. The translations analyzed in this thesis were made by Kei Kurisu (one of the two R.U.R. translations, Babička), Chino Eiichi (the other R.U.R. translation) and Itaru Iijima (Maminka). I have based this analysis on two different concepts - one by Jiří Levý and the other by Peter Newmark. I focus on the translation phenomena typical for the individual literary forms (drama, prose and poetry) as well as on the phenomena that all three literary forms have in common (the instances of misunderstanding the original, the cases of interpretation (not) following the intention of the original author).

The topic of the thesis is work of Karel Zeman - the important Czechoslovakian film director of the second half of 20th century and his media image in the Czech media of that period. Karel Zeman is one of the leading figures of post-war cinematography, especially one of it's branch - animated film. Karel Zeman is famous for his feature films Journey to the Beginning of Time, The Fabulous World of Jules Verne and The Fabulous Baron Munchausen, in which he combined performed and animated parts. His work is so specific and so tied together with the director that after his death nobody was able to continue in it. The thesis describes in chronological way Karel Zeman's work, from the first short animated films over the most famous featured combined films to the featured animated fairy tales for children. For understanding of the whole context the thesis briefly describes beginning of animation in the world and in Czechoslovakia and also continuously touch important changes in Czechoslovakian cinematography, which directly affected Zeman's work (post-war situation, nationalization of cinematography). The thesis also touches Karel Zeman's personal live. The base of the thesis is focused on characterization of the particular films - short description of the plot, art processing (visual conception of the...

Master of Music / Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance / Frank C. Tracz / This report provides a comprehensive research and teaching guide for three works for wind ensemble, brass ensemble, and chamber winds: Three Songs from Sussex by Hugh M. Stuart, Fanfare for Brass and Percussion by Karel Husa, and Serenade No. 10 in Bb, Largo, Allegro molto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Each chapter provides information on the composer, composition, historical perspective, technical considerations, stylistic considerations, musical elements, form and structure, other listening suggestions, and seating arrangement considerations. Also included are the lesson plan outlines that were used to teach each work, and a detailed score analysis grid. The report documents the full process of selecting, researching, rehearsing, and performing the selected literature with the hope that it will aid in future performances of the works.

The diploma thesis named The Artistic personality of Karel Zeman consists of theoretical and practical part. Theoretical part includes basic information about the artist Karel Zeman and his works. It deals with inspirational influences that had impact on his creations and puts them into the international context. It is also focused on finding the effects of Zeman's work at contemporary cultural environment. The practical part of this diploma thesis consists of three methodical papers which are made for selected films of the director Karel Zeman. These papers are in the concertina book's form, they offer some basic information about the selected film. They also comprise creative tasks and writing assignments to think about. Graphical design of methodical papers was created using vector graphics in Adobe Illustrator.

The poetics of space is a very interesting field, which has been so far marginalized from the theoretic point of view in comparison with other types of the poetics of literary work. Fragmentary information devoted to this theme has often been hidden in theoretic works that applied the poetics of space to some specific literary works. To be able to start focusing myself on the poetics of space in fairy tales, I had to lay the basis for the poetics of space in the first part of my thesis. The basis is built by the chapters in which I was concerned with the poetics of literary work and where I collected, organized and made transparent actual theoretic information about the poetics of space and its parts, space and place. I used these chapters for the specification of the terms used in my thesis. That specification enabled me to focus on the poetics of space in the fairy tales in the second part of thesis. As my research material I chose Grimms' fairy tales and eight Erben's fairy tales. I used this material to verify the relevance of particular hypotheses. In terms of my research I concerned on topics such as the poetics of space from the wider and the closer point of view, the boundaries of the fairy tales' space, the description and the layout of the space, the main and the side character in the...

The aim of this thesis is to record and evaluate from art-historical point of view the stone sculptural and woodcarving work of Jan Karel Hammer, whose activity was documented between the years 1737 and 1757 on the border of central and southern Bohemia. The topic of thesis was chosen due to the fact, that this interesting artist has not yet been introduced to the professional public. Automatic attribution of all sculptural and woodcarving work in the area around Čimelice, where Jan Karel Hammer spent the last two decade of his life, to his hand together with a sharp increase of works, that are assumed to belong to him, led to the need for critical review. With the exceptions of Hammer's works the information was drawn from topografical, historical and regional literature and from archival sources. Because of the literary character and limited number of sources the main emphasis was placed on formal analysis. The examined material was divided into several cathegories, as can be seen in the structure of final catalogue. Thanks to detailed knowledge of works it was possible to identify author's distinctive style, which can be detected also in the workshop production, and all specifics of his work. Attention focused on the sources of inspiration and style orientation took us to the Prague art center...

The subject of this thesis is an analysis of various stylistic aspects of Karel Čapek's Povídky z jedné a z druhé kapsy and Devatero pohádek. In the first part, the author deals with a distinctive feature of Čapek's works, which is an attempt to cause an impression of an oral narrative. At first, she studies an influence of this feature on general composition of the chosen writings. Then she analyses particular language means. The second part explores other stylistic and linguistic means, which are typical for chosen material. These are for example accumulations of synonymic expressions, playing with acoustic form of language or utilization of elements from foreign languages. Witnih each topic, the author compares the three texts. Key words Karel Čapek, short prose, literature for children, analysis of language

This dissertation examines the theme of travel in the work of Karel Čapek (1890-1938), both in his travelogues and fiction. Instead of assuming travel as a conventional departure to another destination, journey and return home, Čapek experimented with the topic, popular in interwar literatures and arts, as an example of the avant-garde interconnectedness between different genres and arts. Čapek used three approaches to express his experiences of traveling. First, he founded his own aesthetics of the so called “marginal forms” or “low-brow genres” which he simultaneously interpolated in his prose. Their use, which greatly changes the perspective on travel writing, is visible in comparison between Čapek’s and previous travelogues (chapter 1). Secondly, he introduced skaz as stylized spoken language to Czech literature, and changed the traditional roles of the narrator and his addressees in travelogues (chapter 2). Thirdly, he used visual elements of language, combined verbal and visual arts (illustrations and drawings) in the narrative (chapter 3). Finally, all these elements he interpolated to his prose (chapter 4) through the intertextual links with travelogues. On the example of the theme of travel in Karel Čapek’s work, my dissertation revisits some current definitions of the historical avant-garde. It shows that the recent theories, predominantly developed on the examples from Western European and Russian arts, cannot be fully applied to local artistic movements. First, it shows that the notion of the avant-garde cannot be just confined to the writers who called themselves “avant-garde” (such as Karel Teige or Vladislav Vančura). Instead, it should be also expanded to other writers, such as Karel Čapek, marginal to the avant-garde mainstream. Second, the analysis of the theme of travel in Karel Čapek’s opus shows that the Czech avant-garde was not destructive towards its literary heritage. Instead, it offered an alternative reading of tradition through artistic experiments. In extension, it also provided a new understanding of the cultural and literary identity.

This dissertation examines the renovation of the modernist stage, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the late 1930s, via a retrieval of three artistic forms that had marginal importance in the commercial theatre of the nineteenth century. These three paths are the tradition of the commedia dell’arte, puppetry and marionettes, and, finally, what I denominate mysterium, following Elinor Fuch’s terminology in The Death of Character. This dissertation covers the temporal span of the first three decades of the twentieth century and, at the same time, analyzes modernist theatre in connection with the history of Western drama since the consolidation of the bourgeois institution of theatre around the late eighteenth century. The Theatrical Pendulum: Paths of Innovation in the Modernist Stage studies the renovation of the bourgeois institution of theatre by means of the rediscovery of artistic forms previously relegated to a peripheral status in the capitalist system of artistic production and distribution. In their dramatic works, Nikolai Evreinov, Josef and Karel Čapek, Massimo Bontempelli, and Federico García Lorca present fictional actors, playwrights and directors who resist the fact that their work be evaluated as just another commodity. These dramatists collaborate with the commercial stage of their time, instead of adopting the radical stance that characterized avant-garde movements such as Italian futurism and Dadaism. Yet they also question the illusionist fourth wall separating stage and audience in order to denounce the subjection of the modernist artist to the expectations of bourgeois spectators. Jan Mukařovský’s concept of practical function in art is central to understanding the didactic nature of the dramatic texts studied in this dissertation. By claiming the importance of Mukařovský’s phenomenological structuralism, I propose a new reading of the theoretical legacy of the Prague School in conjunction with recent contributions in the field of theatre studies by Elinor Fuchs, Martin Puchner and other scholars whose work will be discussed here.