This thesis is devoted to the topic of representation of Italy in the travel literature by Czech writers in the period before the First World War. The corpus contains the following lyrics: Rome 1906-1907 by Josef Svatopluk Machar, Memories from a journey to Italy by Josef Stejskal and Summer in Italy by Jaroslav Hilbert. In the first part I will introduce and describe historical and cultural development of Italy and also the fact how the Czech lands looked up on Risorgimento. Then I describe the individual authors, their literary works and selected corpus works. I define the circumstances of the origin of the text and find the answer to the question why cited authors focused just on Italy. In the second part I analyse the selected works thematically, I create a synthesis and in conclusion I assess, how in the period before First World War, the Czech society was looking up on Italy.

The theme of the dissertation is the reception of the Classical Antiquity in the Czech Literature between 1880 and 1910. The aim was to analyse the ways in which Czech culture related to the Classical Antiquity in the period of increased concern with Classical topics, motifs and forms. The first, largest part, methodologically inspired by the demythicizing perspective of Vladimír Macura and Jiří Rak, concerns with stereotypical views of the Classical Antiquity particularly prominent in the contemporary discourse: the antithetical image of noble Greece and corrupted Rome, the topos of bright Hellenic Sun and clear Sky, the ideology behind the common opinion that Ancient sculptures were all white (and the reactions to the discovery that they were, in fact, polychrome), the topos of a Greek athletic body and its employment in the policy of the Czech sports movement 'Sokol' (Falcon), and last but not least the topos of a man unspoilt by civilization and living in accordance with the Nature. Separate chapters are also devoted to two then important intermediaries of reception, grammar schools and translation. In the second part, attention is drawn to the representation of the Classical Antiquity in dramatic plays by Jaroslav Vrchlický, especially the dramatic trilogy Hippodamie, and their reception in...