Willa Cather (1873-1947) is nowadays regarded as one of the most important U.S. writers, and the volume of critical works, articles and dissertations devoted to her as a person and an artist is immense. One of the problematic relationship has always been, as can be seen from a number of critical essays and books, between Cather and U.S. feminists. The feminists would have liked to include Cather, as an feminist writer, into their group of the first-rate, woman-authored "female canon", however, such intent brought about an important question. Is it possible to regard Willa Cather as a feminist, considering her attacks on other women-writers, and her negative attitude towards the organized women's rights movement? This work's objective is to explore the background of Cather and organized women's rights movement's bizarre relationship, and answer the question above. To find out if Cather's work with its strong heroines empowered or weakened women in general, her novels and stories, rather then facts and assumption about her personal life, are used. The relevant parts of the plots from Cather's fiction are put into the historical perspective of the contemporary U.S. laws, showing that although Cather created exceptional woman characters, she let them deal with the same conditions and problems other...

The goal of the work advanced is to examine the problems of the Czech literary decadence, the term itself and the possible limits of its use. As a basic material we investigate a corpus of texts belonging mainly to the short story genre, also paying attention to the model of a decadent novel and being interested in the most significant decadent features. The problems of literary decadence do not belong to profoundly explored topics in the history of the Czech literature, incidentally conditioned by the preference of the symbolist and decadent poetry. That is why this work was to present some texts themselves, potentially representative for the model of a decadent short story genre and of certain artistic value. The text of this work consists of three main parts. The first presents the possibilities of progressive insight into the topic, its cultural and philosophical context, showing two model novels (Huysmans{\crq} A Rebours and Wilde{\crq}s The Picture of Dorian Gray) as different but relevant types of the decadent living scheme, the specific conception of life and the role of art in it. The second part applies several theoretical questions onto the topic, constructing the form. In the final part more than two tens of original Czech short stories are concerned and the thematic composition analysed, that at least some questions asked in the previous parts could be answered and certain theses postulated proved.

This diploma thesis presents a contrastive description of reporting clauses in present-day original Czech and American fiction (published and awarded in 2010-2015). The examined reported clauses are limited to direct speech marked with a conventional means of punctuation. Based on six samples of fiction, three American ones and three Czech ones, this thesis examines reporting verbs, their diversity, the nature of the subject of reporting clauses, modification by adjuncts, the presence of an object expressing the addressee and the position of reporting clauses with respect to their reported clauses. It also scrutinizes the instances of leaving the reporting clause unexpressed and of certain transient forms. The ascertained values are then compared with a translatology paper on the same topic. The findings of this thesis confirm that while Czech reporting clauses strive for diversity by a number of means, English reporting clauses strive for inconspicuousness. This thesis attempts to contribute to a better understanding of reporting clauses. The outlined findings may be helpful especially to translators and fiction writers. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

The main objective of this thesis is to define narrative scheme and elements of the fantastic in the novel Blank Gaze (Nenhum Olhar, 2000) by a Portuguese writer, José Luís Peixoto. His works have been considered part of the mythic narrative current, which, according to a common definition, often draws attention to deformed values of today's society. For José Luís Peixoto, the fantastic, from a modern perspective, or neofantastic, an alternative means for expressing a need for belief in today's society. This fact becomes the main and timeless legacy of the work, and the reader does not be aware of details of religious rules. After the introduction the thesis focuses on outlining the literary and historical context of contemporary Portuguese prose. The second chapter also pays attention to the biography and bibliography of José Saramago, both politically and ideologically involved author. Similarly to Peixoto, in his works he touches the human essence and presents unconventional reflections about values of present society. The third chapter tries to introduce Peixoto as an autor of Blank Gaze. It also mentions him as the laureate of the 2011 José Saramago Prize - a reward which is awarded to Portuguese writers younger than thirty five. The fourth chapter discusses the beginning and development of...

The thesis focuses on contrastive analysis of Soviet prison and labour camp literature published in anthology Jen jeden osud. The Czech version of this compilation was translated in 2009. The main task is to explore the adequacy of employed methods and approaches in translation. The thesis consists of two parts. The first part is focused on detailed analysis of original anthology and its translation to Czech. It explores types of memoirs containing the Russian anthology Доднесь тяготеет (Dodnes tyagoteyet (2004)), its variability of literary genres and its time radius. Then it analyses, how these criteria are reflected in the Czech version of anthology. The second part is focused on contrastive analysis of two selected memoirs from Yekaterina Olitskaya На Колыме (Na Kolyme) and Yuriy Fidelgolts Беспредел (Bespredel). Analysis focuses mainly on different category of prisoners, i.e. division on political and criminal prisoners and different classes of criminal prisoners. The important part was dedicated to the analysis of the author's style and its reflection into the target language.

The ways of love in the prose Jozova Hanule The work deals with the theological interpretation of prose works Květa Legátová Jozova Hanule and looking for his referral options due to the different forms of love, which presents Benedict VXI. in the Encyclical Deus caritas est. In theological perspective focuses on how it is represented in the work of eros and agape and their relationship. On this basis, I try to show how the above prose refers to the mystery of transformation of man and definitive finding his personal identity in a community of unconditional love with another person and participate in the sharing of the eternal Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Through the theory of ignition in the text affected by three plane plot of the story. In each of them the protagonist encounters an amendment to another form of love, which is gradually determined. Build and during his life journey from Brno to Želary discovers first love erotic and later meetings with selfless love, agape gradually grows into the fullness of perfect love, which combines eros and agape. Keywords ways of love, erós, agapé, communion of love, theological interpretation of literature, prose Jozova Hanule

This thesis deals with a myth concept in Thomas Mann's and Ivan Olbracht's work. In regard to the tertium comparationis, which is myth, Mann's novels Joseph and His Brothers (Joseph und seine Brüder) and Doctor Faustus (Doktor Faustus) as well as Olbracht's novels The Bitter and the Sweet (Nikola Šuhaj loupežník) and Valley of Exile (Golet v údolí) are analysed. The concepts of these two authors are being compared both on a genetic level, which includes a possible influence of the tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers on Olbracht's work, and on a typological level. The second one includes analogies, which are independent of the possible direct influence. The thesis is methodological based on interpretation of fictional texts and their continuous comparison considering a literary-historical context and cultural-historical background of that time. Especially in some details, it can be considered that Thomas Mann had a direct influence on Olbracht's work in case of both of the novels. A number of analogies have been found, which exemplify a resemblance between the authors but which don't deny that Olbracht was an autonomous and creative personality at the same time. The specific myth concept of both authors harmonise with a period tendency in the modern literature.

The desintegration of the USSR, the resulting release of censorship, and the related publication of earlier prohibited texts, as well as the new charakter of the book market entirely tranformed the shape of the literary field of the nineties. This thesis concerns itself with a specific segment of the professional literary production of this period. With its topic, this work aspires to contribute to the serious research of the little explored postcommunist period in the Russian literature. In order to assess and interpret the evolution of opininions in this period of time, the chosen method is the one of commented overview of literary criticism and of literary-theoretical texts published mainly between 1986 and 2000 in Russian publications (mostly in so-called "thick magazines"). The thesis focuses on studies interested in the work of the middle and younger generation of the Russian prose writers, and more precisely on studies concerning the structural aspects of the literary situation in the nineties. On the background of the specific cultural and social situation, the method of the ample commentary is an appropriate way regarding how to interpret the literary theorists' basis of thoughts and opinions, and at the same time how to affect these experts' relationship to the new tendencies in the...

(in English): This paper deals with the beginnings of nationally-emancipatory and patriotic expressions, which became part of the Czech rural prose during the nineteenth century and which are reflected as nation-defending tendencies in protectorate cinematography by a medium of film adaptation in the twentieth century. The paper intends to interconnect both of these historical periods. Due to the political and social reasons there was increased amount of revivalist ideals of the national rural life in the classic Czech rural prose as well as in the films. The ideals came from national historical traditions and from the cult of the nature and countryside, in which the topos of a "little cottage" ("idyllic place") played the major role. These elements became part of the self-image of the Czech people during the rise of the modern Czech nation (i.e. from the beginning of the nineteenth century till the World War I) and were intensified in the era of national menace during the protectorate. Last part of the paper, which uses the example of the writer Božena Němcová and her novel Babička, shows the concrete expressions of these ideals, that became part of her cult during the decades.

Short story cycle Magija Beograda (2008, The Magic of Belgrade, Czech anthology Belgrade, my magic love!, 2014) is one of the last works of Serbian author Momo Kapor. His subject matter is contemporary picture of Belgrade and characters in his work are people, who are emotionally bound to this city. The aim of this dissertation is to introduce a Czech translation of the short stories and their translatological commentary. This work deals with the theme of Belgrade work of Kapor, which the author engaged in throughout his whole life and wrote in this style for more than ten years. This area of his work still does not have a Czech literary translation. This dissertation also brings more coherent author's portrait. Pivotal part consists of two chapters, first one is devoted to the profile of the author and the second one to the translation and commentary.