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This thesis argues that Edith Wharton’s assessment of American ways and their meaning in her post-war fiction has been widely misread. Its title derives from French Ways and Their Meaning (1919), which she wrote to educate her countrymen about French culture and society. Making sense of America was as great a challenge to Wharton. Much of her later fiction was for a long time dismissed by critics on the grounds that she had failed to ‘make sense’ of America. Wharton was troubled by American materialism and optimism, yet she believed in a culturally significant future for her nation. She advocated – and wrote – an American fiction that looked critically at society and acknowledged the nation’s ties to Europe. Sometimes her assessment of American ways is reductive, and presented in a tone that her critics, then and since, found off- putting and snobbish. But her skepticism about American modernity was penetrating and prophetic, and has not been given its due. In criticism over the last two decades, a case for the place of Wharton’s post-war fiction in canons of feminism and modernism has been persuasively made. The thesis responds to these positions, but makes its own argument that the post-war writing reflects broader shift in American identity and ideology. The thesis is broadly historicist in its strategy, opening with a discussionofthereputationofthesetextsandthatoftheauthormoregenerally. Afterthat entry-point, it is organized thematically, with four chapters covering topics that are seen as key components of American ideology in Wharton’s post-war writing. These include modernity, gender equality, the American Dream of social mobility, and American exceptionalism. The thesis concludes with an assessment of Wharton’s prognostications in the context of twenty-first century America.

In Sweden, during the 1920s, the past played a definite part in the folklore research. The folklore scholars argued for collecting the cultural memories (folkminnen) of “the people”, as they were understood to disappear due to a threat from the modern civilization, which was thought to spread across the countryside at an ever-accelerating pace. This study shows that the past is constructed through discourse – not as a predefined object but rather as a dynamic process of temporal constructions. This study analyses the construction of the past in folklore research in Sweden during the 1920s. Two methodological tools have been primarily used to help unfold the process in which the past is constructed. First, by discourses of the past (förflutenhetsdiskurser) which is how, in my case the scholars, relate to the past by various verbal practices. Secondly, by identifying binary characterizations. In this study, the construction of the past, in folklore research, has been shown through three main themes. First, by understanding the importance of collecting the cultural memories of “the people” as an urgent project – due to their inevitable disappearing – but also as a duty towards the people of the past and as a duty towards future generations. Secondly, by identifying three different dichotomies which all functioned as part of the process of the construction of the past. Thirdly, by analyzing “the people” as a category that best is described as a compound of both culture and human.

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Prior to his career as a painter, Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1940) was employed for a number of years as an actor. Indeed the muse of the theatre was a constant influence throughout Sickert’s life and work yet this relationship is curiously neglected in studies of his career. The following thesis, therefore, is an attempt to address this vital aspect of Sickert’s œuvre. Chapter one (Act I: The Duality of Performance and the Art of the Music-Hall) explores Sickert’s acting career and its influence on his music-hall paintings from the 1880s and 1890s, particularly how this experience helps to differentiate his work from Whistler and Degas. Chapter two (Act II: Restaging Camden Town: Walter Sickert and the theatre c.1905-c.1915) examines the influence of the developing New Drama on Sickert’s works from his Fitzroy Street/Camden Town period. Chapter three (Act III: Sickert and Shakespeare: Interpreting the Theatre c.1920-1940) details Sickert’s interest in the rediscovery of Shakespeare as a metaphor for his solution to the crisis in modern art. Finally, chapter four (Act IV: Sickert’s Simulacrum: Representations and Characterisations of the Artist in Texts, Portraits and Self-Portraits c.1880-c.1940) discusses his interest in the concept of theatrical identity, both in terms of an interest in acting and the “character” of artist and self-publicity. Each chapter analyses the influence of the theatre on Sickert’s work, both in terms of his interest in theatrical subject matter but also in a more general sense of the theatrical milieu of his interpretations. Consequently Sickert’s paintings tell us much about changing fashions, traditions and interests in the British theatre during his period. The history of the British stage is therefore the backdrop for the study of a single artist’s obsession with theatricality and visual modernity.

Lilian Westcott Hale (1880-1963) and her daughter Nancy Hale (1908-1988) built successful careers during a period of transition in America, as Victorian mores were replaced by new modern freedoms. Greater independence for women had evolved during the preceding century, before the influential cultural factors which occurred during the early twentieth century like urbanization and world war. This interdisciplinary analysis of Lilian Hale‘s artwork and Nancy Hale‘s writings demonstrates the imprint of the surrounding world on their work. Lilian Hale‘s art is influenced by her Victorian childhood, and Nancy Hale‘s fiction reveals many conflicts of the modern era. The study of these two women is enhanced by the wealth of primary documentation connecting their ideas and their lives to their artistic works. Both of the women ranked among the most respected in their fields during their lifetimes. Their works resonate with elements of their eras, demonstrating what it was to be a woman during the first half of the twentieth century. Lilian Westcott Hale and Nancy Hale both engage the gender constructs of their periods through their work. Lilian Westcott Hale‘s art is divided here into three distinct genres: her still lifes and landscapes express the confining environment the Victorian woman occupied; her idealized women reflect the period‘s taste for female perfection and beauty; her portraits and figure studies point to Hale‘s own distinction between males and females through their clothing and their poses. Unlike Lilian Westcott Hale, Nancy Hale demonstrates woman‘s new freedoms in an open manner, a result of the break with Victorianism. Hale‘s use of a literary medium allows her direct examination of the turmoil caused by the modern breakdown of Victorian structures. Lilian Westcott Hale refrains from harsh judgment of her daughter‘s world, while Nancy Hale‘s modern challenge of the previous era‘s standards leads her into troubling relationships and difficulties balancing her career with her personal life. Their work reveals the cultural ideologies of their respective eras and particularly the changes taking place for women.

v anglickém jazyce The present thesis deals with the life and activities of Hanuš Jelínek (1878-1944), one of the most prominent figures of the Czech-French relations of the first half of the 20th century. Based upon studies of archive documents, press and literature, its aim is to explain his activities namely during the period of the First Republic which has not been much reflected in the literature so far. This is mainly due to the fact that the primary source on Hanuš Jelínek - his memoirs called Zahučaly lesy ("Forrest Murmurs") end in 1919. The thesis is divided into three bigger parts. The first one recapitulates Jelínek's youth, formation of his personality and political views and last but not least the birth of his Francophilia. The second, pivotal part, places emphasis on his effort to get himself established in the nascent Czechoslovak diplomatic services. It analyses the eleven year period Jelínek spent at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as other activities stemming from his position there. The final part deals with Jelínek's cultural life and influences, however, it only gives a general overview necessary in order to understand Jelínek's personal life and has no ambition to review his extensive literary work. It accentuates, though, his work in Lumír journal that Jelínek...