Čapkova próza a drama jako zvláštní druh cestopisného psaní

Solic, M. (2011) Čapkova próza a drama jako zvláštní druh cestopisného psaní. Česká Literatura, 4, pp. 528-546.

Abstract

This article focuses on the theme of travel in Karel Čapek’s fiction. Travel is not a mere motif, but the catalyst for an intertextual interaction between the writer’s travelogues and fiction. The relationship between the two illuminates how concrete travel becomes spiritual, and how fiction reverses the position of home: in contrast to the travelogues, in which home was a point of reference, in Čapek fiction, home ceases to exist. While the travelogues depict destinations through comparisons with home, Čapek uses his fictional works to challenge the possibility of comparison. I divide the fictional works into three groups according to the type of destination each work features. The first includes exotic destinations, where home is a distant memory and the journey is foregrounded. The exotic appears in early works like The Garden of Krakonoš (Krakonošova zahrada, 1918) and The Lumious Depths (Zářivé hlubiny, 1916), while it assumes a different function in later works, such as Meteor (Povětroň, 1934) and War With the Newts (Válka s mloky, 1936). In the second group, home disappears and travel itself becomes the central motif as Čapek focuses on the aimless wandering of characters like tramps (tulák, pobuda). The primary example of this type of work is From the Life of Insects (Ze života hmyzu, 1921), a play that Čapek co-authored with Josef Čapek. The last group of fiction includes internalized journeys of self-discovery (sebeobjevení) that challenge the very idea of a physical home. As the most diverse among the three, the journey of self-discovery includes contact with the other - either meeting the traveling other as in The Wayside Crosses (Boží muka, 1917) or by encountering others while away from home, as in some stories from Tales from Two Pockets (Povídky z jedné kapsy, Povídky z druhé kapsy, 1929) and the novel An Ordinary Life (Obyčejný život, 1934). To this third group of travels also belongs the novel Hordubal (1933), in which the return of a peasant from Subcarpathian Ruthenia to his village represents the simultaneous loss of home and failed self-discovery. The journey of self-discovery directly relates all travelers from this group to the traditional Czech pilgrim (poutník), especially Komenský’s allegorical traveler in Labyrinth of th

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Solic, Dr Mirna
• Authors: Solic, M.
• Subjects: P Language and Literature > PG Slavic, Baltic, Albanian languages and literature
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Modern Languages and Cultures > Slavonic Studies
• Journal Name: Česká Literatura
• ISSN: 0009-0468