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The Deserts of Bohemia : Czech Fiction and Its Social Context / Peter Steiner.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2002]Copyright date: ©2002Description: 1 online resource (272 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780801474682
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 891.8/6305 21
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Politics or Poetics: An Introduction -- 1. Tropos Kynikos: The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek -- 2. Radical Liberalism: Apocryphal Stories by Karel Čapek -- 3. The Past Perfect Hero: Julius Fučík and Reportage: Written from the Gallows -- 4. The Poetics of a Political Trial: Working People vs. Rudolf Slánský and His Fellow Conspirators -- 5. Ironies of History: The Joke by Milan Kundera -- 6. Cops or Robbers: The Beggar's Opera by Václav Havel -- Index
Summary: Czech fiction in the twentieth century has been deeply enmeshed in the nation's political life and often serves as a conduit for its authors' social ideas. Through a series of brilliant and powerful readings of major Czech texts in both literature and history, Peter Steiner challenges the view that literary works can be treated as aesthetically distinct from historical events. Instead, he gives evidence again and again of the inevitable connection between literature and politics.Steiner engages six central works ranging from novels to government documents; all, in his view, purvey ideological fictions that have exerted significant social influence. He begins with Jaroslav Hasek's 1920s novel The Good Soldier Svejk, whose anti-authoritarian protagonist was widely emulated during the Nazi and Communist regimes, and ends with Václav Havel's play The Beggar's Opera, through which Steiner explores the social role of Czech writing in the 1970s. He also considers Reportage, by Julius Fucík, which announces itself as a documentary of the Communist Party's heroic struggle against the Germans, but is, for Steiner, a fiction arising out of Marxist-Leninist ideology; Karel Capek's Apocryphal Stories; Milan Kundera's novel The Joke; and the 1952 show trial of Rudolf Slánský, the general secretary of the Communist Party.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780801474682

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Politics or Poetics: An Introduction -- 1. Tropos Kynikos: The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek -- 2. Radical Liberalism: Apocryphal Stories by Karel Čapek -- 3. The Past Perfect Hero: Julius Fučík and Reportage: Written from the Gallows -- 4. The Poetics of a Political Trial: Working People vs. Rudolf Slánský and His Fellow Conspirators -- 5. Ironies of History: The Joke by Milan Kundera -- 6. Cops or Robbers: The Beggar's Opera by Václav Havel -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Czech fiction in the twentieth century has been deeply enmeshed in the nation's political life and often serves as a conduit for its authors' social ideas. Through a series of brilliant and powerful readings of major Czech texts in both literature and history, Peter Steiner challenges the view that literary works can be treated as aesthetically distinct from historical events. Instead, he gives evidence again and again of the inevitable connection between literature and politics.Steiner engages six central works ranging from novels to government documents; all, in his view, purvey ideological fictions that have exerted significant social influence. He begins with Jaroslav Hasek's 1920s novel The Good Soldier Svejk, whose anti-authoritarian protagonist was widely emulated during the Nazi and Communist regimes, and ends with Václav Havel's play The Beggar's Opera, through which Steiner explores the social role of Czech writing in the 1970s. He also considers Reportage, by Julius Fucík, which announces itself as a documentary of the Communist Party's heroic struggle against the Germans, but is, for Steiner, a fiction arising out of Marxist-Leninist ideology; Karel Capek's Apocryphal Stories; Milan Kundera's novel The Joke; and the 1952 show trial of Rudolf Slánský, the general secretary of the Communist Party.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Apr 2024)