Journal Article

Čyževs’kyjs Mácha-Lektüre im Kontext des Prager Linguistischen Zirkels

Wutsdorff, Irina

2025

Overview

To mark the centenary of Karel Hynek Mácha’s death, the Prague Linguistic Circle compiled the volume Torso a tajemství Máchova díla (Torso and the Mystery of Mácha’s Work). This article provides a detailed analysis of Dmytro Čyževs’kyj’s contribution, ‘K Máchovu světovému názoru’ (‘On Má cha’s worldview’), focusing on its methodological aspects. Contrary to what the title suggests, this is not necessarily a classic hermeneutic endeavour. For Čyževs’kyj seeks to determine what he defines as a ‘worldview’ based on the way in which Mácha’s work is shaped by its language. From the perspective of the history of entanglement, there are certainly points of contact with the discussions held at the time about a structuralist approach within the Prague Linguistic Circle, particularly Jan Mukařovský’s concept of the ‘semantic gesture’, which was also developed in the same anthology on Mácha’s work. In both cases — Čyževs’kyj’s attempt to determine Mácha’s ‘world view’ from the poetic language of his works and Mukařovský’s search for the ‘semantic gesture’ conveyed in the way the parts of the work are connected — the aim, as a parallel reading shows, is to determine a way of referring to the world from the manifest verbal form of Mácha’s work.

• Publisher: Univerzita Karlova v Praze - Filozofická fakulta, Vydavatelství,Charles University in Prague - Faculty of Arts Press,Univerzita Karlova, Filozofická fakulta
• Subject: Comparative Study of Literature / Czech Literature / dmytro čyževs’kyj / entangled history of ideas / History of ideas / karel hynek mácha / literary theory / Philosophy of Language / structuralism / Structuralism and Post-Structuralism / Studies of Literature