Czech sonnet in the first half of the 20th century

Ondrej Hanus Czech Sonnet in the 1st Half of the 20th Century Abstract This thesis examines the history of Czech sonnets in 1885-1948. Based on a carefully selected material, it analyses the position of particular texts both in the work of individual writers (from Jaroslav Vrchlicky to Jan Zabrana) and in the defined period of Czech literary history. This period is divided into three phases (1885-1900, 1900-1930 a 1931-1948). Both formal aspects (metre, rhyme, strophic structure) and functional aspects (the various roles of the sonnet in the individual phases of Czech literary history) are taken into account. An important part of the thesis is the revision of the standard narrow formalistic definition of the sonnet. This is substituted with a much broader definition, allowing us to regard various formal experiments as fully-fledged sonnets