Obrazy hvězd a jisker v Máji
Images of stars and sparks in May

Anthropological and ontological testimonies

Summary/Abstract: The subject of this article is the role played by the stars and sparks motif in the first to third cantos of Machaʼs poem May. The stars appear in the first canto, both in the form of expiring and falling stars and in the form of sparks (the reflection of starlight) playing on the waves of the lake. In the second canto, the black night and the darkness of the universe become an image of nothingness, and the extinguished (dead) star falling forever through space becomes an image of the exposure of human life to this nothingness. Confronted with nothingness, the sparks on the surface of the lake appear as beauty itself. But if sparks are characterized as ‘lost light’, then it is said that man is not able — due to the limitations of his vision and knowledge — to determine which spark is a reflection of which star, so he is not able to reveal the source of earthly beauty. In fact, he is not even able to find out whether earthly beauty and earthly life really have any supernatural (transcendent) source.

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