„Neřádné“ básně Jaroslava Vrchlického
The ‘Naughty’ Verse of Jaroslav Vrchlický

Summary/Abstract: This study looks at how the Lumír literary magazine contributed to promoting the 1870s Western trend of making literature autonomous from politics and ethics. The author does so using examples of original verse and translations by Jaroslav Vrchlický (1853–1912), whose development as a writer was closely linked with this periodical. A starting point for examining the establishment of the l’art pour l’art principle in Czech literature is the publication of the first Czech translations of works by Charles Baudelaire in 1875. This took place in the same period as the controversary between Vrchlický and his uncle, Antonín Kolář, which had to do with erotic verse by Vrchlický, who also turned to his own translation of Baudelaire’s ‘Le Jet d’eau’ (translated as ‘Vodotrysk’) in support of his argument. The circumstances surrounding the introduction of Baudelaire’s works to the Czech milieu are discussed using documents deposited in the Literary Archive of the Museum of Czech Literature. Next, the author of the study turns his attention to the ways by which Vrchlický’s ‘naughty’ verse reached the public and he also looks at the circumstances in which Vrchlický’s l’art pour l’art manifesto appeared in a review of the Máj miscellany, published in 1878.

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