Rukopis královédvorský a ohlas Písně o Nibelunzích
Echoes of the Nibelungenlied in the Rukopis královédvorský

Summary/Abstract: The article is concerned with echoes of the Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs) in the context of the literature of the Czech National Revival, particularly in the Rukopis královédvorský. It turns out that the literary-historical assessment of the Nibelungenlied changed in connection with firm position of the manuscript forgeries in the culture of the Czech National revival, from uncritical acceptance of the Nibelungenlied model to attempts to rate it above the Manuscripts as a document of the highly developed culture of the early Czechs. The debates comparing two pillars of German and Czech literature were incorporated, through a modified understanding of Herder’s conception of the Slavs and Tacitus’ conception of the Teutons, in a primarily oppositional distinction between Slav literary imagery and a Teutonic literary representation of the world. Similarities can, however, be found at the core of the problem. In addition to analogical debates about the origins of the two works and their authorship, in spite of the inclusion of both works in supranational cultures (Slav versus Germanic), different conceptions (Czech versus German) of the literary foreshadowing of the make-up of the romantic literary self could take shape against the background of a comparison of the two documents. On the basis of the example of the revivalist interpretation of the two poetic works, the article demonstrates that both types of hero, though originating from the desire for an unattainable ideal, but at the level of motives, aims, and objectives, they represent two different literary approaches. In the revivalist essays, shared literary features (from similar to antithetical) were interpreted on the basis of the aesthetic approaches of, for example, František Palacký (1798–1876), Jan Erazim Vocel (1803–1871), and Václav Bolemír Nebeský (1818–1882), apparently critical of German romantic literary theories, for example, those of the Schlegels.

• Details
• Contents