Na rozhraní žánrů
At the interface of genres

Karel Havlíček between literary output, epistolography and journalism

Summary/Abstract: The basis for these deliberations over the form and functions of three surviving letters by Karel Havlíček from the latter half of 1854 (12.7., 23.11., 23./24.12.) most probably addressed to Josef Podlipský, is material from the forthcoming edition of the complete correspondence of Karel Havlíček (GAČR 406/12/0691). Taking into account Karel Havlíček’s situation (and „writing situation“) in 1854 (i.e. he was interned in Brixen), an enquiry is made into the way the letter writer assumed various text roles (poet, epistolograph, journalist) for his addressee, the way various devices and procedures are used for these textual roles and the way the various epistolary functions are separated to complement the writer’s various text roles: the interactive function, the letter genre itself, dominates the letter dated 23.11. — which uses the various devices and procedures typical of Havlíček’s journalism, i.e. a sharp focus on the addressee to support the writer’s objective, particularly with regard to the usage of emphasis on others’ texts. The informative function is assigned as dominant in the letters dated 12.7. and 23. / 24.12.: in the form of briefly quoted or entirely unquoted „citations“,these provide information on Havlíček’s texts of other genres, being written or having already been written in Brixen. Hence in their own way two letters stand for something else, i.e. they represent the act of publication of what was then unpublishable — Havlíček’s artistic texts (12.7.: King Lávra, Eternal Life, The Grave), and a journalistic text with literary criticism (23. / 24.12: Sincere opinion on the Lada Nióla Almanach). Hence a total of three Brixen letters, making it clear that Havlíček wrote texts of various genres (poetry, letters, literary criticism), gave further meaning to his Brixen exile (even for Havlíček himself).

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