Martin Procházka

On special forms of restarting automata

We study transformations of automata from some (sub)classes of restarting automata (RRWW-automata) into two types of special forms. We stress particularly the transformations into the linguistically motivated weak cyclic form. Special forms of the second type express a certain degree of determinism of such automata.

Shakespeare and National Mythologizing in Czech Nineteenth Century Drama

Abstract The paper will discuss the ways in which Shakespeare’s tragedies (King Lear) and histories (1 and 2 Henry IV), translated in the period of the Czech cultural renaissance (known also as the Czech National Revival) at the end of the 18th and in the first half of the 19th century, challenge and transform the nationalist concept of history based on “primordialism” (Anthony Smith), deriving from an invented account of remote past (the forged Manuscripts of Dvur Kralove and Zelena Hora) and emphasizing its absolute value for the present and future of the Czech nation. While for nationalist leaders Shakespeare’s dramas served as models for “boldly painted heroic characters” of the Czech past, translators, dramatists and poets had to deal with the aspects of Shakespeare’s tragedies and histories which were disrupting the nationalist visions of the past and future. Contrasting the appropriations of King Lear and both parts of Henry IV in the translations and historical plays by the leading Czech dramatist Josef Kajetán Tyl (1808-1852) and the notebooks and dramatic fragments of the major romantic poet Karel Hynek Mácha (1810-1836), the paper will attempt to specify the role of Shakespeare in shaping the historical consciousness of emerging modern Czech culture.

Byron and Karel Hynek Mácha: Uses of Ossian and Subversions of Ossianism

The article contrasts Byron ’ s use of Ossianic themes and style with Romantic Ossianism in the work of the leading Czech Romantic Karel Hynek Mácha (1810–1836). Although Byron ’ s uses of Ossianic material seem restricted to his “juvenile” poetry (Hours of Idleness), it has been argued that features of Ossian poems are employed in Byron ’ s later work. The analysis of Byron ’ s uses of Ossianic material will show their affinity with Romantic Ossianism, especially in proto-existentialist terms, but also in view of hybridization of genres and styles (amalgamating a minuscule story of Ryno and Orla in the fifth book of Fingal with the Classical story of Nisus and Euryalus in the Aeneid). In the work of Karel Hynek Mácha, often described as the most important Czech follower of Byron, these features are strengthened in contact with a popular form of German Ossianism (Ernst Christoph von Houwald ’ s tale Madness and Death) and also in resistance to dogmatic aspects of Czech nationalist ideology. In Mácha ’ s poetry and prose fragments the juvenile features of his Ossianism (analogous to those of Byron) are overcome. Ossianic symbols (the stringless harp, the blind harpist) are used both “against the grain,” to deconstruct the nationalist ideology of the Czech “revival” or “resurrection,” and creatively – in Mácha ’ s figurative language articulating the tragic temporality of individual and collective existence.