'Blood Ascends to the Mouth and Mixes with My Word': Human Outside Humanity and the Poetics of the Insufferable. On the War Poetry of Jan Zahradníček
Abstract
The period of the German occupation, the 'Böhmen und Mähren' Protectorate and World War II constitutes a specific cultural, social, intellectual, as well as emotional and affective 'space' of confrontation with extreme states and experiences - which are then variously articulated and shapes by art, as well as reflected in art theory and philosophy of art. The current debate on the crisis of humanism and the newly aroused theoretical interest in anthropological, philosophical and aesthetic phenomena such as affectivity, pathos, and the performativity and mediality of emotions and affects, puts into a new light also the issue of the relationship between art and violence in Czech art, and in particular poetry, of the wartime period.
Our main question in this context is: How should one explain that even amongst the horrors of war, occupation, and brutal violence, in confrontation with inhumanity, cruelty and suffering, highly impressive aesthetic works are created? Can the unimaginable be represented? The authors seek to provide at least a partial answer by presenting an analysis of the wartime poetry of Jan Zahradníček from his Korouhve, especially of his Žalm roku dvaačtyřicátého (Psalm of '42).