Between the Sacral and the Parodic: Klicpera's (?) Sermon on a Terrible Suffering and the Power of Barley, Not Only in the Context of Its Era
2020
Abstract
This study analyses Klicpera's dubium, a parodic sermon based on similarities between Christ's suffering and the processing of barley in beer production. The primary aim is to show how a genre that begins by parodying scripture gradually transforms into a declamatory text, which functions in the culture of the Czech national movement mainly as light reading but also aims to homogenize the Czech national community.
Furthermore, the study shows numerous thematic parallels in foreign literatures which may serve (mainly within the world imagined by Klicpera's text) as very interesting comparative materials. Attached to the study is a critically verified edition of Klicpera's text.