Sincerity in Czech literature: Notes toward a rhetoric of lamentation
Sincerity in Czech literature: Notes toward a rhetoric of lamentation

Summary/Abstract: Roman Jakobson considers the anonymous Czech prose dispute Tkadleček (The weaver, beginning of the 15th century), the last letters of Božena Němcová (1861) and Jakub Deml’s Zapomenuté světlo (The forgotten light, 1934) to be the most tragic works of Czech literature. This article shows that the three texts share some characteristic elements: they are written in the first person, they appeal to an imaginary or real counterpart and they are set in the present tense. They emphasize a rhetoric of lamentation, which guarantees the sincerity of the author’s statement. Some other factors like repetition and expressive language also contribute to the reader’s feeling of being immediately addressed and deeply affected.

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