Marast humanismu, nebo jen problémy starší literatury?
“The decay” of humanism, or problems of the Czech medieval literature only?

Summary/Abstract: The article contributes to the discussion on the issue of Czech literary humanism. Thediscussion critically comes to terms with the concept of this period in the first volume of„Academic“ History of Czech Literature and with the synthesizing views of Milan Kopecký.One of the fundamental problems is the very definition of humanism. If a narrowedview of humanism based on its philologically-philosophical anchoring and the relation toantiquity is employed, Czech literature has to give up the 1450–1620 period, which wereconsidered humanistic by researchers of the generation of Jaroslav Vlček, Jan Jakubec andArne Novák, and also by the „Academic“ History of Czech literature and was synthesized byMilan Kopecký. Nevertheless, it is still necessary to bear in mind the considerable volumeof unexplored Latin literature of that period. In addition, our evaluation should also takeinto account the fact that, regarding this period, Czech literature has been compared tothe so-called major European literatures – this comparison logically does not support itsvalue. However, even the comparison with „minor“ literature, which did not come to thesame level, has been missing. The study analyses the term National humanism, but also theplace of Viktorin Cornel of Všehrdy into literary history regarding his preface to De reparationelapsi (Knihy o napravení padlého / The Books of Remedying the Fallen). The study alsobriefly recalls the scholarly interest of Eduard Petrů in this period.

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