Literary criticism in the Bohemian lands in the period of the formation of national canons (1806-1858)

In the 19th century, literary criticism contributed to the transformation of regional literatures into (seemingly) closed national literatures, in which fiction in vernacular languages took a prestigious place. How did such a canonizing practice,with its elements of exclusivity, Romantic philosophy of history, etc., developed, and how did the autonomy of the work assert itself within its transnational framework? The project combines a relational model of literary criticism (Dobiáš–Smyčka 2021) with research on literary canons (Rippl–Winko 2013) and confronts them with the efforts to make the literary work a “privileged context of the self” (Martus 2008). The final monograph and studies focus on literature in the Bohemian lands from Jungmann’s linguistic definition of the nation to the demands of the May generation for literary autonomy. By analysing the transnational practice of interpreting works,they aim to revive the domestic debate on the literary canon and to introduce the principles of the formation and transgression of the national canons in Central Europe to a wider audience.