Hovořící mrtví: zkoumání hřbitova jako literárního nástroje v Hřbitovní hlíně Máirtína Ó Cadhaina a Lincoln in the Bardo George Saunderse

• Název práce v češtině: Hovořící mrtví: zkoumání hřbitova jako literárního nástroje v Hřbitovní hlíně Máirtína Ó Cadhaina a Lincoln in the Bardo George Saunderse
• Název v anglickém jazyce: The Talking Dead: An Exploration of the Graveyard as a Literary Device in Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s Graveyard Clay and George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo
• Klíčová slova: Máirtín Ó Cadhain|Hřbitovní hlína|George Saunders|Lincoln in the Bardo|různořečí|druhá světová válka|americká občanská válka
• Klíčová slova anglicky: Máirtín Ó Cadhain|Cré na Cille|Graveyard Clay|George Saunders|Lincoln in the Bardo|heteroglossia|Second World War|American Civil War
• Akademický rok vypsání: 2018/2019
• Typ práce: diplomová práce
• Jazyk práce: čeština
• Ústav: Ústav anglofonních literatur a kultur (21-UALK)
• Vedoucí / školitel: Mgr. Radvan Markus, Ph.D.
• Řešitel: skrytý - zadáno a potvrzeno stud. odd.
• Datum přihlášení: 23.01.2019
• Datum zadání: 28.01.2019
• Schválení administrátorem: zatím neschvalováno
• Datum potvrzení stud. oddělením: 01.02.2019
• Datum a čas obhajoby: 28.01.2021 09:00
• Datum odevzdání elektronické podoby: 28.12.2020
• Datum proběhlé obhajoby: 28.01.2021
• Odevzdaná/finalizovaná: odevzdaná studentem a finalizovaná
• Oponenti: Mgr. Daniela Theinová, Ph.D.

Zásady pro vypracování

I intend to write on Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s novel Graveyard Clay (1949) and George Saunders’s more contemporary novel Lincoln in the Bardo (2017), and to specifically focus on how each author uses the setting of ‘voices in the graveyard’ as an effective literary device to achieve a number of diverse objectives. Graveyard Clay takes place in a fictionalized Irish graveyard during World War II and the characters, barring a few exceptions, are all deceased inhabitants of the village, whereas Lincoln in the Bardo is inspired by the historically-real death of Abraham Lincoln’s son, Willie, and is set during the American Civil War. Saunders’s characters all reside in the bardo, which is a Buddhist concept, a transitional state between death and rebirth.
First, I will give some background on these two novels and their authors in general, and then I will briefly note a few other similar literary works which may have influenced both Ó Cadhain and Saunders – particularly Fyodor Dostoevsky’s short story Bobok (1873) and Edward Lee Masters’s collection of poems Spoon River Anthology (1915).
Both Graveyard Clay and Lincoln in the Bardo are told completely through the direct speech of their characters who utter monologues, converse with one another and engage in arguments. Characters speak idiosyncratically based upon their education, social status and personal quirks and, in the case of Graveyard Clay, Ó Cadhain does not make it clear who is speaking, thus it is up to the reader to ascertain which character is speaking at any given moment. Given the importance of speech and dialogue in these two works, it will be vital to include a long chapter that explores these novels in relation to Mikhail Bakhtin’s work on language and literature, specifically his collection of essays The Dialogic Imagination that delves into concepts like heteroglossia and chronotope. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines heteroglossia as “a diversity of voices, styles of discourse, or points of view in a literary work and especially a novel” and Bakhtin argues that the novel is the ideal literary form to showcase different styles of speech and language. As mentioned above, both Graveyard Clay and Lincoln in the Bardo consist almost entirely of dialogue so Bakhtin’s theories of language will be especially applicable to these texts. The fact that I will be working with an English translation of Graveyard Clay will necessarily limit my analysis of heteroglossia in Ó Cadhain. Nevertheless, the merit of the chapter (and of the thesis as a whole) will be the comparison of the two novels, which has not been done before.
Third, I will write an in-depth analysis in which I will compare and contrast the ways in which Ó Cadhain and Saunders use the graveyard as a vehicle for storytelling. I will explore the various ways in which this method enhances and enriches the narratives as well as comment upon the similarities and differences between the two novels. Moreover, the device is crucial in the authors’ portrayal of specific communities, which constitute microcosms of larger societal wholes.
Next, I will write a chapter on the historical setting of the two novels. Graveyard Clay takes place during World War II, just twenty years after the Irish Civil War, ended whereas Lincoln in the Bardo takes place during the American Civil War. The reflection of these historical events constitutes an important dimension of both texts. The chapter will focus on the ways how the authors use the ‘graveyard setting’ of their narratives to address historical issues crucial for both the Irish and American identity.
Another chapter will delve into and compare the two afterlives that the authors depict. I will write about the Buddhist idea of the bardo and how Saunders has altered it, combining it with Protestant beliefs about God’s judgement to create a wholly unique world for his characters to inhabit. Ó Cadhain’s afterlife is left open to more interpretation as the characters do not seem overly worried about the fate of their souls. Nevertheless, there is still a lot worth exploring here, particularly the role of the trumpet that features in each chapter, as well as the main character’s concern about the cross that should mark her grave. Comparing and contrasting the two separate afterlives will add further depth to the thesis, and will help to continue to round out the worlds each author has created.

Seznam odborné literatury

Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1983.
Coleman, Graham and Thupten, Jinpa, eds. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Translated by Gyurme Dorje. London: Penguin Classics, 2007.
de Paor, Louis. “Introducing Máirtín Ó Cadhain.” The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 34.1 (2008): 10-17.
de Paor, Pádraig. “Ends, Endings and Endlessness in Cré na Cille.” New Trails and Beaten Paths in Celtic Studies. Ed. Maria Bloch-Trojnar et al. Lublin: Wydawnictvo KUL, 2016. 75-89.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Gambler/Bobok/A Nasty Story. Translated by Jesse Coulson. London: Penguin, 1973.
Foner, Eric. The Fiery Trail: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010.
Harman, Mark. “‘Wake Up, I Tell You’: The Vibrant Afterlife of Irish Writer Máirtín Ó Cadhain.” Los Angeles Review of Books. 27 May 2016. 18 Jan. 2019.
Keefe, Joan Trodden. “Churchyard Clay”: A Translation of “Cré Na Cille” by Mairtin O Cadhain with Introduction and Notes. Diss. University of California, Berkeley. 1984.
Kiberd, Declan. Irish Classics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Kolchin, Peter. American Slavery: 1619-1877. New York: Hill and Wang, 1994.
Masters, Edgar Lee. Spoon River Anthology. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1915.
Markus, Radvan. “The Carnivalesque Against Entropy: Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s Cré Na Cille.” Litteraria Pragensia, 28.55 (2018): 56-69.
Ó Broin , Brian. “Máirtín Ó Cadhain's ‘Cré Na Cille’: A Narratological Approach.” Irish University Review, 36.2 (2006): 280-303. JSTOR 18 Jan. 2019
Ó Cadhain, Máirtín. Graveyard Clay: Cré Na Cille. Translated Liam Mac Con Iomaire and Tim Robinson. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017.
O’ Leary, Philip. Irish Interior: Keeping Faith with the Past in Gaelic Prose 1940-1951. Dublin: UCD Press, 2010.
Ranelagh, John O Beirne. A Short History of Ireland. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Print.
Saunders, George. Lincoln in the Bardo. New York: Random House, 2017.
Thomas, Dylan. Under Milk Wood. New York: New Directions, 2013.
Wills, Clair. That Neutral Island: A Cultural History of Ireland During the Second World War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.