Jan Mukařovský
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Jan Mukařovský | |
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Born | |
Died | 8 February 1975 | (aged 83)
School | Structuralism |
Main interests | Literary theory, aesthetics |
Jan Mukařovský (Czech pronunciation: [ˈjan ˈmukar̝ofskiː]; 11 November 1891 – 8 February 1975) was a Czech literary, linguistic, and aesthetic theorist.
Mukařovský was professor at the
Life and work
Mukařovský studied linguistics and aesthetics at the Charles University in Prague and graduated in 1915. In 1922 he received his doctoral degree. Until 1925, he taught in Plzeň, then at a grammar school in Prague. In 1926 he was among the founders of the Prague Linguistic Circle, along with his close friend Roman Jakobson. In 1929, Mukařovský received his habilitation with the Máchův Máj. Estetická studie, a work examining the romantic Czech poet Karel Hynek Mácha in the field of literary aesthetics.
In 1934, Mukařovský was appointed professor at the
Mukařovský's significance is not limited to his membership in the Prague Linguistic Circle. His ideas extended beyond the realm of linguistics into the fields of poetics and aesthetics. However, reception of his theories in the West remains limited, due in part to linguistic barriers.
Mukařovský proposed to understand the literary work as a complex form. He distinguished four basic functions of language: the representative, expressive, appellative and the "aesthetic" function (Mukařovský 1938). Karl Bühler had introduced the first three functions in the "Theory of Language" (Bühler 1934) and Mukařovský added the fourth. Emphasis on the aesthetic is also reflected in his fundamental essays on the question: What is art? In "Art as Semiotic Fact," Mukařovský emphasized two characteristics of the artwork: The autonomic function and the communicative function.
Prior to World War II, Mukařovský, along with Jakobson, was close to members of the Czech avant-garde, interesting himself particularly in the
Works
- Dějiny české literatury (1959–1961), history of Czech literature, chief editor, three volumes
- Studien zur strukturalistischen Ästhetik und Poetik (1974)
- On Poetic Language (1976), translated by John Burbank and Peter Steiner
- The Word and Verbal Art: Selected Essays (1977), translated and edited by John Burbank and Peter Steiner
- Kapitel aus der Ästhetik (1978)
- Structure Sign and Function: Selected Essays (1978), translated and edited by John Burbank and Peter Steiner
- Aesthetic Function, Norm and Value as Social Facts (1970), Mark E. Suino translator