« Dílo Jakuba Demla a hledání infrazvuku v poetikách 20. století »
The work of Jakub Demel and the search for infrasound in 20th century poetics
[L’œuvre de Jakub Deml et la quête de l’infrason dans les poétiques du XXe siècle]
Résumé
Jakub Deml belongs in the wider context of European (Post)Symbolism, especially its “melophobic” tradition sceptical toward the idea of music and musicality as a model for the poetic word. Deml thereby distances himself from the Czech tradition – specifically from the so-called “Neo-Romantic literature” and the symphonic ambitions of poetry. This study attempts to reconstruct Deml’s search for infrasound (i.e. sound below the human hearing threshold) from his early correspondence with František Bilek and Otokar Březina all the way to the more mature reflections on “mumbling” as a model for poetic speech. In this way a kind of “sub-semiotics” can be outlined, ruled by silence and an inaudible world of sounds (biophonic and geophonic), and seen as providing philosophical inspiration to twentiethcentury Czech poetry.