In this impressive, erudite, and elegantly written monograph, Frances Jackson analyzes Czech poetry from the period 1938–1942, that is, from the Munich Agreement through the proclamation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, to the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. The poets selected for analysis are František Halas, Vladimír Holan, Josef Hora, Vítězslav Nezval, and Jaroslav Seifert, all protagonists of the Czech interwar avant-garde and monumental figures of Czech twentieth century poetry. Each is represented by two to four works. The works form part of the national literary canon but have not been collectively analyzed to date. Often considered as mere poésie de circonstance, they have been regarded as atypical of the poets’ oeuvres. Jackson proposes a novel way of studying these works—namely, by employing the concept of věrnost (faithfulness) as a central analytical category. This methodological choice is underpinned by the fact that all five poets signed the 1938 manifesto Věrní zůstaneme (We shall remain faithful).
Poetry motivated by real-world events is precisely what interests Jackson. To scrutinize this topic, she employs a fascinating set of theoretical approaches. These are used most clearly in Chapters 1–4, the monograph's main analytical part. Ch. 1 discusses the notion of “event,” based on contemplations by Jacques Derrida and Alain Badiou. Ch. 2 addresses allegory and other metaphorical language. In Ch. 3, the emphasis is on collective and cultural memory, as particularly defined via the theories of Jan and Aleida Assmann and Pierre Nora. Ch. 4 deals with rhetoric, chiefly with rhetorical authenticity, building on works by Lloyd F. Bitzer, Wolfgang Funk, music scholar Allan Moore, and other theoreticians. The two last chapters widen the perspectives. Ch. 5 scrutinizes possible continuities with pre-Munich Czech poetry, and Ch. 6 compares Czech poetry with late modernist English-language poetry (W. H. Auden and Louise MacNeice) that addressed the demise of democratic Czechoslovakia. The findings in this chapter allow Jackson to confirm that the issue of věrnost is indeed uniquely characteristic of the selected Czech works of poetry. In the Conclusion, another central finding is reiterated—namely, that the Czech poets stayed faithful to the mythological and ethnolinguistic understanding of “Czechness,” rather than to interwar Czechoslovakia's democratic ideals. Simultaneously, their poetry was engaging in dynamic and often paradoxical practices of coming to terms with věrnost.
The monograph will provide precious inspiration to scholars of the interplay between poetry and real-world events. Scholars will find important reflections on poetry as the literary genre par excellence in times of national peril. Reading this monograph, one cannot but think of present-day Ukrainian poetry. The selection of inspiring theoreticians will guide scholars into a deeper understanding of poetry written under such circumstances.
All Czech originals are translated into English, and historical and cultural facts are accurately explained. This eases comprehension for non-Czech readers and contributes to placing this exceptional poetry on the world stage. Quotations from non-English secondary sources are translated and contextualized, which is a technique that presents valuable theoretical insight to international readers. A case in point may be Martin Schulze Wessel's discussion of loyalty as a dynamic and nonessentialist alternative to identity. One of the monograph's many qualities is its seamless oscillation between poetological scholarship and historiography. Close reading is supported by studies of hitherto unpublished archival material.
In line with central European academic rhetoric (the monograph is a revised version of Jackson's doctoral thesis), the author refers to herself as “we.” This pleasant stylistic choice coincides with the spiral motion of analysis, where the reader, together with the author, as it were, is searching for the theories best suited for approaching the poetic works. This analytical procedure is applied particularly forcefully in Chs. 1–4. Ch. 6—to me, an especially eye-opening chapter—has the character of a dialogue with scholars of English-language poetry.
One might perhaps have wished for a little more discussion of the criteria for selecting precisely these five poets, and wonder why there are few consultations with Czech scholars of the structuralist brand (Miroslav Červenka's classification of the various “I”s talking to us through poetry might have provided further inspiration for Ch. 4). In sum, Faith, Truth, Fidelity excels as a remarkable event in Czech literary historiography. Hopefully, Jackson's monograph will also find its deserved place in international literary scholarship.
