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The aim of this study is to map the specific orientation of space in Jan Zahradníček’s extensive poem The Sign of Power. His unique conceptualization of ‘up’ and ‘down’ in this work plays a significant role in the construction of setting. In this paper, we draw on George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By, in particular their insights and observations on metaphors involving spatial orientation and the notion that ‘more is up; less is down’ — a postulate that can be extended to various other good-bad (including ethical and religious) distinctions. Along these lines, we further draw on their concept of in/coherence of metaphor and different cultural spaces. The central question of the study concerns the coherence (or incoherence) of spatial designations with the values of good and bad. Our analysis then traces the tension between conventional spatial connotations and the unsettling instability, with regard to both space and values, of the world modelled in Zahradníček’s poem.

This study aims to characterise the ways in which Hasidic storytelling is adapted in Jiří Langer’s prose work Devět bran (Nine Gates). The main emphasis is on his manner of creating an illusion of ‘skaz’, which the author, in agreement with Hana Kosáková’s and Boris Eikhenbaum’s work, understands as a narrative form, imitating spontaneous verbal utterance. The following interpretation shows two major principles of Jiří Langer’s narrative strategy of anonymising the narrator, and of illusive speech: Firstly, the conscious usage of verbal material as if with artlessness and ease, using hidden rhythmisation, language deformation and playfulness. Secondly, he employs storytelling in everyday Hasidic life, convincing the reader of the narrator’s own insignificance.

This study aims to compare three prose adaptations of a Hasidic legend published in 1937: Devět bran (‘The nine gates’) by Jiří Langer, Golet v údolí (‘Golet in the valley’) by Ivan Olbracht, and Dům bez pána (‘The house without a master’) by Egon Hostovský. The first part focuses on characterising the genre of Hasidic narration, with descriptions of its earliest Czech-language realisations on the pages of Czech periodicals. These investigations demonstrate that the acceptance of Hasidic narrativity by the authors in question is based not only on direct experience of the Hasidic environment, but also on the tradition of literary fiction in translation, which had been prevalent in the Czech context for several decades. The second section deals with specific ways the Hasidic legend and its semantic implications are integrated in the primary texts. The conclusions show, among other things, that the Hasidic stories allow Ivan Olbracht to follow the individual characters in interaction with the narrative as a social act. In Egon Hostovský’s novel, meanwhile, the Hasidic short story becomes part of a world of hidden meanings; the narrator of Devět bran integrates legends into the context of Hasidic everyday life, thus giving specific form to the community of anonymous narrators and listeners.