Zem pode mnou v nesmírné bolesti kolébá se. K vertikální orientaci prostoru Znamení moci Jana Zahradníčka

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.