Dějiny české literatury – Jechová-Voisine Hana (2005)

Originally published in French as part of a series devoted to the literary histories of different nations, this history of Czech literature is closest in the Czech context to Arne Novák’s comprehensive history of Czech literature. Hana Voisine-Jechová divides and periodizes Czech literature into chapters covering the spiritual and aesthetic dawn of the Czech lands, the period from the Hussite movement to the Enlightenment, the period from Romanticism to the Enlightenment, the years between the two World Wars, and literature after 1945. Written in a lively style, the book is accessible to secondary-school and university students interested in literary historiography. Numerous excerpts from literary works both clarify and lighten the dense material, serving as a kind of miniature anthology. The author presents Czech literature as a product of a bipolar culture, placing it in the context of parallel foreign-language literature, including works written in Latin and German in the Czech lands, while also showing how one part of Czech literature was shaped by the spirit of the Reformation and another remained attached to Catholic tradition. The contents are in Czech.