Language as a Subject in the Poetry of Bohuslav Tablic

Abstract

The question of encouraging love for one´s own language as an essential identifying sign of a nation is one of the significant subjects in the poetry of Bohuslav Tablic (1769– 1832), who did a lot to help stimulate the interest in the original language of the Slovak population as well as in its literary form. Although his literary language is usually superficially described as Czech, it is not accurate as he himself promoted the project of the common literary language for both Slovak and Czech language communities, where Czech and Slovak elements would be applied equally. The choice of his literary language was supported by the three-hundred-year-old tradition of Czech language (also in the Slovak environment), which he regarded as one of the proofs of its full develoment. The analyses of his poetry show that he considered it to be a suitable platform for reflecting on the problems in the society at that time including the issue of language. There are a number of poems in which he appealed to the Slovak society to realize the importance of the language for its life in the multilinguistic Habsburg monarchy. He often called for study of the national language, for its development and refinement mainly through its active use in literary production.

Keywords

• bohuslav tablic (1769 – 1832)
• language
• language awareness
• czech language
• literary tradition
• nation
• poetry