EXISTENCIÁLNA POETIKA – LEOPOLD LAHOLA (VTÁČÍ SPEV)

The goal of the paper is to use a particular piece of writing by Leopold Lahola in order to describe the principles of existential poetics seen in a wider sense, as opposed to the literary historical concept of existentialism. In the first part of the paper, what is pointed out is the key, nodal points of literary historical reflection on the works by Leopold Lahola, which were from the start linked with the poetics of French existentialism. Later, in the 1960s the opinion was reviewed through the optics of humanism, mainly functioning within the political background of the times. The research conducted in the period of the last two decades, however, shows how problematic these interpretations are. The hypothesis of the paper based on knowing the assumptions of philosophy of existence seen in a wider sense and intuitive reading of Leopold Lahola´s writings lies in interpretation of poetics present in the writings using the key of existential imagination, and the absence of this in the history of reflection on the author´s works is the reason why their aesthetic impact is not exactly understood. In order to understand the concept of existential poetics as much as possible, the analysis uses the only short piece of writing by Leopold Lahola titled Vtáči spev/Birdsong, which makes it possible to deal with literariness of the selected type on the fundamental level and to understand it likewise.