Lexikální opakování v Máchově Máji

By ‘lexical repetition’ the author of this article means simple or multiple repetition of individual words or groups of words. The most frequent kind is the repetition of words in various positions in a line, in an identical or inflected form, as much as twenty lines away; the most frequent kind is repetition between five and ten lines away. The second kind is repetition in rhetorical figures, for example in the anaphora, the epiphora, the climax, and word play. The normal distance here is one to two lines, but the author examines greater distance (for example, seven to eight lines) and also instances of approximate repetition. An unusually large number of both occur in Mácha’s Máj (1836), particularly in anaphoras and epiphoras. The third kind is repetition at large and very large distances, within a part of Máj or between its parts, and, mainly, longer passages, for example the oxymora (metaphors) in Cantos II and IV. Apart from repetition, the passages also often contain variation, the shortening or expanding of the initial passage. The proportion of repeated words in the poem is such that one must consider them to be Mácha’s chief marked means and approach (almost half the total 4,280 lexical units are repeated words). From the large number of occurrences the author of the article selects representative examples of various repetitions. In both his commentary and overall conclusions he points out their formal and semantic references.