Obrazy hvězd a jisker v Máji: antropologické a ontologické výpovědi

The article explores the role played by the motif of stars and sparks in the first to third songs of Macha’s poem May. Stars appear in the first canto, both in reference to stars whose light is going out and in the form of sparks (the reflection of starlight) playing on the waves of the lake. In the second canto, the extinct (dead) star that is falling forever through dark space connotes human life exposed to nothingness. If the sparks on the lake are characterised as ‘lost light’, then, it is said, man is unable to determine which spark is a reflection of which star, and is thereby also unable to reveal the source of the light and of earthly beauty. Humans are thus unable to discern whether earthly beauty and earthly life really have any supernatural (transcendent) source.