Textbooks in Literary History

Literary history textbooks for secondary and upper secondary schools have always been intertwined not only with the development of literary history as such, for better or worse, but also and at the same time with politics. Josef Jungmann’s Slowesnost, aneb, Zbjrka přjkladů s krátkým pogednáním o slohu k prospěchu wlastenecké mládeže (The art of poetry and rhetoric, or, A collection of examples together with a brief treatise on style for the benefit of patriotic youth, 1820) was based on an integrated conception, linking linguistic and stylistic phenomena with literary education and literary history. Jungmann’s works were later followed by Malá slovesnost (Concise poetical and rhetorical art) by the linguist, ethnographer and writer František Bartoš and the educator and writer Josef Kosina in 1876. The poet František Ladislav Čelakovský prepared Česká čítací kniha pro nižší školy gynmasiální (A Czech reader for the lower grades of the gymnasia/secondary schools, 1852) commissioned by Count Leopold Lev Thun-Hohenstein, who took an interest in Czech language and culture, with an apt selection of texts representing contemporary literature. Czech was a so-called free subject in Austrian secondary schools (gymnasia), i.e. an optional subject. Thus it was able to develop to a certain extent outside the framework of the clearly defined principles and norms of Austrian education.