Vilém Mathesius (Czech pronunciation: [ˈvɪlɛːm ˈmatɛːzɪjus], 3 August 1882 – 12 April 1945) was a Czech linguist, literary historian and co-founder of the Prague Linguistic Circle. He is considered one of the founders of structural functionalism in linguistics. Mathesius was the editor-in-chief of two linguistic journals, Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague (“Works of the Prague Linguistic Circle”) and Slovo a slovesnost ("Word and Verbal Art"), and the co-founder of a third, Nové Athenaeum. His extensive publications in these journals and elsewhere cover a range of topics, including the history of English literature, syntax, Czech stylistics, and cultural activism. In addition to his work in linguistics, in 1912 he founded the department of English philology at Charles University, which was the first such department in Czech lands. He remained head of the department until 1939, when the Nazis closed all Czech universities. The department now exists as a branch of the Faculty of Arts, but it is called the "Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures."
Personal life and education Vilém was born as the youngest of two sons of Bedřich and Evelina Mathesius. His father was a wealthy tanner in a long line of tanners of Saxon origin, claiming Martin Luther's biographer Johannes Mathesius as an ancestor. His cousin, Bohumil Mathesius, was a poet and translator. Vilém was born in Pardubice in Eastern Bohemia in Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic). When he was 11, his family moved west to Kolín. There he attended a classic gymnasium and took particular interest in the study of language, taking classes in Latin, Greek, German, and French, in addition to his native language of Czech. He also taught himself some Italian and Russian, and met with the pastor Čeněk Dušek for private lessons in English. Dušek also instructed Mathesius in Calvinism, the religion which Mathesius actively and devotedly practiced his whole life. In 1901, Mathesius began his studies of Germanic and Romance philology under the Neogrammarian Jan Gebauer at Charles University in Prague, earning both his B.A. and his PhD there. The topic of his doctoral dissertation, which he submitted in 1907, was Hippolyte Taine's criticism of Shakespeare. While serving as an assistant teacher of German at a secondary school in Plzeň, he wrote his habilitation thesis and submitted it in 1909. He spent the next 3 years working at Charles University as a privatdozent, then in 1912 he was appointed the university's first professor of Anglistics (English philology), effectively founding the department. He remained head of the department until Charles University, along with all other Czech universities, was forcibly shut down by the Nazis on November 17, 1939. In 1908 Mathesius married Růžena Moravcová with whom he later had a son, Vilém (known as Vilík). Moravcová died unexpectedly in 1933 during a routine operation. Soon after, Mathesius married her sister, Antonia. Mathesius suffered a number of health problems during his lifetime. In 1922 he contracted an eye disease that eventually left him completely blind. This caused him to rely increasingly on his students, including René Wellek and Bohumil Trnka, to assist him in his teaching, reading, and writing. Ten years later, in 1932, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis of the vertebrae, which caused him to be bed-ridden for a year and a half (1932–33). In spite of these ailments, he continued to pursue his studies, teach his classes, and work with the Prague Circle, until his death in Prague on 12 April 1945.
Work with the Prague Circle Mathesius first met Roman Jakobson, an influential Russian linguist and co-founder of the Moscow Linguistic Circle, soon after Jakobson's arrival in Prague in 1920. It was Jakobson who pointed out the need for a center for work and discussion for young linguists in the city, which coincided with Mathesius's patriotic desire to improve the state of scholarship in Czechoslovakia. However, their plans would not be realized for half a decade. For a year and a half (March 1925 – October 1926), Mathesius hosted the sporadic and informal gatherings of young linguists that eventually became the Prague Linguistic Circle at his own house. The first official meeting took place on October 6, 1926, at Mathesius's office. Henrik Becker, a young German linguist, was the first speaker invited to give a lecture, which was attended by five people (including Mathesius and Jakobson) and followed by a discussion. The Circle applied for official status in 1930, and Mathesius, as a senior member and well-established academic, served as its president. The Circle achieved international notice at two linguistic conferences: the First International Congress of Linguists at the Hague in 1928, then the First International Congress of Slavists in Prague in 1929. They used these conferences as an opportunity to develop and present a set of ten theses for linguistic research, promoting a "functionalist" approach to the study of language. Soon after the Prague Congress they issued their first independent publication, two volumes of the journal Travaux du Cercle Linguistique de Prague ("Works of the Prague Linguistic Circle"), of which Mathesius was the editor-in-chief. In addition, in 1936 the Circle began issuing a Czech periodical called Slovo a slovesnost ("Word and verbal art"), also with Mathesius as editor-in-chief. Publication of Travaux ceased in 1939 due to the onset of World War II, but the journal began to be reissued in 1995 as part of a general effort to revive the Circle. Slovo a slovesnost, which specializes in structuralist theory and Czech language, now continues (after a brief hiatus from 1942 to 1947) to be published as a quarterly.
Scholarship Mathesius's scholarly work is typically divided into three periods based on his academic and intellectual focus and his increasing interest in linguistic concerns.
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