Neznámá ze Seiny : ke kořenům Nezvalovy básnické skladby

In 1929 Vítězslav Nezval wrote the poem The Unknown from the Seine. This poem has three documented sources of inspiration: Nezval's experience of his childhood, an episode with a drowning person in the 1920's Prague, and the famouse motive of the "Unknown of the Seine," a girl, whose death mask has a mysterious smile. The study offers another source of Nezval's inspiration: Jean Arthur Rimbaud's Ophelia, which Nezval actually translated into Czech. In this poem Rimbaud explores the cult of Ophelia – a beautiful drowned girl. Nezval's poetic composition can be seen as a belated tribute from the Czech poetist to the European cult that deeply inspired symbolism and decadence.