About the wicked slanderers in Czech-language paratexts of the second half of the 16th century / O niegodziwych oszczercach w czeskojęzycznych paratekstach drugiej połowy XVI wieku

In older Czech literature, the category of wicked slanderers can be encountered quite often, as it accompanies Czech writings continuously from the 14th century to the threshold of the National Revival at the end of the 18th century. One of the reasons for dedicating a work was also to obtain an effective protection against the supposed slanderers in the form person of a powerful dedicatee. The question remains, however, who were the wicked slanderers? Were they merely a rhetorical figure from the phraseologized sentences associated with the (conclusion) closing dedication, or a kind of embryonic criticism within contemporary literary communication? This paper draws on quantitative research on dedications and readers’ prefaces in the second half of the 16th century and focuses on specific examples associated with communicative strategy.