Vilém Mathesius

Vilém Mathesius (, 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 Czechoslovakia. 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

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