Current and Recent Research Students

Mr Filip Krajnik

Contact Mr Filip Krajnik

Biography

Having received my Bc. (Baccalarius) in English Studies and Czech Studies from Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, and my Mgr. (Magister) in the same subjects from Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic, I am currently conducting doctoral research at Durham University under the supervision of Dr. Robert Carver. My project examines the use of the dream motif in Shakespeare’s plays. Both a fascination with sleep and the processes which take place during it has accompanied literature from its very beginning, starting in antiquity and continuing through the Middle Ages and the humanistic era until today. Throughout the centuries, the cultural significance and conception of dreams has changed continually, and so has the place of dreams in a person’s everyday life and his/her cultural awareness. The purpose of my research is both to describe the dramatic functions of dream topoi within the constructions and dramatic situations of Shakespeare’s plays, and to place them in the context of the philosophical, psychological, theological and literary traditions of the Renaissance period, in whose environment the plays were written. I am also a translator of English fiction into Czech. My recent or upcoming translations include The Divine Invasion, Deus Irae and The Penultimate Truth by Philip K. Dick and A Fistful of Cherries by Matthew Nicholls