Publication details

"Tak mám, nebo ne?" : O překládání Hamleta pro čtení i hraní

Title in English "Should I, or should I not?" : On Translating Hamlet for Page and Stage
Authors

KRAJNÍK Filip

Year of publication 2022
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
Description William Shakespeare is the central point of the Western cultural canon and the Tragedy of Hamlet is the central point of Shakespeare's dramatic and poetic oeuvre. Perhaps the best-known Shakespeare play has, in the course of the four centuries of its life, enjoyed countless adaptations and iterations, and has become one of the most commented and most influential works of our civilisation. Czech spectators could watch it in their mother tongue for the first time at the end of the 18th century in the Patriotic Theatre in Prague; since then, it has been translated into Czech about 25 times. What are the challenges for the Shakespearean translator of the new generation that has decided to translate the play again? How should he or she deal with the almost 250 year long tradition of the Czech Hamlet? What language should Prince Hamlet and his friends and foes speak in order to be understood by contemporary audiences? And how should - or could - be Shakespeare translated for the stage today so that the result retained the complexity and historical value of the original, while being theatrically effective and function well on both small and big theatre scenes? These and other challenges of Shakespearean translation will be addressed by Filip Krajník, the author of the most recent Czech translation of Shakespeare's Hamlet that premiered in April 2022 at South Bohemian Theatre (dir. Jakub Čermák).
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