Translating Rumi into the West: A Linguistic Conundrum and Beyond

330 Pages·2023·8.793 MB·English

by  Amir Eedaghat

Translating Rumi into the West
Focusing on Rumi, the best-selling Persian mystical poet of the 13th century, this
book investigates the reception of his work and thought in North America and
Europe – and the phenomenon of ‘Rumimania’ – to elucidate the complexities of
intercultural communication between the West and the Iranian and Islamic worlds.
Presenting tens of examples from the original and translated texts, the book is a
critical analysis of various dimensions of this reception, outlining the difficulties
of translating the text, but also exploring how translators of various times and
languages have performed, and explaining why the quality of reception varies.
Topics analyzed include the linguistic and pragmatic issues of translation,
comparative stylistics and poetics, and nontextual factors like the translator’s beliefs
and the political and ideological aspects of translation. Using a broad theoretical
framework, the author highlights the difficulties of intercultural communication
from linguistic, semiotic, stylistic, poetic, ethical, and sociocultural perspectives.
Ultimately, the author shares his reflections on the semiotic specificities of Rumi’s
mystical discourse and the ethics of translation generally.
The book will be valuable to scholars and students of Islamic philosophy,
Iranian studies, and translation studies but will appeal to anyone interested in the
cultural dichotomies of the West and Islam.
Amir Sedaghat holds a PhD in translation studies and transcultural communication
from the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris 3. He teaches translation at the
University of Toronto, Canada. Specializing in semiotics, he focuses his research
on intercultural and interreligious relations between the West and the Islamic
World.
Iranian Studies
Series editors: Homa Katouzian
University of Oxford
Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi
University of Toronto
Since 1967 the International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS) has been a leading
learned society for the advancement of new approaches in the study of Iranian
society, history, culture, and literature. The new ISIS Iranian Studies series
published by Routledge will provide a venue for the publication of original and
innovative scholarly works in all areas of Iranian and Persianate Studies.
Judeo-Persian Writings
A Manifestation of Intellectual and Literary Life
Edited and Compiled by Nahid Pirnazar
Foreign Policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Between Ideology and Pragmatism
Przemyslaw Osiewicz
Secularization of Islam in Post-Revolutionary Iran
Mahmoud Pargoo
Iran’s Green Movement
Everyday Resistance, Political Contestation and Social Mobilization
Navid Pourmokhtari
Poetry and Revolution
The Poets and Poetry of the Constitutional Era of Iran
Edited by Homa Katouzian and Alireza Korangy
Translating Rumi into the West
A Linguistic Conundrum and Beyond
Amir Sedaghat
Evidentiality in Sa’dī’s Poetry and Prose
A Corpus Stylistic Study
Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari and Masoumeh Mehrabi
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/middle
eaststudies/series/IRST
Translating Rumi
into the West
A Linguistic Conundrum
and Beyond
Amir Sedaghat
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Amir Sedaghat
The right of Amir Sedaghat to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sedaghat, Amir, author.
Title: Translating Rumi into the west : a linguistic conundrum and
 beyond / Amir Sedaghat.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. |
Series: Iranian studies | Includes bibliographical references and index
Identifiers: LCCN 2022040547 (print) | LCCN 2022040548 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367744526 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367744533 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003157960 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Maulana, 1207-1273—Translations—
 History and criticism. | Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, Maulana, 1207-1273—
 Appreciation. | East and West. | LCGFT: Literary criticism.
Classification: LCC PK6482 .S43 2023 (print) | LCC PK6482 (ebook) |
 DDC 891/.5511—dc23/eng/20220916
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022040547
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022040548
ISBN: 978-0-367-74452-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-74453-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-15796-0 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157960
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
À mes parents, Fatemeh et Sohrab
Et à ma fleur florissante

Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Examples x
List of Tables xii
Foreword xiii
Acknowledgements xv
List of Abbreviations xvi
Introduction 1
1 First Order Linguistic Difficulties 29
1 Translatability as a Linguistic Principle 29
2 Grammatical and Syntactic Problems 32
3 Lexicological Difficulties 47
4 Graphic Aspects of Translation 54
2 Translation or the Retrieval of the Discoursive Form 62
1 For a Theory of the Discoursive Form in Translation 62
2 Connotative Semantics and Translation 89
3 Linguistic Variations and Discoursive Heterogeneity 107
3 Recreating the Poetics of Rumi 123
1 The Music of Persian Poetry 124
2 Music and Poetry in the Persianate World 132
3 Hybrid Semiotic Systems 136
4 Translating Rumi’s Hybrid Discourse 142
4 Translating Rumi’s Rhetoric 153
1 Comparative Rhetoric: An Elusive Classification 153
viii Contents
2 Lexical Figures of Speech 155
3 Figures of Syntagmatic Construction 164
5 Hermeneutics of Translating Rumi 177
1 Translating as Understanding 177
2 Mystical Discoursive (In-)Coherence 183
3 Translating Figures of Thought 191
4 The Hermeneutic Conundrum of Mystical Imagery 195
6 On the Politics of Reception 215
1 Beyond Language and Discourse 215
2 Sociocultural Aspects of Reception 216
3 Ideological and Political Dimensions of Translation 230
7 Translation as an Ethical Locus 242
1 The Aim of Translation 242
2 Target-Oriented Positions 247
3 The Analytics of Rumi Translations 253
4 For an Ethics of Translating Rumi 260
Conclusion 270
Bibliography 279
Appendices 297
Index 309
Figures
2.1 The Saussurean sign 63
2.2 The Peircean sign 64
2.3 Hjelmslev’s sign model 67
2.4 Connotative sign 70
2.5 Generative trajectory of discoursivization 72
2.6 Barbara Folkart’s model of discoursivization 79
2.7 Factors of verbal communication 82
2.8 Jakobson’s linguistic functions 82
3.1 Rhyme structure of mas̠ navi 126
3.2 Rhyme structure of robāʻi 126
3.3 Rhyme structure of ghazal and qaside 127
3.4 The meter of Masnavi MI) l.1 129
3.5 Graphic indication of a Baḥr-e Sari’ used in D) G.37 129
3.6 The semiotic structure of Persian classical verse 140
3.7 The semiotic structure of āvāzi composition 140
5.1 Fields of indication and interpretation 182
5.2 Fields of indication and interpretation in translation 200
6.1 Constituents of the polysystem 217
6.2 Chronology of Rumi’s reception in the Anglosphere 222
6.3 Chronology of Rumi’s reception in other polysystems 222