Poetry Translation as a Trope: Tarjama in Persian Poetics

Main author: Tahmasebian, Kayvan
Format: Monographs and Working Papers           
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Summary: In classical manuals of Persian science of eloquence (balāgha), poetry translation (tarjama) is classified as a figure of speech along with other rhetorical devices, such as metaphor (istiʾāra), simile (tashbīh), and paronomasia (jinās). In this working paper, I have translated sections related to the rhetorical device tarjama from Tarjuman al-balāgha (written circa 1088-1114) by Muḥammad b. ʿUmar ar-Rādūyānī’s, Ḥadāʾiq al-siḥr fi daqāʾiq al-shiʿr by Rashīd al-Dīn Waṭwāṭ’ (d. 1182-1183), Daqāʾiq al-shiʿr by ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Tāj al-Ḥalāvī (active 15th century), Badāyiʾ al-afkār fi ṣanāyiʾ al-ashʾār by Mīrzā Ḥusayn Vāʾiẓ Kāshifī Sabzavārī (d. 1504), and Abdaʾ al-badāyiʾ by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Shams al-ʾUlamā Garakānī (d. 1927). I illustrate the significance of poetry translation for classical and modernist Persian poetry.
Language: English
Published: Licit Magic – GlobalLit Working Papers 10 2022