Dis-contenting Khayyam in the Context of Comparative Literature

Dis-contenting Khayyam in the Context of Comparative Literature. An Invitation to Translating Rubaiyat with a Focal Shift from Content to Form. Sajad Soleymani Yazdi
In: International journal of comparative literature and translation studies, 7 (2018) 1, p. 24-30

Abstract

Since its conception in France in 1877, Comparative Literature, always subject to a critique of Eurocentrism, has been in a state of perpetual crisis. In “The Old/New Question of Comparison in Literary Studies: A Post-European Perspective” (2004), Ray Chow argued for a Post-European perspective in which comparatists begin with the home culture and look outwards to the European cultures, contrary to the dominant approach of doing just otherwise. Missing in Chow’s argument is the position of translation in this post-European perspective. In the 14 years between 2004 and 2018, the grandiose claims of comparative literature have been problematized and addressed; the lay of the land, however, remains predominantly Eurocentric, as it still focuses on content disproportionately. In this paper, through a study of English translations of Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, and taking Chow’s argument further, I argue that with its commitment to transfer the form of a text as much as the content, translation studies can further help comparative literature to distance itself from Europe. To exemplify the implication of this, I suggest that a translation of Khayyam’s Rubaiyat from Farsi to English would be more faithful to the original if its translations were to focus on the poem’s form rather than the content. I argue that translating with a focus on form would foreignize Khayyam’s poetry, hence an act of resistance against cultural hegemony.

Het Perzische kwatrijn

Het Perzische kwatrijn. J.D.Ph. Warners.
In: Het Nederlandse kwatrijn. J.D.Ph. Warners. Amsterdam, Meulenhoff, 1947. p. 98-170

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in the Eyes of Lazard

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in the Eyes of Lazard. Dina Gamal Abou El Ezz
Faits de Langues, 38 (2011), p. 103–122.

A linguistic analysis depends on the strength of the implied meaning which allows two different mirror images to reflect the same text being:”The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám” through the perspective of Gibert Lazard and Abolgassem Etessam Zadeh. The rhetoric strength of Lazard’s poem and his superiority in the art of translation are clearly demonstrated by way of a study based on the micro-structural element of the poem.

Edward FitzGerald, a reader “Of Taste”, and ‘Umar Khayyám, 1809-1883

Edward FitzGerald, a reader “Of Taste”, and ‘Umar Khayyám, 1809-1883. R.W. Ferrier.
Iran 24 (1986), pp. 161-187.

Summary

Edward Fitzgerald, writing to his friend, E. B. Cowell, in March 1867 on the fickleness of posthumous reputation, remarked that a hundred years ought to elapse before memorials should be made. The centenary of his death passed on June 14th 1983 and it seems appropriate to commemorate his memory, recall his humanity and reflect on his contribution to literature. He had two principal passions in life, reading and friendship. He described himself to Frederick Tennyson in 1850 as one who pretends “to no Genius, but to Taste” and disclaimed any pretensions to be a poet, for “I cannot write poems”. As for his friends, their presence glows from his letters. These two influences, imperceptibly interweaving themselves into the fabric of his personality, were responsible for that bright short decade in the middle of his life, when his “languid energies”‘ were galvanised into literary activity of which his poetic “version” of the Rubáyyat of ‘Umar Khayyám was the fascinating and controversial climax.

FitzGerald’s Rubaíyat as a poem

FitzGerald’s Rubaíyat as a poem. William Cadbury.
ELH 34 (1967) 3, p. 541–563

Cadbury argues that the Rubáiyát is not lyric but “anti-lyric,” since its coherence depends upon our imagining an implied speaker.