Inimitability Versus Translatability: The Structure of Literary Meaning in Arabo-Persian Poetics
The Translator. Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 81-104, 2013
24 Pages Posted: 3 Mar 2013 Last revised: 16 Dec 2015
Date Written: 2013
Abstract
Building on the multivalent meanings of the Arabo- Persian tarjama (‘to interpret’, ‘to translate’, ‘to narrate’), this essay argues for the relevance of Qur’ānic inimitability (i'jāz) to contemporary translation theory. I examine how the translation of Arabic rhetorical theory ('ilm al-balāgha) into Persian inaugurated new trends within the study of literary meaning. Finally, I show how Islamic aesthetics conceptualizes the translatability of literary texts along lines kindred to Walter Benjamin.
Keywords: Translatability, Persian, Arabic, Poetry, Walter Benjamin, Structure, Nazm, Translation, Islam, I'jaz
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