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

See all articles by Rebecca Ruth Gould

Rebecca Ruth Gould

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London; Harvard University - Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies

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

Suggested Citation

Gould, Rebecca Ruth, Inimitability Versus Translatability: The Structure of Literary Meaning in Arabo-Persian Poetics (2013). The Translator. Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 81-104, 2013, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2227546

Rebecca Ruth Gould (Contact Author)

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London

SOAS University of London 10 Thornhaugh Street, Ru
London, WC1H 0XG
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/rebecca-gould

Harvard University - Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies ( email )

1730 Cambridge Street, 3rd Floor
Cambridge, 02138
United States

HOME PAGE: http://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/about-us/people/rebecca-gould

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