Login/Register

AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, Volume 4, Number3. August  2020                                   Pp. 17-33

Landscape in Literary Translation: A Comparative Study

Department of Languages and Literatures
College of Humanities and Social Science, UAE University
UAE

Abstract:

Translating concepts of setting can be challenging when their cultural, historical, and geographic contexts are remote from the translator’s experience. Landscape is an essential factor that reveals a great deal of the culture of pre-Islamic Arabia, which is distant in place, historical framework, and literary tradition from its translators. This article examines the importance of a translator’s awareness of the communicative function of source text references to landscape to adopt appropriate translation strategies. The article presents a case study of a verse line alongside a corpus of nineteen English and French translations. The source text, the Mu‘allaqa of Imru’ al-Qays, names three mountains in Arabia, and space and distance are core themes in the verse line. Comparison is both synchronic and diachronic: at the same time that every translation is compared to the source text, it is also compared to other translations. Prose translations are also examined separately from verse translations, with cross-references in both directions. The translators who adopted source-text-oriented strategies missed communicative clues regarding the setting. However, those who endorsed target-text oriented strategies produced effective and adequate translation.

Cite as:

Lahiani, R. (2020). Landscape in Literary Translation: A Comparative Study. Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies 4 (3) 17-33.

References:

Al-Anbārῑ, A. M. Q. B. (2008). Sharḥ Al Qaṣā’id al-Sab‘ al-Ṭiwāl al-Jāhiliyyāt. Beirut: Dār al-Ma‘ārif.

Al-Naḥḥā, A. J. A. M. (1973). Al Qaṣā’id al-Tis‘ al-Mashhūrāt. Baghdad: Dār al-Ḥurriyah li-Ṭibā‘ah.

Al-Shanqῑṭῑ, A. B. A. (2018). Al Mu‘allaqāt al ‘Ashr wa Akhbār Shu ‘arāihā. Windsor: Hindāwῑ CIC.

Al-Tibrīzī, A. Z. Y. (1894). Kitāb Sharḥ al-Qaṣā’id l-‘Ashr, edited by Charles James Lyall. Calcutta: Dār l-Imāra.

Al-Zawzanī, A. A. Ḥ. (2013). Sharḥ˛al-Mu‘allaqāt al-Sab’. Lebanon: Al Maktabah al Aṣrihhah.

Arberry, A. J. (1957). The Seven Odes. The First Chapter in Arabic Literature. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd.

Baker, M. (2014). Translation as Re-narration. In J. House (Ed.), Translation: A Multidisciplinary Approach (pp. 158-177). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bateson, M. C. (1970). Structural Continuity in Poetry. A linguistic Study of Five Pre-Islamic Arabic Odes. Paris: Mouton and Co.

Benneghrouzi, F. Z. (2019). Beyond Literalism: Arberry’s Translating (in) Visibility of Imru al Qays’ Mu’allaqa through the Lens of Critical Discourse Analysis. Translation and Literary Studies, 3(1), 145 -156.

Berque, J. (1979). Les Dix Grandes Odes Arabes de l’Anté-Islam. Paris: Sindbad.

Blunt, A. & Scawen, W. (1903). The Seven Golden Odes of Pagan Arabia, Known also as the Moallakat. Translated from the Original Arabic by Lady Anne Blunt. Done into English Verse by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. London: Chiswick Press.

Calfoglou, C. (2010). An Optimality Approach to the Translation of Poetry. In A. Fawcett, K. L. G. Garcia and R. H. Parker (Eds.), Translation: Theory and Practice in Dialogue (85-106). London: Continuum.

Caussin de Perceval, A. P. (1847). Essai sur l’Histoire des Arabes Avant l’Islamisme, Pendant l’Epoque de Mahomet, et Jusqu’à la Réduction de Toutes les Tribus sous la Loi Musulmane. Paris: Librairie de Firmin Didot Frères.

Colina, S. (2015). Fundamentals of Translation. Cambridge: University Printing House.

Dainotto, R. M. (2000). Place in Literature: Regions, Cultures, Communities. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

Enkvist, N. E. (1978). Contrastive Text Linguistics and Translation. In L. Grahs, G. Krlen, and B. Malmberg (Eds.), Theory and Practice of Translation. Berne: Peter Lang.

House, J. (2014). “Translation Quality Assessment: Past and Present In J. House (Ed.), Translation: A Multidisciplinary Approach (pp. 241-264). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Howarth, H. & Shukrallah, I. (1944). Images from the Arab World. Fragments of Arab Literature Translated and Paraphrased with Variations and Comments. London: The Pilot Press Ltd.

Hussein, A. A. (2009). The Lightening-Scene in Ancient Arabic Poetry: Functions, Narration and Idiosyncrasy in Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Poetry. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Johnson, C.F. E. R. A. (1894). Al Sab’ Mu‘allaqāt. The Seven Poems Suspended in the Temple at Mecca. Translated from the Arabic by Capt. F. E. Johnson, R. A. With an Introduction by Shaikh Faizullabhai, B. A. London: Luzac & Co.

Jones, A. (1996). Early Arabic Poetry: Select Odes. Edition, Translation and Commentary. Reading: Ithaca Press.

Jones, W. (1782). The Moallakāt, or Seven Arabian Poems, which were Suspended on the Temple at Mecca; with a Translation, a Preliminary Discourse and Notes. London: Elmsly.

Jones, W. (1970). The Letters of Sir William Jones. Garland Cannon (ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Kuntz, M. (1993). Narrative Setting and Dramatic Poetry. Leiden, New York and Koln: E. J. Brill.

Lahiani, R. (2008a). Eastern Luminaries Disclosed to Western Eyes. A Critical Evaluation of the Translations of the Mu‘allaqât into French and English (1782-2000). New York, Bern: Peter Lang.

Lahiani, R. (2008b). Translation as an Intercultural Exercise. The Pioneering Translations of the Mu‘allaqât. In S. Linn, M. Mous and M. Vogel (Eds.), Translation and Interculturality: Africa and the West (pp. 73-85). Bern: Peter Lang.

Lahiani, R. (2009). The Relevance of the Glance of the Roe of Wajra: A Comparative Study of the Translation of a Culture-based Metaphor. Translation and Interpreting Studies, 4(1), 31-46.

Lane, W. E. (1863). An Arabic-English Lexicon, Derived from the Best and the Most Copious Eastern Sources. Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate.

Larcher, P. (2000). Les Mu’allaqāt: Les Sept Poèmes Préislamiques. Saint-Clément-de-Rivière: Fata Morgana.

Lyall, C. J. (1885). Translations of Ancient Arabian Poetry, Chiefly Pre-Islamic, with an Introduction and Notes. London and Hertford: Williams & Norgate.

Nouryeh, C. (1993). Translation and Critical Study of Ten Pre-Islamic Odes. Traces in the Sand. Lewiston, Queenston and Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press.

O’Grady, D. (1990). The Seven Arab Odes. An English Verse Rendering with Brief Lives of the Seven Poets. Dublin: Agenda Editions.

Pym, A. & Horst T. (2004). Translatability. In M. Baker (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (pp. 273-277). London: Routledge.

Raux, A. (1907). La Mo`allaka d’Imrou’l Kaïs Suivie de la Douzième Séance de Harırı, Dite de Damas, et de la Kasêda ezZaïnabiyya, Poëme Attribué à Ali / Textes Publiés avec les Voyelles, un Commentaire Arabe et une Traduction Littérale en Français. Paris: E. Leroux.

Schmidt, J. (1978). Les Mou‘allaqat, ou un Peu de l’Ame des Arabes avant l’Islam. Paris: Seghers.

Shamma, T. (2009). Translation and the manipulation of difference: Arabic literature in nineteenth-century England. Oxon: Routledge.

Stafford, F. (2010). Local Attachments. The Province of Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stetkevych, S. P. (1993). The Mute Immortals Speak. Pre-Islamic Poetry and the Poetics of Ritual. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

Tengku Jusoh, T. G. (1990). A Critical Examination of Five Poems by Imriu al-Qays. Kuala Lumpur: Penerbitan Pustaka Antara.

Underhill, J. (2016). Voice and Versification in Translating Poems. University of Ottawa Press

Venuti, L. (2013). Translation Changes Everything. Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge.

Wormhoudt, A. (1974). The Diwan of Imru al Qais ibn kinda ibn Qahtan. Diwan al Khirniq bint Badr ibn Hiffan. Akhbar of Sulaik. Iowa: William Penn College.

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Tumblr
Reddit
Email
StumbleUpon
Digg

Raja Lahiani holds a PhD degree from SOAS, The University of London. She is the author of
Eastern Luminaries Disclosed to Western Eyes (2008). She also has articles in the fields of
comparative literature and translation studies published in scholarly peer-reviewed journals. She
has been teaching in different universities across Tunisia, KSA and the UAE.
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3774-8568