The Allure of Untranslatability: Shafiʿi-Kadkani and (Not) Translating Persian Poetry

Abstract

How could one translate into any European language a Persian poem as culturally and aesthetically embedded as this hemistich by Hāfez: beh may sajjādeh rangin kon garat pir-e moghān guyad. This is the central question Mohammad-Rezā Shafiʿi-Kadkani addresses in his essay titled “On Poetic Untranslatability.” For Shafiʿi, translation is primarily a function of cultural—and not linguistic—affinity. Therefore, he argues that Hāfez’s poem is all but untranslatable in European languages given their fundamental cultural difference from Persian. This article critically engages Shafiʿi’s essay by outlining and analyzing the set of problematic assumptions embedded in its rubric of untranslatability. It places Shafiʿi’s view on translation in conversation with theorists of untranslatability in comparative literature and translation studies. Ultimately, it outlines why untranslatability is not a useful conceptual framework for the analysis of linguistic and cultural difference.

Form and Modulation of Metaphor Translation to Indonesian of Vingt-Milles Lieues Sous Les Mers of Jules Verne

“…Therefore, the translation of metaphor was handled under the cognitive framework by taking into consideration that each linguistic metaphor is created by the human cognitive system, through which things and events are conceptualized by using the experiences in a particular culture (Hastürkoğlu, 2018). In literacy translation, there is even a term of untranslatability which some scholars have used this idea to mediate, comprehend, and translate the linguistic and cultural differences (Fani, 2021). As Putranti (2018) stated, translation is concerned with not only transferring message written in one language into another language accurately, but also obtaining the naturalness of message delivery, so that equivalent translation can be produced.…”