نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی
عنوان مقاله English
نویسنده English
1. Introduction
The quatrains of the sage Omar Khayyam entered the cultural and literary sphere of China at the beginning of the twentieth century and, over more than a century, gave rise to numerous translations. The earliest Chinese translators generally encountered not the Persian text itself, but Edward Fitzgerald’s English translation; a translation that was itself a form of poetic recreation through the selection, omission, amalgamation, and rearrangement of the quatrains. From the 1980s onward, with the expansion of academic instruction in the Persian language, direct translation from the Persian text and textual scholarship gained importance. The writings of Bakhtiar and Sabeqi have also highlighted the differences between translations based on Fitzgerald and direct renderings from Persian. The aim of the study is to reconstruct the genealogy of these translations and to explain the effects of the intermediary language, poetic norms, and academic institutions on the reinterpretation of Khayyam. The main questions are how this genealogy was formed, what relationships were established among the translations, how Fitzgerald’s mediation transformed the image of Khayyam, and how direct translation contributed to the systematization of knowledge.
2. Methodology
The research was conducted using a descriptive-analytical method and a genealogical approach. The research corpus encompasses important Chinese translations and writings concerning the quatrains from 1919 to the contemporary period. The source language, date of publication, and position of the translator of each translation were identified, and its relationship with Fitzgerald or Persian sources was compared. In addition, the historical and institutional contexts of each period were examined in order to explain changes in translation norms and the social position of translators within the target culture. The theoretical framework draws upon Lefevere’s concept of rewriting, Toury’s translation norms and notion of directness in translation, Venuti’s domestication, Bourdieu’s field theory, and Damrosch’s circulation of world literature. Accordingly, the two combined axes of “mediated rewriting” and “systematization of knowledge” were employed to analyze the reception of the quatrains.
3. Discussion
The findings show that Fitzgerald’s translation functioned in China as a “secondary original.” He rearranged the independent Persian quatrains and established an image of Khayyam as a skeptical, pleasure-seeking poet influenced by the intellectual crisis of the Victorian era. Consequently, the initial reception of the quatrains in China had a structure of dual mediation. Hu Shi employed one quatrain in the service of the experience of modern poetry, while Guo Moruo rewrote Fitzgerald’s translation in the language of China’s new poetry. Xu Zhimo and Wen Yiduo emphasized meter and musicality; Wu Mi placed the quatrains in the classical form of four-line, seven-syllable verse; and Huang Kesun, through “generative translation,” transformed cultural images into elements familiar to the Chinese tradition. These differences stemmed from different poetic positions and cultural needs.
From the 1980s onward, Zhang Hongnian’s translation from the Persian text marked a turning point. His work introduced issues of manuscripts, the authenticity of the quatrains, the identity of the author, and the Persian literary tradition into the translation, and reintroduced Khayyam as a mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher. This shift represented a transition from norms of acceptability in the target culture toward a greater orientation toward adequacy with respect to the source text. Nevertheless, direct translation was not merely the result of the translator’s individual ability; Persian-language programs, Iranian studies centers, academic journals, and scholarly connections with Iran provided a new mechanism for the production and legitimation of knowledge.
4. Conclusion
The study demonstrated that the history of the translation of the quatrains in China has developed from rewriting based on an intermediary language toward direct translation. Mediated rewriting and the systematization of knowledge cannot be placed in a hierarchical opposition of inferior and superior: the former model played a role in the literary dissemination and recreation of the quatrains, while the latter emphasized a return to the Persian text and a historical understanding of the work. The coexistence of these two paths demonstrates that the history of translation is simultaneously a history of the reinterpretation of a text within poetic, cultural, and scholarly contexts. This study outlines the principal contours of this genealogy and leaves the examination of reader reception, the publishing market, and new translations to future research.
کلیدواژهها English
