ترجمه‌های پیش‌‌نویس: خوانش تکوینی «ترانه سید نعمت‌اله‌ کوهستان» ترجمۀ رالف والدو امرسون‌

1. Introduction

From the antiquity up to the present time, as different views and theories of translation have emerged, developed and faded, the role of the translator has been viewed differently as well. Depending on the status of translation as a secondary product, a means for cultural enrichment, or an art, translators have come to be seen in different roles as “faithful” transferors, “prophets,” “traders,” or even “authors,” with different scopes of power and liberty. While different types and degrees of “faithfulness” have mostly been the criteria for evaluation of the quality of a translation, modern theories of translation have come to draw the readers’ attention to the mechanisms at function that shape a translation and have, therefore, been able to display a more complicated view of the translator’s performance.

In one of his latest works, Contra Instrumentalism: A Translation Polemic (2019), Lawrence Venuti asks for termination of any view of translation as secondary to production and an instrument of ethical transference of texts from one language to another and consequently the termination of its ethical evaluation through using keywords such as faithful or unfaithful. He, instead, speaks of the hermeneutic model of translation and puts it in contrast to the instrumentalism that characterizes most translation theories. According to him, the hermeneutic model looks at “translation as an interpretative act that inevitably varies source text form, meaning, and effect according to intelligibilities and interests in the receiving culture” (Venuti, 2019, p. 1). In this view the act of translation is regarded as a generative activity; the translated text is given individuality and considered a result of a degree of the translator’s interpretation; and subsequently, the translator is regarded more or less as a ‘mediating’ agent. Therefore, to Venuti the translated texts are never the same as the original but different entities with a series of “values” and “functions” developed and related to the language and culture they emerge in and “any correspondence or approximation thus coincides with a radical transformation” (Venuti, 2019, p. 3). In other words, translation is no more regarded as transference but interpretation; and through the translation process a text with certain functions and values is being replaced by another with other functions and values. This, according to Venuti, is due to the fact that each translator “unintentionally” applies certain ‘interpretants’ that are ‘formal’ or ‘thematic’ to the original text he is translating. That is to say, the translator’s decision concerning the way the translation should be taken forward or his idea or reading of the text shaped by an extrinsic source such as a “commentary” act as interpretants that cause emergence of the translation as a “relatively autonomous” text.

A recent research field that also looks at translation as a ‘Hermeneutic space’ and aims to demonstrate its mechanism is genetic translation studies. Here again, the translated text is not regarded as secondary to production but a result of a series of meaningful creative decisions. This interdisciplinary field, which brings genetic criticism and translation studies together, examines all the texts or what it calls “avant-texts” that go prior to a final published translation such as drafts, manuscripts, or notes, in order to perceive the process through which the translation has taken shape or the decisions that the translator has taken and their implications. In this sense it is interested in “the decision making process” and the “work in progress” rather than the “finished text” (Ferrer, 2002, p. 49). According to Cordingley and Montini, genetic translation studies attracts our attention to the fact that a translator’s translation strategies may vary. That is to say, it cannot be summed up in an evaluation like domesticating or foreignizing; but, it can be a combination of these, always significant as it can be telling of the translator’s creativity and authorial presence (Cordingley & Montini, 2015, p. 4). Another point that also makes genetic translation studies significant is that in the space it provides for tracing the translator’s decisions it exposes the collaborative nature of translation and its dependence on elements other than the source text (Cordingley & Montini, 2015, pp. 9-10). In this way, the field looks at translators as mediating agents whose decisions give new functions and values to texts being subject to their performance.

Louis Hay, one of the founders of genetic criticism, states that genetic critics “penetrate” “Literature’s third dimension, its becoming, that which allows one to see the various components of writing-sociality and individuality, thought and the unconscious, language and form-in the moving combinatory of their interactions, from which the movement of genesis is born”  (Cited  in Cordingley & Montini, 2015, p. 11). That is to say, genetic criticism highlights the process of formation and regards it as a valuable telling source. Way before genetic criticism emerged, however, Ralph Waldo Emerson had spoken of the need for “a new department” and elaborated on the importance of reading manuscripts and their role in giving access to things otherwise inaccessible. In his piece “New Poetry,” published in 1840 in The Dial magazine Emerson states:

Is there not room then for a new department in poetry, namely, Verses of Portfolio? We have fancied that we drew greater pleasure from manuscript verses than from printed ones of equal talent. For there was herein the charm of character; they were confessions; and the faults, the imperfect parts, the fragmentary verses, the halting rhymes, had a worth beyond that of a high finish; for they testified that the writer was more man than artist, more earnest than vain; that the thought was too sweet and sacred to him, than that he should suffer his ears to hear or his eyes to see a superficial defect in the expression. (Emerson, 1840, p. 221)

As the passage shows, for Emerson as well, manuscripts testify. What an author valued, the charm of character, confessions, faults, the imperfect, and the fragmentary all could be traced in what he calls “verses of portfolio.” In other words, the personal drafts that no one saw and were never published had the potential to present a fuller picture of the artist.

In what follows, this paper provides a genetic reading of a translation by Emerson, “Song of Seid Nimetollah of Kuhistan.” It looks into the manuscripts he has left and benefiting from Venuti’s hermeneutic model, demonstrates how despite the foreignizing strategies applied, the translation is taking shape through Emerson’s application of certain interpretants and is an autonomous variation of the original. Here, genetic translation studies and Venuti’s hermeneutic model come together as they both emphasize the interpretative nature of translation and the mediative role of the translator.  

2. A Genetic Reading of “Song of Seid”

In 1867 Emerson published a translation of a Persian poem in his second book of poetry, Mayday and Other Pieces. The poem was translated from Joseph Von Hammer Purgstall’s Geschichte der Schonen Redekunste Persiens (1818), which is a collection of poems of two hundred Persian poets. At this time Emerson’s position as the spokesman of the American transcendentalism was established; he had published his major works and was quite known as the “sage of Concord.” Having been asked to write a preface to the American edition of Saadi’s Gulistan a few years earlier and having written an essay on Persian poetry years before that, Emerson was also known to have a good knowledge of Persian poetry and Oriental literature. In fact, when he published this translation, it was more than two decades that he was translating parts of Purgstall’s German translation of the Divan of Hafiz, Divan Der Diwan Von Mohammed Schemseddin Hafis (1812) and his Geschichte. Although Emerson’s method of translation varies, it can be defined as a kind of “bringing back”; that is a bringing back to the time of poems he thought containing universal truths, through different strategies (Akrami, 2015, p. 116). Different dimensions of this activity that is its relation to his poetry and prose, its relation to Emerson as a cosmopolitan figure, and its influence on his thought have been studied by many renowned scholars. What makes this activity significant, however, is that a major part of it happens in Emerson’s notebooks and poetry notebooks and is never published by him. The fact that many of these translations have several drafts in his notebooks makes them suitable for genetic study and allows following the traces that Emerson has left.  

The poem that Emerson translates and is the subject of this study has a number of available avant-texts: five drafts that Emerson has left in his notebook “Orientalist,” Purgstall’s German translation, which was the original text to Emerson, and the Persian Original. The Persian ghazal that Purgstall has translated has eleven distiches and belongs to Shah Nimatullah Wali, who is regarded as the founder of one of the main branches of Sufism or what is known as “Islamic Mysticism.” Similar to the other trends of thought that regard a higher purpose for man other than the material life or even the afterlife that is characterized by reward and punishment, Sufism speaks of life as a conscious endeavor to pursue and become one with the One, God, or the Beloved, in sufi terms. To Sufism, it is conscious heart-felt faith rather than ritualistic practices of religion that gives access to Truth and what is beyond reason. Literature produced by poets with such inclinations has turned into the means to express these ideas in a metaphoric and at times allegorical language, where the One Being has turned into an inaccessible beloved and the dervish a lover in constant plea for a glimpse.

Wali’s poem can be regarded as a typical mystical poem. Drunk with the wine of Love, the dervish speaks of his love for the beloved; his selflessness, his departure from surface to meaning, the struggle of his reason and heart; his desire for the inaccessible and Truth, and lastly emergence of inner true faith that takes the speaker beyond titles and traditional classifications of faith. Purgstall translates nine distiches of this poem and turns each hemistich of the original into a distich keeping the original rhyming: “I don’t know” or “I don’t recognize”^[1] with “nicht kenne.” Emerson however gives a stanzaic form to the poem adding and omitting lines freely:

Song of Seid Nimetollah Kuhistan

Spin the ball! I reel, I burn,

Nor head from foot can I discern,

Nor my heart from love of mine,

Nor the wine-cup from the wine.

All my doing, all my leaving,

Reaches not to my perceiving;

Lost in whirling spheres I rove,

And know only that I love.

I am seeker of the stone,

Living gem of Solomon;

From the shore of souls arrived,

In the sea of sense I dived;

But what is land, or what is wave,

To me who only jewels crave?

Love is the air-fed fire intense,

And my heart the frankincense;

As the rich aloes flames, I glow,

Yet the censer cannot know.

I’m all knowing, yet unknowing;

Stand not, pause not, in my going.

Ask me not, as Muftis can,

To recite the Alcoran;

Well I love the meaning sweet,-

[…]^[2]

Lo! The God’s love blazes higher,

Till all difference expire.

What are Moslems? What are Giaours?

All are Love’s, and all are ours.

I embrace the true believers,

But I reck not of deceivers.

Firm to heaven my bosom clings,

Heedless of inferior things;

Down on earth there, underfoot,

What men chatter know I not. (1983, pp. 1266-1267)

At the surface the translation seems to be a faithful presentation of a song with an especial use.  Examining the German and the Persian avant-texts, however, reveals another story and a genetic reading of these together with the five available drafts of the translation, adds other dimensions to the published version. What is perhaps considerable is the pretension to faithfulness and so to the indifference of the translator towards what he is presenting, which characterizes the published translation. This, however, doesn’t mean that under that pretention Emerson is domesticating or making things easier for his readers. This paper argues that through adding an inscription and certain lines and keywords in accordance with it and restructuring the poem, all of which are changes that the pretension to faithful presentation conceals, Emerson at one level affirms his own position and at a second level identifies with the speaker, temporarily changing his identity, takes part in a performance he has created through the translation.

Although most lines show a variation of departures from the German version this study focuses on three major points in the translation that help Emerson create the effect he wants. A few other small but significant changes will also be referred to. The first notable point is perhaps appearance of an inscription that precedes the published translation:

Among the religious customs of the dervishes is an astronomical dance, in which the dervish imitates the movements of the heavenly bodies, by spinning on his own axis, whilst at the same time he revolves round the Sheikh in the center, representing the sun; and, as he spins, he sings the Song of Seid Nimetollah of Kuhistan. (Emerson, 1983, p. 1266)

It should be noted that “Song of Seid Nimetollah of Kuhistan” is the name that Emerson has picked for the poem, referring to Shah Nimatullah Wali’s pseudonym “Seyed” and his place of birth, “Kuhbanan.” Furthermore, the information provided in the inscription doesn’t come from Purgstall’s translation but is added by Emerson. What is of significance is that through this inscription Emerson is creating a history for the poem. Here, he is referring to “Sama,” which is a performance practiced by the followers of some branches of Sufism, but he is referring to this poem as “the” song sang during the performance. What is happening through naming and historicizing the poem is a pretense to unmediated presentation of this oriental token. That is to say, since the concepts introduced are remote and his readers are not familiar with the original poem, the inscription gives them the impression that what they are reading is what is sang during the “astronomical dance” by dervishes. This is the point that helps the translator stay invisible and benefit the trust created all the while that he is mediating. 

The second major point happens in his translation of the first line, which is gradually transformed into a performative, and so transforms the poem. A literal translation of the first hemistich of the Persian original that Purgstall has put in one line and Emerson in two lines could be: “I am so intoxicated and enchanted that I don’t discern foot from head.” Purgstall translates this line as “So bin ich Gestalt verwirret Dass ich kopf von Hand Nicht Kenne” (Hammer Purgstall, 1818, p. 223), which can be regarded as equivalent to his source. The existing five drafts that Emerson has left show a sort of distance between his initial and his final decisions. In his first draft, his first line reads: “”^[3] then he has crossed this out writing “↑so my brain doth reel and turn↓.” In the next four drafts he keeps this with an exception of changing “turn” to “burn.” In the fifth draft however, he crosses this out inserting: “Spin the ball! I reel, I burn” (Emerson, 1990: 2:61). A variation of “That” or “Nor” “Head from hand I not discern” has been kept in the second line. As can be seen, there is a transition from the initial “confused,” which is an equivalent for Purgstall’s “Verwirret” to the final “spin the ball,” which is bringing the poem in line with the inscription. That is to say, the change implies confusion and shows what has caused it, but at the same time recreates the image of the dervish spinning around the Sheikh and giving voice to the rest of the poem.

As mentioned earlier, Venuti speaks of factors that translators apply to their translations as interpretants. Interpretants can be “[ . . .] formal (such as concept of equivalence or a concept of style) and thematic (such as an interpretation of the source text presented elsewhere in commentary or an ideology in the sense of an ensemble of values, beliefs, and representations affiliated with particular social groups)” (Venuti, 2019, p. 2). Here, Emerson’s knowledge of Sama showing through the inscription he adds acts as an interpretant that “mediates” and determines the resulted translation. Although this interpretant is not applied unintentionally, as Venuti describes interpretants, it causes certain decisions that gradually turn the poem into “the” song that dervishes sing during Sama, in the way Emerson desires. In fact, words such as “ball,” “spin,” “reel,” “whirling,” and “around” that Emerson introduces to the English version help him recreate and convey the movements of the dance and help the readers visualize it.

The next important stanza of the poem that a genetic reading can shed light on is Emerson’s translation of a distich of the poem, fourth stanza above, which is again an interpretation based on prior knowledge rather than a translation. A word for word translation of the Persian distich^[4] could be: “read me of the “secret tablet” from any chapter you please,/ that though I know Quran by heart, I am illiterate.” The secret tablet, "لوح محفوظ", in the Islamic and Sufist thought refers to a confidential tablet that is believed to contain the account of the life of every being and all that has and will happen. To the Persian readers familiar with the concept, here the dervish is saying “tell me of the secrets; that although I know the Quran by heart, I’m unaware of what is beyond that.” That is to say, the speaker is contrasting the surface and the meaning of religion and talks of himself as a pursuer of truth not a follower of tradition. 

Purgstall translates this line in this way “Frage mich aus dem gedächtniß Welches hauptstück  dir beliebt  / Ich behalte alle Suren  Wenn ich gleich nicht title kenne, ” (Question me from memory Whatever piece you please / I keep all the Suras If I don‘t know the same title). The change of secret tablet to memory is due to the fact that the words "لوح محفوظ", or secret tablet, are ambiguous and could also mean the knowledge memorized. Purgstall’s reading creates a distance between the source and the translation.

Emerson, in turn, in his first draft translates this as: “Ask me out of memory what ↑chapter↓ ↑you↓ please↓” and “I carry in mind all the Suras / though I know not a single title” (Emerson, 1990, 2: 58). However, the succeeding drafts show authorial intrusions: Second draft: “Ask ↑not ↓me ↑as muftis can↓”/  “↑to recite↓ Alcoran↓ / I bear in my mind /all the suras/ the law complete / ↑Not a text can I repeat↓” (Emerson, 1990, 2:59). As it can be seen, he adds “as muftis can”^[5] to this draft and keeps it and plays with the notion of knowing the tradition but not being able to repeat it. The third draft focuses on this notion “I bear in mind the book complete / Not a text can I repeat.” In the Fourth draft: “ ↑well I love ↓ the law complete,/ ↑But no↓ text can I repeat” (Emerson, 1990, 2:60) he changes the concept of knowing  to loving (the law or tradition or rituals). The fifth and final draft shows a drastic change where in a very provocative sentence Emerson states that he loves the meaning but does not care for the physical book. (Emerson, 1990, 2:61)

Insertion of “as muftis can” in the second draft that is right after Emerson has found an idea of the poem can only come from his prior knowledge of Islamic system, and the relationship between those who stand for the surface of religion and those who care for the depth. By this time, Emerson had read Akhlak-I-Jalaly translated by W. F. Thomson, De Gerando’s Histoire Comparee des Systems de Philosophie, History of Persia by John Malcom, John Chardin’s Travels to Persia, Sheikh Muhamad Mohsen Fani’s Dabistan, and, later in his life, Mohamad Ghazali’s Kimiy-e Saadat. These books provided him with a picture of Islam and Islamic mysticism. This prior knowledge of Islam and Sufism and his acquaintance with their keywords through his readings such as Divan of Hafiz act as the interpretants that guide his moving from one draft to the next and the resulted interpretative translation. The final version that Emerson has come up with can live quite an autonomous life. That is to say, it still conveys a shade of what it conveyed to the original readers, that is the speaker’s concentration on the meaning rather than the surface of religion. However, the way this idea has been put in Emerson’s translation is considered blasphemy and is in no way attributable to Shah Nimatullah Wali or any Sufi, as respect for the Holy Quran and speaking in cover are of major tenets of Islamic mysticism and an assertion like this could have severe retributions for any Sufi or Muslim. But why would Emerson put the idea in such an inflammatory way?

In fact what Emerson states in this line is somehow comparable with what he had asserted years before in his “Divinity School Address”: “Let me admonish you, first of all to go alone; to refuse the good models, even those which are sacred in the imagination of men, and dare to love God without mediator or veil” (Emerson, 1983, pp. 88-9). Throughout the essay, Emerson speaks of the infinite laws that govern the universe, of the innate moral sentiment and the God within. He rejects what he calls “monopoly” of “virtue” in Jesus and by analogy in great figures and actions.  The goal to Emerson was a direct individual relationship with God; sacred books and sacred figures in any religion were only mediators that to Emerson were to be used as “provocation.” Raising this issue at Harvard led to a lot of controversies and caused him to be banned from speaking at the institution for years. In the translation however, the religion and the culture he is speaking about are totally remote and not really accessible to his readers. This point somehow allows him to affirm his ideological position through the foreign. What would have raised controversy if said about Bible is now safely stated. Perhaps this is why Emerson has put his translation of this line in a separate stanza.

The significance of the priority of moral sentiment and faith rather than traditions to Emerson shows itself in his translation of another line as well. In the original Persian line the dervish states that once there is faith then paganism and Islam become meaningless titles. A literal translation of the line could be: “The divine light raised, pagan or Muslim / I follow the pious, don’t know the way of nonbelievers.”^[6] Purgstall’s translation “Gottes licht ist nun gekommen was sind gauern, was moslimen / ich zwar folge den rechtgläubigen doch ungläubige ich nicht kenne” is able to give Emerson access to the original and Emerson’s first draft is accordingly equivalent: “↑Lo↓ God’s light is now come / what are Giaours what are moslems / I ↑indeed↓ follow the ↑true believers↓ / yet the unbelievers know I not.” To the second draft, however, he adds a line: “Lo Gods light blazes around higher / ↑And burns up all differences expire↓ / What are Giaours What are Moslems / I indeed follow the true believers / Yet unbelievers know I none.” Here, a line, “And burns up all differences expire,” is authorially added emphasizing that the light of God burns the differences between religions. Also notice that the changes to the beginning that is the addition of “Lo” and “blazes around higher” are consistent with Emerson’s changing the poem to “the song” sang during Sama performance. The third draft of this part is immediately following the second with two major changes. First, he switches the places of Giaours and Moslems then adds another line: “What are Moslems What are Giaours / All are Love’s and all are ours./ I obey the true believers / But I reck not of deceivers.” The notion of love of God or the beloved as the source of the dervish’s confusion and astonishment comes up earlier in the poem.^[7] Here with “All are love’s and all are ours” Emerson is using that notion to emphasis on the point that once there is faith all believers belong to the same cult. Fourth draft shows little change: “Lo the God’s light blazes higher/ Till all differences expire. / What are Moslems? What are Giaours? All are love’s, & all are ours. . . .” (Emerson, 1990, 2:61). In the fifth draft he changes “I obey the true believers” to “I embrace the true believers,” which is a significant change as “obeying” others, conformity, or being a follower is never appreciated by Emerson. As a result, Emerson’s translation of this line as Venuti would say, again stands relatively autonomous; he emphasizes and clarifies the points he appreciates and benefits the ‘other’ and the foreign to break the sanctity associated to historical institutional religion.

The approach he has taken years before this translation in his essay “Manners” (1844) in reference to this very notions is quite similar and confirms this point. Here again, Emerson states that “the emblem” is to be discharged for the meaning, “the thing signified.” And, in the same way as in the above lines—“What are Moslems? What are Giaours? All are Love’s, and all are ours”— “the heart of love” is regarded as the real source of richness and the notion that erases all differences: “this is the royal blood, this the fire, which in all countries and contingencies, will work after its kind, and conquer and expand all that approaches it” (1983, p. 531). This notion is followed and confirmed by an anecdote about a man named “Osman” that reminds the reader of the speaker of the above translation. Introduced as a “bountiful” “poor” man, Osman is also bold with the pillars of institutional religion, however “. . . was there never a poor outcast, eccentric, or insane man, some fool who had cut off his beard, or who had been mutilated under a vow, or had a pet madness in his brain, but fled once to him,— that great heart lay there so sunny and hospitable in the centre of the country,— that it seemed as if the instinct of all sufferers drew them to his side” (Emerson, 1983, pp. 531-532). As can be seen here, Osman’s attitude is comparable to that of the speaker of the translation; that is, his action is not validated by the dervishes, but his inner faith and heart put him at the center and draw everyone towards him. The similarity that exists between the passage and the translation can make one assume that Emerson has introduced Osman to Shah Nimatullah Wali’s poem underlining his own perpetual emphasis on meaning and originality rather than form or institution, which is also a notion implied in the original ghazal as well. 

The change in the first line of the translation, that is, turning the statement into a performative, and a series of other decisions that go with it can be significant in another way as well. Whereas, Emerson’s cosmopolitanism is often discussed in relation to his translations (the act of translation) and his openness to world literature and culture, that is his respect for the Truth, whether in Hindo, Persian, Buddhist, or other scriptures,^[8] Branka Arsic (2010) sees Emerson’s cosmopolitanism in his belief in “fluidity” of nature and subsequently fluidity of identity. That is to say, Arsic believes that Emerson thought of “being” as “becoming” and so always in a state of “leaving.” Since fixity doesn’t characterize being for Emerson, then man is always a “guest” with the opportunity of having new locales: “a member . . . sharing the communal identity of other members, becoming even if for a short period, one of them” (Arsic, 2010, p. 254). In this sense “the other” or the “unknown” becomes something one approaches and temporarily lives. In this particular translation, through the changes that he creates in order to turn the poem to the song sang during Sama, Emerson becomes a guest: “spin the ball I reel I burn.” To borrow words from Arsic, he “hosts the identity of the host and so becomes an other” (Arsic, 2010, p. 255). In fact he takes part in the ritual, temporarily becoming a dervish.

3. Conclusion

As this paper demonstrated, upon being translated to English, “Song of Seid” finds new functions and values. It functions as a space for Emerson to express what he desires without being liable; it also functions as a temporal place of refuge for him to experience a new identity. These functions make this translation as valuable and as significant as any of his original productions. Genetic study of “Song of Seid” displayed translation as an interpretative collaborative activity. Emerson’s prior knowledge affected his interpretation of the work and engagement of this knowledge turned the final result into an autonomous entity, which is dependent on the source text only partially. That is to say, the source text is not the only source of this translation but is being completed with Emerson’s prior readings and his mediating indicative decisions.

[1] Persian نمی‌دانم

[2] Out of respect for the sensitivity of the subject, this line is omitted in this venue.

[3] <> show Emerson’s deletions and ↑↓ show his insertions

[4]  که هستم حافظ قرآن ولی دفتر نمی دانم / ز هر بابی که می خوانی بخوان از لوح محفوظم

Appendix

[5] Muftis were the highest level rule givers of Islam.

[6] برآمد نور سبحانی چه کفرو چه مسلمانی / طریق مومنان دارم ره کافر نمیدانم

[7] Look at the third paragraph above, lines seven and eight. The previous drafts show: “his love,” “Allah’s love,” and “Love Divine” in place of “Love,” which shows that Emerson was aware of the referent of the German “Seine liebe.”

[8] Lawrence Buell and Wai Chee Dimock are instances