| This dissertation examines the history of Persian literature in the English language from a translation perspective. It looks at the British record from the late seventeenth century to the 1970s, and at the American record up to the present. Our goal is to ascertain what translation methods have been adopted and accepted with regard to Persian literature. In this dissertation we demonstrate that there are precedents for the translation methods employed by popular modern renderers of Persian literature in English. Contemporary translators, among them Coleman Barks, Jonathan Star, and Daniel Ladinsky, employ techniques that have long been considered unacceptable in past and present translation discourses. We also address the motives behind the translation of Persian literature, and the interpretations that have been and continue to be assigned to Persian Sufi poetry by past and present translators. |
