Episodic Literary Movement and Translation: Ideology Embodied in Prefaces

Mir Mohammad Khademnabi

doi:10.18778/2083-2931.11.25

Authors

Mir Mohammad Khademnabi University of Maragheh https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7538-5855

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.11.25

Keywords:

episode, ideology of representation, translation practices, prefaces, Marxism

Abstract

This paper discusses translation practices from a historicist viewpoint, contextualizing them in their emerging “episode.” The latter is a concept drawn from sociology of literature and accounts for the rise of certain discourses and ideologies in a society. On the basis of the argument that translation practices are informed by the general literary and socio-cultural milieu in which they are produced and consumed (also known as ideology of representation), the paper studies the translators’ prefaces to three translations published between 1953 and 1978—a period dominated by Leftist and Marxist discourse in Iran. Drawing on a historically oriented model which holds that the translator’s ideology is revealed at the moment in which he/she chooses a text, and continues through the discourse he/she develops to translate that text, the research embarks on studying translation practices on two levels of choice mechanism and prefaces. Prefaces are discussed in the light of the dominant ideology of representation that is characterized by a revolutionary discourse. The research demonstrates that these translators opted for a strategy that incorporates the translations in the Persian cultural setting with minor changes in a way that politicizes the foreign literature.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Mir Mohammad Khademnabi, University of Maragheh

Mir Mohammad Khademnabi is Assistant Professor at the Department of English Language of the University of Maragheh, Iran. He holds a PhD in Translation Studies from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. His research activity has focused on translation history in Iran and reception studies.

References

Dabashi, Hamid. “The Poetics of Politics: Commitment in Modern Persian Literature.” Iranian Studies, vol. 18, no. 2, 1985, pp. 147–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/00210868508701656
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00210868508701656

Daneshvar, Simin. Preface [in Persian]. Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton, translated by Simin Daneshvar, Kharazmi, 1972, pp. 7–13.
Google Scholar

Daneshvar, Simin. Preface [in Persian]. The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, translated by Simin Daneshvar, Kharazmi, 1967, pp. 1–14.
Google Scholar

Gheisari, Ali. Iranian Intellectuals in the 20th Century. U of Texas P, 1998.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7560/728042

Gouanvic, Jean-Marc. “A Model of Structuralist Constructivism in Translation Studies.” Crosscultural Transgressions: Research Methodology in Translation Studies II, edited by Theo Hermans, St. Jerome, 2002, pp. 93–102.
Google Scholar

Jafari, Masoud. “Suvashun.” Encyclopædia Iranica, 12 Apr. 2012, https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/suvashun accessed 2 Mar. 2021.
Google Scholar

Lashkari, Parviz. Preface [in Persian]. The Waste Land, by Thomas Stearns Eliot, translated by Parviz Lashkari, Nil, 1972, pp. 1–9.
Google Scholar

Malpas, Simon. “Historicism.” Routledge Companion to Critical Theory, edited by Simon Malpas and Paul Wake, Routledge, 2004, pp. 55–65. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203412688_chapter_5
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203412688_chapter_5

Milani, Farzaneh. “Nilufare abi dar mordab ham miruyad [in Persian].” Nimey-e Digar, vol. 5, no. 4, 1987, pp. 5–24.
Google Scholar

Mirsepassi, Ali. Intellectual Discourse and the Politics of Modernization: Negotiating Modernity in Iran. Cambridge UP, 2000. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511489242
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511489242

Nabavi, Negin. “The Discourse of ‘Authentic Culture’ in Iran in the 1960s and 1970s.” Intellectual Trends in Twentieth-Century Iran: A Critical Survey, edited by Negin Nabavi, UP of Florida, 2000, pp. 91–108.
Google Scholar

Saleki, Fereydun, and Nader Ebrahimi. Preface [in Persian]. Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton, translated by Fereydun Saleki and Nader Ebrahimi, Amir-Kabir, 1969, pp. 1–6.
Google Scholar

Shahidian, Hammed. “The Iranian Left and the ‘Woman Question’ in the Revolution of 1978–79.” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 26, no. 2, 1994, pp. 223–47. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743800060220
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743800060220

Simon, Sherry. “Translating the Will to Knowledge: Prefaces and Canadian Literary Politics.” Translation, History, Culture, edited by Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere, Pinter, 1990, pp. 110–16.
Google Scholar

Tahir-Gurçağlar, Şehnaz. “What Texts Don’t Tell: The Uses of Paratexts in Translation Research.” Crosscultural Transgressions: Research Methodology in Translation Studies II, edited by Theo Hermans, St. Jerome, 2002, pp. 44–60.
Google Scholar

Talattof, Kamran. The Politics of Writing in Iran: A History of Modern Persian Literature. Syracuse UP, 2000.
Google Scholar

Venuti, Lawrence. The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference. Routledge, 1998.
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203269701

Venuti, Lawrence. “Translation, History, Narrative.” Meta, vol. 50, no. 3, 2005, pp. 800–16. https://doi.org/10.7202/011597ar
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/011597ar

Von Flotow, Luise. “Women, Bibles, Ideologies.” TTR: Traduction, Terminologie, Redaction, vol. 13, no. 1, 2000, pp. 9–20. https://doi.org/10.7202/037390ar
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/037390ar