نقدي پسااستعماري بر چگونگي ترجمه ديوان حافظ

A Post-colonial Critique of Translation of Hafizʹ Divan1

A close study of the history of translation in the West reveals that free translation/ fidelity to the source text, and source/ target oriented translations are the predominant issues which translation studies have so far been concerned with. Such translations have rarely been looked upon from the point of view of history and power, while the history of colonialism is filled with instances where the dominant colonial culture has exercised guided control over the translation of texts into local or bedouin target languages, turning translation into a powerful tool in the hands of the dominant (source/ target) cultures. This paper renders a historical and postcolonial critical review of the English translations of the works of the great classical Persian poet, Hafiz. Upon presenting a brief history of the translation of Divan-e Hafiz, five ethnocentric patterns in the translation of this work which have led to the presentation of a distorted image of the poet and his historical, cultural and literary standing will be discussed.