THE GREAT POET OF IRANIAN MODERNITY SIMIN BEHBAHANI AND SOME INTERPRETING PROBLEMS IN THE TRANSLATION OF PERSIAN GHAZAL INTO INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

Abstract

Simin Behbahani is the most outstanding contemporary Iranian poet famous for her participation in political actions for civil freedoms such as women’s rights, against cruel forms of punishment and against Iran-Iraq war. She participated in the movement of mothers of political prisoners as well. But she became more famous in Iran for her lyrical poetry written in a traditional form of ghazal and not for her political activities. The aim of the article is to make the analyses of Simin Behbahani’s poetry and to consider the problems of its translation into different European languages. Such problems can be explained by the different ways of poetry in the eastern and western cultures: 1) the problem of keeping the metrics of ghazal; 2) the problem of keeping the sense of ghazal. Ghazal as the form originated in the Arabic literature was spread through the Near and Middle East culture and it was not known in Europe until 19th century. From the very beginning ghazal was performed against the backdrop of playing stringed musical instruments. According to the last researchers, ghazal became a base for the development of European sonnet. The authors of this article make a short review of the rhythmical features of ghazal and define its main components, such as bayt, matlaa, radif and others, that should be present at the translated text. It is important to keep these components in verse while translating because rhythmical characteristics of the ghazal are primary relatively to its sense. Scientific novelty. Simin Behbahani is known as a pioneer, who combined in her poetry genres and style of qasida and ghazal. This article deals with the translation of the ghazals by Simin Behbahani into different European languages, such as English and Romanian. Various poems by Simin Behbahani were translated by several interpreters who based their work on different reproduction principles of the original text. Metric and rhythmic of Persian verses were not kept even by the best translators into English. Farzane Milani used in her adaptation the free verse (vers libre) which had become the national form in the English poetry of the 20th century. This choise is good for translator who was born in Iran and now works at the University of Virinia. She made Persian verse understandable for native English speaker and focused at the main substance of poetry. In conclusion, Romanian translator reproduced metric and rhythmic features of the English translation but not of the Persian original. That’s why Ukrainian translators must take in account such experience and use the original text for reading.