Seminars on Persian Poetry

Description

The First Persian Whitman: Yusef E´tesami’s Translation of Walt Whitman in 1922. Speaker. Behnam Fomeshi (Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation). Chair and Discussant: Saeed Talajooy
Whitman for the first time entered Iran through Yusef E’tesami’s translation published in his journal, Bahar, in October 1922. Through the changes he made to the source text E’tesami abandoned the tyranny of the alleged original text and created his 1922 Persian Whitman, who was a poet of social order, law and security rather than a singer of individuality and the self. That much authority of a translator was in line with the tradition of Persian literary translation. The first Iranian Whitman, if not radical or revolutionary, was still progressive and corresponded with the country’s constitutional movement toward democracy. He was a poet of human rights and modern political philosophy. The fact that the Persians chose Whitman from among American writers in 1922, when there was not much American literature and even less American poetry in Iran, is itself significant in their movement toward modernity. 4pm, Buchanan 306

Period	2 Mar 2018
Event type	Seminar
Location	St Andrews, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International