Accident, Orientalism, and Edward FitzGerald as Translator

Abstract

In mid 1850s, Edward FitzGerald wrote to Edward Byles Cowell, friend who tutored him in about two men's efforts to translate Persian poetry. FitzGerald had decided that Persian poetry in English should seem Persian still. am more & more convinced of Necessity of keeping as much as possible to Forms, & carefully avoiding any that bring one back to Europe and 19th Century, he announces to Cowell, scholar of Eastern languages who patiently redacted FitzGerald's translations, including many stanzas of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. It is better to be orientally obscure than Europeanly clear. (1) The remark suggests FitzGerald's investment in stereotypical dichotomy: transparent and intelligible Europe versus mysterious East. This thinking, unoriginal and not particularly attractive, reflects prejudices associated with Orientalism, and indeed scholars often assume FitzGerald's most esteemed translation from his Rubaiyat, to be an Orientalist text. (2) Edward Said identifies poem as part of secondary tier of Orientalist writing, genre created by Oriental enthusiasts. Such work involves a kind of free-floating mythology of Orient that has foundations in the conceit of nations and of scholars. (3) Understood in these terms, Rubaiyat reflects hubris of imperial Britain, reinforcing imperialist prejudices and bolstering imperialist aims. Iran B. Hassani Jewett advances similar view in her study of FitzGerald, positing that FitzGerald's British arrogance, his belief of his inherent English superiority, allowed him to think that his very limited knowledge of Persian would suffice for his translation project. That misguided hubris, she contends, enabled FitzGerald to compose his masterpiece in his own way, unhampered by any bothersome doubts. (4) Barbara Black extends Said's argument in her discussion of Rubaiyat as fetishizing collection, explicitly connecting FitzGerald's Orientalism to his translation practice. A member of what translation theorists label hegemonic language and culture, FitzGerald assumes paternalistic pose as civilizer or improver of dominated language and culture, Khayyam's Persian, Black writes. (5) In this interpretation, translation becomes FitzGerald's means towards an Orientalist end. Such approaches to Rubaiyat have valid elements, as remarks from FitzGerald's own pen attest. But I suggest that they fail fully to capture character of poem, because they misconstrue FitzGerald's translation ethos and its role in shaping Rubaiyat. This ethos, deeply individual and individualistic, influences thematics of Rubaiyat and attitude of poem's lyric speaker. FitzGerald was attracted by idea of genuine imitation being achieved by an accidental imitator, writer who has not set imitation as primary goal. Recognizing his own limits as translator, and convinced of severe limitations of translation as an enterprise, he nurtured vision of good translation as imperfect re-creation that was governed largely by fortune. (6) He sought to achieve such re-creation in Rubaiyat, and liberties he took in translation served this ideal. FitzGerald translated many literary works besides Rubaiyat, from Spanish and Greek as well as and he resorted essentially to same approach in most of his translations, both Eastern and Western, preferring loose (or very loose) paraphrase to literal faithfulness. The approach is evident in his Six Dramas of Calderon (1853), published six years before first edition of Rubaiyat, and it is evident in his Agamemnon of Aeschylus (1876, privately printed 1865), which he translated loosely enough to drive Greek scholar Swinburne to despair. (7) In recognition of great liberties he took with Aeschylus, FitzGerald attached to his Agamemnon preface justifying his translation practice, in which he argues that an extraordinarily liberal approach offered only hope he had of recreating spirit of Greek original. …