Abstract
M /[ESSRS. CARPENTER and Christy have indicated for us the general character of Emerson's Orientalism.1 It is my purpose in this and a later paper to make a more complete and systematic study of the Persian phase of that Orientalism. The reader may be surprised to discover that Emerson translated something like seven hundred lines of Persian poetry. To be sure, these were out of German versions, for he could not read Persian. By way of cataloguing these translations, I have provided a check-list at the end of this paper. As Emerson seldom noted the sources of his renditions, and in one instance misattributed a translation, it has been my task to discover those sources in the books of Persian poetry that he read.2 In this essay itself I shall try to characterize Emerson's translations by citing representative examples in comparison with their sources. This, I believe, should prove a profitable study in his habits of composition. In a subsequent paper I shall draw some parallels between Emerson's renditions of Persian poetry and his original work as well and discuss, in a general way, the influence of the former upon the latter.3 All of Emerson's Persian translations, with the possible exception of No. 9, were made out of two books of renditions by Joseph von Hammer (later von Hammer-Purgstall): the one, the collected verse of the poet Hafiz; the other, an anthology of Persian poetry
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