Read more
This is the first study to examine the Arabic translations of a number of major modern poems in the English language, in particular T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land and Walt Whitman's Song of Myself. With case studies dedicated to the Arab translators who were themselves modernist poets, including Badr Shakir al-Sayyab and Saadi Yusuf, Ghareeb Iskander brings a reading of the translations as literary works in their own right.
Revealing why the Arab modernists were drawn to these poems through situational context, Iskander shows that the influence exerted by the English originals stems from the creative manner in which the Arab poet-translators converted them into their own language.
List of contents
Table of contents
Introduction
1. Modern Arabic Poetry and English Poetry
2. The Arabic Waste Lands
3. Translating Whitman’s Song of Myself into Arabic
4. Al-Sayyab’s Translational Contribution
Conclusion
Bibliography
About the author
Ghareeb Iskander is an Iraqi poet and translator living in London. He has published numerous collections of poems including Gilgamesh’s Snake and Other Poems which won Arkansas University’s Arabic Translation Award for 2015 (published by Syracuse University Press in 2016). He translated Derek Walcott’s poems into Arabic. He received his PhD from SOAS, University of London, UK.
Summary
This is the first study to examine the Arabic translations of a number of major modern poems in the English language, in particular T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself. With case studies dedicated to the Arab translators who were themselves modernist poets, including Badr Shakir al-Sayyab and Saadi Yusuf, the author brings a reading of the translations as literary works in their own right.
Revealing why the Arab modernists were drawn to these poems through situational context, Ghareeb Iskander shows that the influence exerted by the English originals stems from the creative manner in which the Arab poet-translators converted them into their own language.
Foreword
Writing on a a significant, yet understudied topic, Ghareeb Iskander examines the relationship between translation and modernity in Arabic and English verse.
Additional text
Ghareeb Iskander’s English Poetry and Modern Arabic Verse is an erudite and insightful journey into the creative process, a methodic study of how translations of mainly Eliot and Whitman by major Arab poets guided their hands and led them to inaugurate a new poetics in Modern Arabic poetry. A valuable reference work for students of translation theory and Arabic poetry.
