Analysis of the Translator’s Use of Plurality to Overcome Culture Industry in Translation of Poems: The Case of Elahi’s Translation of T. S. Eliot’s Ash-Wednesday into Farsi

Capitalism benefits from the uniformed society by suppressing individuals’ consciousness through commodifying them. Being deceived by the system, individuals get stuck in the culture industry (the mass production of cultural things in a supply-driven economy turning to a set of standardized and predictable reaction of individuals). Assuming translation of poetry as an artistic creation, this study focused on overcoming the culture industry, through analyzing plurality desired by deconstruction. To this end, features creating plurality in Bijan Elahi’s translation of T.S. Eliot’s Ash-Wednesday on the basis of Hassan’s catena were analyzed. Hassan’s enumeration includes indeterminacy, fragmentariness, de-canonization, selflessness, representing something unrepresentable, irony, hybridity, carnivalization, performativity, constructionism, and immanence. Because there is no clear line between these features, this study elaborated on only six of these features, and traced them in Elahi’s translation. Findings show that Bijan Elahi’s translation satisfied all the six items in Hassan’s list, which resulted in overcoming the culture industry.