Translation of Poetry from a Hermeneutical Perspective: A Case Study of Rumi

Works of poetry are characterized by specific elements (e.g. symbols, images, concepts) that help interpret and thematize such works. The principle of “holism” in hermeneutics is concerned with analyzing how part-whole relationships are established in a text and how they may give rise to a particular reading of it. A problem, however, is analytical frameworks / models are rarely used for hermeneutic textual analysis and most studies are very subjective / abstract in this area. This study explores the English translations of Rumi’s prelude to his masterpiece Masnavi to analyze how they represent the “mystical” reading of the work. The study draws on a hermeneutical model of poetry translation, which is regulated by two sub-components: cultural-linguistic complexity rate and hermeneutical complexity rate. To identify the characterizing elements, the study considers the keywords in the original and tries to analyze how they are rendered into English by focusing on holistic relationships between the sub-components of the model. The study then compares the choices and suggests which ones could thematically contribute to the mystical reading. Besides confirming the practicality of the model, the findings show that the mystical reading is scattered across the translations and no single one tries to reflect the mystical interpretation.