Well, I mostly know Rumi through those translations by Kabir Helminski (and I
think his wife?) though Coleman Barks is in there too. And then from some new
unpublished translations that I read in manuscript and which may not see the
light of publication, when it's all said and done. But I'm not inclined to argue
with your sense here that in translating 'the essence' of Rumi, Barks has
presented a Westernized version, stripped of various cultural elements. And, as
a translator, I cannot imagine undertaking a translation as a matter of
translating 'the essence' of Vallejo or D'Aquino when it seems to me a matter of
translating their words. My point was perhaps peripheral, in that it seems to me
that allowing for the differences of their practices, Rumi and Saadi are both
adherents of a particular faith, having disciples, modes of instruction, a spiritual
'practice' located within a particular time, society, culture. So I was speculating
that the mystic approach, being in its premises less instructive and rationally
bound to its circumstances, might be more approachable to poets entirely
outside of that framework of shared belief. My sense of the poet's approach is
more akin to a particularly gifted student who said while talking about Paz, "I
want to bite the bread of the illusion."
And, yes, since you don't fundamentally disagree with what I said, let's leave it
there, since I think this is apples and oranges and perhaps pineapples too, these
questions mutate so fast from considerations of a question of why does one
make a poem? paralleled with why does one make a chair? to your question
about audience which picked up along the way my brief conversation with
Edmund that where it is now is quite "Otherwise." Another topic perhaps, the
Other? but since you have to get back to Saadi and I have to get back to some
things here, anOther day perhaps? and thanks for the interesting post,
best,
Rebecca
---- Original message ----
>Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 21:02:05 -0500
>From: Richard Jeffrey Newman <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Hi and little magazines
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>Rebecca,
>
>>>words can be thrown at one, even intended for one, and not 'strike' one,
>not in that way to which Edmund lent the word "beach".<<
>
>I don't fundamentally disagree, Rebecca, with anything that you said in the
>post to which this was the opening statement, though I think, to some
>degree, we are talking about apples and oranges. To be an audience for
>something is not necessarily to be struck by that thing, in the way that I
>think you meant. Even if an insult does not "strike" you, that doesn't mean
>you were not an audience for the insult; in the same way, the kid who calls
>out "You talkin' to me?" has in fact made him or herself an audience for
>whatever was said, even if what was said was not intended for that kid. I
>guess I am not thinking of audience in the marketing sense, i.e., a group
>the characteristics of which, demographic or otherwise, suit it to a
>particular artistic product, but rather of audience as the Other towards
>which artistic expression (and, for that matter, any form of expression) is
>always, at least by implication, directed. I also do not, anymore--I did
>when I was quite a bit younger--imagine a specific audience for whom I am
>writing in the sense that I can see them, that I could describe them as a
>coherent group, with a consistent set of characteristics, but I am very
>aware when I write that I am addressing myself to the world out there, to
>some Other--even if that Other is only another part of myself--and, this is
>a new thread in this discussion, I think, it's important to me to humanize
>that Other in some way, and so my question about the writer's/artist's
>ethical responsibilities to the/an audience.
>
>About Rumi and Saadi: I have a slightly different take. I would argue that
>it's not the specifics of religion in which Saadi is anchored--because, in
>fact, his work is in many ways a critique of what we might now call the
>"organized version" of the Islam of his time, but rather that he is anchored
>in the specifics of his culture and society, its daily life, its social
>relationships, its narrative textures and so on, and I would agree that this
>makes his work in some ways not so easily accessible to contemporary
Western
>readers. I would also say that the Rumi people know through Coleman Barks,
>and while this might not be true of you, it is my experience that most
>people of the people I know in the States know Rumi through Coleman Barks,
>is a Rumi that has been highly westernized in the sense that the culturally
>specific elements of his work have been removed. Barks is quite explicit
>about his intention to free Rumi's poems into their essence, or to free the
>essence of them--I don't remember which wording he uses--and since Barks
is
>western and cannot help but see this essence through a western sensibility,
>it seems to me you cannot help but end up with a westernized Rumi. Now, this
>is not to say that Barks' Rumi is invalid; it is simply to recognize that
>his translation project has a very specific agenda and that part of this
>agenda is to remove the culturally specific elements of Rumi that Barks
>feels would detract from people here and now being able to read and
>appreciate Rumi.
>
>And now, back to Saadi....
>
>Richard
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