Update: NB: this blog now includes an account of Poldark in Farsi, or the Persian Poldark
A new member of my Women Writers: A (Feminist) Reading Group who lives in Iran sent us this photo of Jane Austen’s six famous novels in Persian (Farsi)
Aren’t they pretty? beautifully published.
She listed the books with original titles, from top to bottom:
Persuasion (ترغیب);
Northanger Abbey (نورثنگر ابی);
Sense and Sensibility (عقل و احساس);
Mansfield Park (منسفیلد پارک);
Pride and Prejudice (غرور و تعصب);
Emma (اما).
The squiggle that looks like a big comma just on the line means “and.” The alphabet used is Arabic; the usual Persian alphabet is a modified Arabic; Cyrillic is also used for Tajik.
There is an encyclopedic book on Austen in translation but I xeroxed from it only the chapters on the French and Italian translations (and adaptations). In general though most essays show that when Austen books cross into traditional (non-“western” is the term) the translation turns out to be an adaptation. These Farsi texts will probably be censored and any real rebellion or independence from family asserted by a heroine, any criticism of family authority erased out. The larger reality is until recently unless the original text was super-respected in general (beyond which is the best recent and best of all translations of Austen into French) is that everywhere most of the time the text that emerges into the translated language is much changed: Austen is actually a radical (!) voice to many traditional cultures. Sometimes alas the story itself is changed. Even when faithfulness is aimed at, there are obstacles, many. Another new obstacle is that publishers want the translator to make the book easier, smoother, more like the target language. So Ann Goldstein’s translations of Elena Ferrante’s books are actually misrepresentative even if denotatively the translation is correct: she smooths out, makes easier, less dense and therefore much less suggestive and passionate Ferrante’s books.
I’m very interested in translation (as long time readers of this blog will know) and have studied Austen in French and read two Italian translations, and offered to do a paper on Anne Radcliffe in French for one of the JASNAs. I’ve translated two sonnet cycles from the Italian (Renaissance) complete and I’ve read and studied a few of the written a paper on translating the two Italian Renaissance women poets (Vittoria Colonna and Veronica Gambara) and on translations of Austen into French. See a list of translations of Austen into French in Francophone Jane. It was published in a small online journal devoted to translations and translation theory, which has since folded.
It’s telling when you have more than one translation of a book into a given language or can compare different translations in different languages: I’ve tried this in reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace (in different English translations and comparing them to a French one). Each generation wants a new translation — another interesting reality. The original work can remain the same and yet the translation seems to need updating.
I also think that if a male translates a female’s text a new gender fault-line that is male emerges and vice-versa.
The original 1920s first set of scholarly texts done by Chapman re-packaged for commercial consumption (the image is taken from Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan), the Fanny Price character, Aubrey Rouget is walking down 5th Avenue and spies these in Scribner’s
Jim’s present to me on our first anniversary was a copy (I still own) of the very first printing of Chapman’s Sense and Sensibility text. I cherish it.
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8/19/2022 Update
My Persian friend sent me a lot more specific information on Jane Austen in Iran and in Persian (the translators, the styles, including references to Nafisi’s Lolita in Teheran, which could have been as accurately called “Jane Bennet in Iran”), all of which I put in my blog in the comments (in the interests of keeping the main body of the blog shorter and acessible).
Those interested can read what she and I said
And she sent photos of recent book covers. Since the “revolution” it has become uncommon to see women’s pictures in public so here is a 1984 cover for Mansfield Park
For women the Revolution was a big step backward. I will show only a couple. She sent one embarrassingly mawkish one for Pride and Prejudice: Elizabeth all distress over Darcy’s letter with him looking protectively on. But a recent Emma is to me very appealing:
Ellen
Reveries Under the Sign of Austen, Two 
From my Iranian friend who sent the photo:
After exhausting days, I finally managed to see your recent blog about Jane Austen in Persian, and more importantly, read the paper on Austen in French. As a non-professional reader of fiction and not an avid one, I truly enjoyed your paper. Besides watching some adaptations (most recently, the free reworking of the unfinished Sanditon), I’ve only read a translation of Pride and Prejudice.
So I had a vague idea of Austen being funny, “apolitical, harmless”, whose “detachment and the sheer aesthetic playfulness of the picturesque” makes her fun to read! I happily stand corrected. A million thanks for sending the link. I talked with my partner about the paper and we had a nice aha moment comparing some lines in English and Persian. He said he’d never understood why Nabokov put Austen among the great writers, now he has a clue.
I searched the Iranian national library and was surprised by the 147 Persian titles that came out, among them more than five different translations of Emma and Pride and Prejudice, many works about Austen, and even a translation of Jane Austen, Game Theorist by Michael Chwe. After reading samples of the multiple translations of Austen’s works, it is obvious to me that some of the translations are merely shoddy, not even presented in decent Persian. But their existence shows the popularity of Austen in Iran, some of which can be explained by the public longing for an idealized, carefree life manifested in the novels and films depicting the Regency period. An acquaintance comes to my mind who is raised in a traditional family, but now avoids anything related to religion like a plague and follows Downton Abbey religiously.
By looking into some Persian papers, I found, with much amusement, an article whose female author calls Austen a misogynist who thinks happiness for girls only comes with marriage. Of course, not all judgments are anachronistic like that. An article by a journalist/novelist gives a review of the popularity of the “unique storyteller” in Iran whose name has sat wrongly beside the likes of Danielle Steel for some time but should be read as serious literature.
I have not seen all the Persian books on Austen, but looking into our personal library, I found an article by Brian C. Southam with a very reliable translation. As a common reader I can tell (and please correct me if I’m wrong) that it clarifies the historical and social context of Austen’s writings as well as her literary significance:
Good morning. Thank you for those covers — the pictures associated with these books are suggestive of meanings attached to the author and her status. Also how Persian culture pictures Anglo and “western” book characters.
It’s very interesting (and dismaying too) to see that the traditional Janeite interpretation of Austen is the one that prevails in general cultures: “funny, “apolitical, harmless”, whose “detachment and the sheer aesthetic playfulness of the picturesque” makes her fun to read!” The end result of this is trivialization and dismissal so one would wonder why anyone would give her high status. I want to emphasize this view of Austen is not uncommon (probably it’s common) in the US, I find it in the UK and many European countries, among Spanish readers too. You can see its influence today in recent film and TV adaptations. Happy romance. There’s a woman who teaches Austen in one of the OLLIs I teach at, and she apparently offers hardly any guidance so the classes are left to see the novels as yes apolitical, funny, harmless — and very dull I would think.
Austen is ironic; she was a marginalized woman in a tough capitalist and hierarchical environment with no rights (women had only the right to be alive I suppose) and her books mirror this. She may have been by inclination a lesbian spinster — as seen in the books her relationships with women friends (sisters) mean more to her than any man even if the structure of romance is the one available to someone wanting to write books that sell. She is as realistic as the conventions of the era allows — and succeeds within the terms of her own class very well. She is very perceptive and you can extrapolate an adult morality — though she is probably more politically conservative than those who want to make her into a radical writer allow; nonetheless, the suppression and subjection of women make her books appear to many cultural groups (because ironic, astringent) subversive hence the changes in the translated books. This is the way I’d put it. She is an artist with words.
Yes these are not Danielle Steele books
An equivalent of Downton Abbey where we see this “idealized carefree life” — this makes the connection to TV films and Bridgertons, does it not?
Southam is one of the good and enlightening critics. You can learn a lot. To my mind Nabokov condescends to Austen, he half mocks her as this virgin — he does not respect women. If you can find Claire Tomalin’s biography it is a solid one.
It is so good to talk about wonderful books — for Austen is also wonderful as a deep feeling serious dreamer.
Fateme also wrote about the esteemed early translator, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shams_ol-Moluk_Mosahab.
In the note to the translation, she mentions the different tones used by the characters, which shows her knowledge of the subject. Her Persian prose sounds sweetly old-fashioned now, most becoming for the old world of the book.
The collection of six books I’ve shown you before is a recent translation by a professional translator and you could be assured that he does not make mistakes in understanding the text. But they do not seem to present a creative ‘literary’ translation (the Persian language has been enriched by such translations for some of the works by Cervantes, Henry Fielding, and Mark Twain, to name a few). In all, a close technical comparison of the Persian translations with the English texts, as you have done for the French language, would be a valuable study.
I think the story of Austen in Iran would not be complete without mentioning Reading Lolita in Tehran:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_Lolita_in_Tehran
I didn’t answer you on the translator! Shams ol-Moluk Mosahab. How interesting she also became politically active. And she was politically active. Probably her mode of translating Austen shows the frame of mind she read Austen in. The most recent Pleiade of Austen in French has an academic translator who is super careful – and very accurate in the main I think. I mention his S&S in my paper. Sometimes though creativity brings a book alive: the translator must do both — capture the precise meaning and then through this other language with all its connotations capture and realize more than something of the original spirit of the book. In my judgement Feneon in his translation of Northanger Abbey as Catherine is a rare translator to do both. It is so telling he was an anarchist and wrote the text in prison:
Last I have read Lolita in Teheran. The book could be equally titled Elizabeth Bennet in Teheran. To me Nafisi is entirely too establishment herself to find any subversion in Austen — she seems so radical because she is a feminist and in our context today that is radical. Hers is a buoyant happy dancing Austen, all about joy though I’m not doing justice to her and must reread her chapter which also seriously interprets Austen too. Maybe the problem with the chapter is its intense focus on P&P as romance.
Ellen
Encore merci pour cette excellente publication. C est en effet très intéressant de pouvoir lire des traductions d un mm ouvrage réalisées sur plusieurs périodes différentes. Car mm dans la mm langue la traduction differe certainement en fonction des époques, cultures, etc…..
Bien à vous.
Isabelle
Thank you in turn. I have some blogs on good French critics on Austen if you are interested: Pierre Goubert is especially perceptive:
https://reveriesunderthesignofausten.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/pierre-goubert-jane-austen-etude-pschologique-de-la-romanciere-part-1/
Ellen
Bonjour à vous
J ai relu votre article et j ai été touchée par votre allusion aux ouvrages offerts par votre mari lors d un anniversaire (de mariage ? De rencontre ?). J ai senti bcp d amour et de complicité intellectuelle entre vous deux durant votre vie. J ai cru comprendre qu’il était décédé. Et….que ses cadeaux étaient encore a ce jour, très chers à votre cœur ❤️❤️. Vous avez bcp de sensibilité.
Je vous l ai déjà écrit mais je le répète : j aime bcp bcp vos publications et je suis tjrs extrêmement épatée de votre grande culture. Vos écrits embellissent mon quotidien.
Bien à vous.
Isabelle
What a beautiful thank you and characterization of the tone of mind and openness about my frank bereftness since I lost my husband. I will hold you in my heart’s memory as I carry on writing …
❤️❤️❤️
[…] who has helped me with Poldark) and new (an Iranian woman now on my listserv with information about Jane Austen in Farsi) and I answered. So from this, I’ve had a provisional acceptance for a course I’ll […]
A thoughtful response by my friend, Jim Dring, who has studied Winston Graham and the Poldark novels (and Graham’s other works too) extensively: about Poldark in Farsi:
He asked me to ask my friend about Poldark in Farsi, for he saw ads for the recent film adaptation with Farsi letters below:
So I wrote:
My friend has answered and here is what she said about Poldark in Persian:
“As far as I know, nothing has been translated from Graham’s books into Persian. Interestingly, one of the most searched Persian phrases on google is “translation of Poldark novels”.
I haven’t seen the series, although I remember seeing the advertisement many times (I guess the actor’s face was memorable!). It seems that the BBC adaptation is dubbed more than once, first by ‘Manoto’, a London-based international FTA channel (run by Iranian monarchists), but it is dubbed inside Iran too and can be watched through official channels. This is one of the advertisements …” I’ve attached the poster.
These are all in Farsi in arabic letters:
The news of Graham passing away on a conservative news agency:
https://www.mehrnews.com/news/10404/%D9%86%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%B3%D9%86%D8%AF%D9%87-%D8%B1%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%8A-%D9%85%D8%B4%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1-%D9%BE%D9%88%D9%84%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%83-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%DA%AF%D8%B0%D8%B4%D8%AA
To which he replied:
I was misled initially by the word “dubbed”, which I take to mean the replacement of a film’s original soundtrack with another featuring native-speaking voices. In this case, given the size of the Poldark cast, that would have been a significant undertaking. But then I came to realise that what we’re actually talking about here is sub-titling i.e. the super-imposition of Farsi subtitles onto the original English-voiced film. I looked at several of the Iranian TV Poldark promotional images to be found online and the text of the one attached says at the bottom “Farsi-subtitled and censored” – which brings me to what you had to say in your fascinating blog about Jane Austen in Farsi.
It would not have occurred to me that such texts would be published in translated and censored form, first because we (I) tend to think of them as somehow sacrosanct or inviolate, second because, by today’s standards, they would hardly be considered “shocking” (though I can see that some of their ideas might) and third because, once you start to rewrite them, what you publish is no longer Jane Austen but merely some more or less sham hack-job, so why bother? (Answer to that one – for money!) Fateme is prompted to ask why none of the Poldark novels have appeared in Farsi, and what becomes apparent from all you and she have said is that, since the Graham estate would be most unlikly to grant permission for the publication of any form of bowdlerised or censored text, the chances of any authorised translation appearing are slim. I know that, in Russia, all twelve Poldark texts may be read in unoffical, unauthorised translations – although whether such a thing might happen in Iran, too, I have no idea.
So I said:
The translation and adaptation field in publishing is a very uneven place – by which I mean there are publishers who truly publish genuine accurate translations — these are usually of widely-respected books, and classics. But there are publishers who publish translations and adaptations which are not accurate — even the respected ones may quietly omit whole passages and more. Eco’s The Name of the Rose in English omits most of the philosophical meditations — silently. Reviewers who know the Italian may mention this but it is considered okay because a popular or wide readership would probably not want those passages in the book. There is also a long tradition of either censorship or translating the work to fit a culture to some extent. In the case of even Jane Austen, her depictions of family life are considered somewhat subversive and radical. As book Pride & Prejudice criticizes the mother & father; Fanny Price defies Sir Thomas — especially in the case of girls to pass censorship (to get a certificate) this material needs to be toned down or omitted. Even traditional worlds are changing so it might be okay to have the famous sex scene between Poldark and Elizabeth kept in, but I would not be surprised if it was omitted or considerably toned down. It’s really a bowdlerizing.
Ellen