Allafchi’s Persian Translation of The Waste Land
On February the 20th a reunion was held in the permanent place of Tehran Hopkins Club in order to appraise and acclaim the recent Persian translation of the magnificent poem “The Waste Land” perfected by Mr. Allafchi, so that to appreciate his literary endeavours on performing such a great job.
At the commencement of the session, an inaugural speech was delivered by Mr. Azizmohamadi, the director, expressing the club’s profound gratitude and credit to the cultivated translation at issue.
Thereafter, Mr. Sobati delivered a lecture which aimed to reconsider, re-evaluate and, therefore, to juxtapose the earlier Persian translations of “The Waste Land”, by incorporating a thorough comparison and contrast,with the latest one under discussion. He finally approved of the totality of Mr. Allafchi’s translation in comparison with the previous ones.
Subsequently, Mr. Allafchi, the translator, centred on the influence of Ezra Pound over “The Waste Land.” As we already know, Pound insisted that the poem required to be shortened in order not to cause fragmentation. Although Eliot disagreed with him, he, finally, acceded to do so. Mr. Allafchi, focused on the multiple layers of meaning in this poem emphasizing the fact that all parts of the poem share an interrelated connotation in such a complex way that can substitute for one another. Thus there would not have been any fragmentation in the poem any more even if it had not been shortened to its present length.
Afterwards, Ms. Leila Samadi, a graduate of English translation, uttered a criticism on the translation, and provided the participants with some of the strong points as well as the drawbacks of Mr. Allafchi’s translation.
Following that, the participants were given a while to pose their questions regarding the translation bearing a comparison with the original work, which appeared to be the most controversial stage of the event.
Eventually, two of the club members, Ms. Pournamdar and Mr. Sobati, recited their own translations of Eliot’s Hollow Men and Gerontion .
Finally, sincerely impressed by the precision and beauty of the translation at issue, the Club had little choice but to confess that this translation was one of very few successful projects aimed at T. S. Eliot. This conclusion was made on account of the following facts:
1- Evidently impeccable comprehension of this semantically taxing work, leading to a reasonably objective translation of the poem.
2- Skilful mirroring of the literary complexities and rhetorical traps of the poem into its Farsi version.
3- A clear attempt to embrace the totality of the poem as a whole rather than presenting the reader with the confusion of an amateurish focus on under-defined details.
4- Generously helpful footnotes and interpretations for the average reader as well as the sophisticated.
5- Considered by the Club as the most prominent feature of the translation, conscious avoidance of a monophonic tone, which could have resulted in distorting the atmosphere of fragmentation in the poem and instead adopting different tones at different points.
6- And finally, moulding the mentioned with an understandable, creative, and experimental modern Farsi.