[HN Gopher] The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi (2017)
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The Erasure of Islam from the Poetry of Rumi (2017)
Author : sokols
Score : 26 points
Date : 2021-05-17 11:29 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| PraetorianGourd wrote:
| A lot of "new-age" style spiritual/self-help contexts abuse and
| debase original intent to present a prepackaged "ready to eat"
| style of insight and guidance.
|
| Though the motivations in undermining the context of Rumi by
| removing Islam may be more nefarious, the same thing happens with
| Stoicism. Take a few aphorisms, oversimplify them as an answer to
| a complex problem and repeat.
|
| Much like Rumi can't be read without the context of Islam, Seneca
| or Epictetus can't be understood without the metaphysics of
| Stoicism, but endless volumes of self-help books disagree. I may
| be the wrong one in light of that.
| hinkley wrote:
| Check out secular buddhism, same (general) thing is going on
| there as well. And don't get me started on Mindfulness.
|
| It's hard to say with certainty where these things are 'back to
| basics' versus a high-brow form of cultural appropriation.
| Western, lower-case-p philosophy has been accused countless
| times of being reductive in nature (and our relationship to
| Nature is perhaps one of the clearest cases of this).
|
| You would think that studying eastern philosophy and indigenous
| ways of thinking/being would counteract that, but even that is
| breaking down now.
| eternalban wrote:
| How perverse of the _New Yorker_ to omit mention of William C.
| Chittick in an article regarding Western translation of Mowlana
| (Rumi) and Shams, and Islam. He is, after all, the definitive and
| authoritative English translator of Rumi.
|
| I just opened my copy of _The Sufi Path of Love_ by Chittick at
| random. The chapter is called _Attainment to God_. Here is (a
| sample of) Chittick 's translation (indentations mine):
| Oh rose, adorn the meadows and laugh
| for all to see! for you had to hide among
| the thorns for months. Oh garden,
| nurture well these new arrivals the tales of whose
| coming you had heard from the thunder.
| Oh wind, make the branches dance in
| the remembrance of the day you wafed over
| union. Behold these trees, all of
| them joyful like a gathering of the
| felicitous Oh violet why are you bent
| over in heartache? The lily says
| to the buds: though your eyes are closed
| they will soon open, for you you have tasted
| of good fortune. ... I speak of roses,
| nightingales and the beauties of the garden
| as a pretext. Why do I do it? For the sake
| of Love's Jealousy! At any rate, I am describing
| God's graces. The pride of Tabriz and the
| world, Shams al-Din [Sun of Religion] has again
| shown me favor.
|
| https://www.williamcchittick.com/
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Chittick
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157126.Sufi_Path_of_Love
| dang wrote:
| It's true, of course, but the alternative seems to be the erasure
| of poetry from the poetry of Rumi. Here's a sample of the
| translation they recommend at the end: I'm now
| compelled through uttering Shams' name To tell you of his
| gifts and spread his fame Hosamoddin has flung me by my
| skirt So I can breathe in scent from Joseph's shirt
|
| https://books.google.com/books?id=icAlT_hrlTUC&pg=PA12&lpg=P...
|
| Now, it's not a fair comparison, but I think it makes the point.
| Barks' Rumi became such an unlikely best-seller because the
| poetry is breathtaking.
| morelisp wrote:
| Ah, this is reminiscent of best-worst translation of the Tao Te
| Ching from Suzuki & Carus. The valley spirit
| not expires, Mysterious woman 'tis called by the sires.
| The mysterious woman's door, to boot, Is called of
| heaven and earth the root. Forever and aye it seems to
| endure And its use is without effort sure
| dang wrote:
| Ouch. There's a conflict between the scholarly impulse and
| the poetic one. T.S. Eliot famously observed that great poets
| were shameless about stealing. Probably they're equally
| shameless about omitting things.
|
| I read the OP a year ago, as well as a Twitter thread that
| was sharply criticizing Barks for what the critic felt was
| dishonest distortion in the famous "Out beyond ideas of
| rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field. / I will meet
| you there." The next morning, by coincidence, I was listening
| to an online talk by a Sufi teacher (not a newfangled sort -
| from one of the ancient orders predating Rumi). To illustrate
| the theme of his talk, what did he quote? "Out beyond ideas
| of rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field. / I will meet
| you there." I figure if the Sufi masters themselves are
| quoting Barks, that's got to count for something.
| shanhaiguan wrote:
| Perhaps, but I would be cautious in saying that even
| present-day Sufis from traditional orders are especially
| representative of a normative ideal of 'Sufism', especially
| those who have exposure by social media and the internet to
| huge audiences and to the West. This is partially what I
| think is common sense and partially from some personal
| experience. My working conjecture is that if such people
| like Rumi and other ancient Sufis like Hallaj, Junayd, Ibn
| Arabi, &c. genuinely exist today, they won't be easily
| found without intense search.
|
| There is probably no doubt that the line from Barks'
| translation has much to offer readers who ponder it. If it
| provides benefit, people should keep using it. But they
| should be more clear in attribution - I would be happy if
| the quote was always presented alongside Coleman Barks'
| name, the same way Ezra Pound's translations of Li Bai are
| attributed more to Ezra Pound than to Li Bai.
| dang wrote:
| I take your point and am interested in your perspective!
|
| > and partially from some personal experience
|
| I'd love to hear more about that, if you'd be willing to
| share.
|
| > the same way Ezra Pound's translations of Li Bai are
| attributed more to Ezra Pound than to Li Bai
|
| I'd be surprised if Barks is more unfaithful to Rumi than
| other popular Western translators of classic texts (e.g.
| Stephen Mitchell, who also works from intermediate
| translations) are to their originals.
|
| I'm in no position to decide the question, but when it
| comes to that one celebrated line, at least, I think the
| case against Barks is unconvincing. "Out beyond ideas of
| rightdoing and wrongdoing" is not an unreasonable way to
| translate "Out beyond ideas of religion and infidelity"
| to a contemporary Western audience. Indeed, saying
| "religion and infidelity" would be misleading--it would
| trigger all sorts of associations in the secularized
| Western mind that couldn't have anything to do with Rumi.
| scrubs wrote:
| I've read Rumi. Now, if you know the C Jung quote paraphrasing
| that, in the end all human problems are unsolvable from inside
| the package in which they came, and that change happens from a
| new perspective which itself requires a new, higher charging life
| force you might like Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus.
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