Mohammad REZA HASHEMI & Maziyar FARIDI (Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran)

Critical Translation Anthologies and the Case of Literary Translation in Iran

A large number of literary publications in Iran are translations of foreign literatures and it is quite justifiable to claim that these translations have played a pivotal role in the formation of Persian contemporary literary polysystem especially Persian prose fiction. Yet, this influence more often than not has been taken for granted and little research has been particularly carried out with regard to the history of literary translation in Iran. This study sets out to look at the significance of Critical Translation Anthologies in the literary and translation studies in Iran. A Critical Translation Anthology (CTA), as defined in this study, is a kind of anthology that not only includes excerpts from translations in a specific historical period, but also contains a critical survey of these translations with respect to their qualities as well as their influence upon the literary polysystem of the target culture. Production of such anthologies requires a careful investigation of a number of questions some of which are listed below:

1. What are the criteria for selecting a translation and excluding another? In other words, if a canon of literary translations is to be established, what literary and socio-cultural considerations should be taken into account?
2. What historical periods should be selected?
3. What are the major criteria for the assessment of the quality of the selected translations in CTAs?
4. What are the criteria for measuring the influence of a group of translated works on the literary traditions of the target language?
5. What is a logical order for the arrangement of selected excerpts in CTAs?

These are but a few primary questions that may occur to the scholars while working on an anthology of translation. The answers to these questions are to a great extent culture bound and as a result in this study the whole issue is looked at from the standpoint of the literary and translation traditions of Iran.
A prerequisite for CTAs is a unified history of literary translation. Therefore, in order to find appropriate criteria for the selection of translated works, in the first step, a research project was set off on the history of literary translation in Iran (from Constitutional Revolution in 1905 to 2008). Next, a general outline of the canon of literary translation is drawn, followed by a discussion of the impact of the translation system upon Persian literary polysystem in specific historical periods. Once the canonical state of literary translations is investigated, by means of comparing the canonized translations, some criteria for quality assessment of these works are obtained. In this way, the aim of generating a basis for CTAs in Iran is achieved. In a country where a great deal of its literary publications is devoted to translations, this study especially can have significant implications for the theories of canon formation, literary history and Comparative Literature.