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Acknowledgment
This translation has received support from the EU's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under ERC-2017-STG Grant Agreement No 759346: ‘Global Literary Theory: Caucasus Literatures Compared.’
Notes
1 For the Persian text used here, see Bijan Elahi, ‘On Translation’.
2 The pair can also be translated as ‘outside/inside’ and ‘appearance/heart’.
3 Elahi is referring to his translation of the Sufi Arabic poet Mansur Abu Hallaj, which differs radically in style from his Hölderlin translations. See Bijan Elahi, trans. Hallāj al-asrār (akhbār va ashʿār).
4 Elahi’s translation of Gustave Flaubert’s tale, La légende de Saint-Julien l’hospitalier (The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitalier) published in Bahānahā-yi ma’nūs (Familiar Excuses).
5 ‘Lawn’ originally means ‘colour’.
6 Matthias Norberg (1747–1826) was a Swedish professor of Greek and Oriental languages at Lund University. Walter Bruno Henning (1908–1967) was a German scholar of Middle Iranian languages and literature.
7 See Bernhard Karlgren, The Book of Odes.
8 Elahi resided in London from 1970 to 1972.
9 See Ezra Pound, The Confucian Odes.
10 See Arthur Waley, The Book of Songs.
11 Elahi uses here the Arabic rather than Persian forms for ‘poetry’ and ‘sun’ (both are feminine nouns in Arabic).
12 Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) was a renowned American playwright and novelist, whose work won the two major American literary prizes: the Pulitzer (three times) and the National Book Award.
13 Bahram Sadeqi (1937–1985) was an Iranian short story writer. His only collection of short stories, Trench and Empty Canteens (Sangar va qumqumehā-yi khālī), is considered a forerunner of modernist experimental fiction depicting the disappointed Iranian society after the 1953 Coup.
14 Nima Yushij (1897–1960) was an Iranian poet who is considered the founder of modernist Persian poetry.
15 Fereidun Rahnema (1930–1975) was an Iranian poet who mentored many key figures in the poetic movement called Other Poetry (shiʿr-i dīgar), including Elahi.
16 Paul Éluard (1895–1952) was a French surrealist poet who was influential on modernist Persian poets such as Bijan Elahi and Ahmad Shamlu.
17 Francis Ponge (1899–1988) was a French poet famous for his prose poems on everyday objects, which are devoid of emotions and symbolism.
18 Abu’l Fazl Bayhaqi (995–1077), author of the Tārīkh-i Bayhaqī (History of Bayhaqi), the most important source on Ghaznavids. The major part of this voluminous work is lost. It is notable for its prose narrative style.
19 Muhammad Taqi Bahar, also known as Malik al-Shuara Bahar (1886–1951), was an Iranian poet, literary critic, journalist and politician. His work Sabk-shināsī (Stylistics) is the most important history of the evolution of Persian prose to this day.
20 Muhammad Taqi Bahar, Sabk-shināsī (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1958) vol. 2, 70–73.
21 Dārāb-nāma (The Book of Darab), a twelfth-century Persian prose romance written by Abū Tāhir Muhammad ibn Mūsa Tartūsī, recounting the story of legendary King Dārāb. The prose is close to the spoken language of its time.