Semantic Compatibility of Two English Translations of the First Sonnet of Hafez to the Original

Poetry translation has always been one of the most demanding types of translation with which translators should be extremely careful. It is indeed, quite more difficult to translate poetry because one has to cope with a large number of terms which could mislead the readers with respect to meaning comprehension if it is not carefully translated. Hafez, one of the greatest poets of all time, is considered second to none by almost all great Persian literary scholars. So far there have been conducted studies regarding the problems of translating Hafez’s sonnets from Persian into English (Anushiravani & Atashi, ۲۰۱۳; Youssefi, ۲۰۰۹; Malmir & Ahmadi, ۲۰۱۸). This study intended to investigate semantic translation incompatibilities with the help of Newmark’s method (۱۹۸۸) so that every sonnet can be examined semantically (verse by verse, phrase by phrase, and word by word). To the researcher’s knowledge, none of the preceding related studies have made a semantic comparison of two types of English translations of Hafez between a native translator and a non-native one. In this research, ten sonnets of Hafez were randomly selected to embark upon the semantic comparison between the translations of Shahriari (۲۰۰۵) and Bell (۱۸۹۷). Finally, the findings of the study are discussed with reference to the literature and the practical implications, limitations. Also, some suggestions for further research are presented.

Keywords:

Hafez , Newmark’s Elements , Poetry Translation , Semantic Comparison