The Challenges of Translating Poetry from Arabic into Persian: Investigating the Poems by Nizar Qabbani, Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, and Nazik al-Malaika

Translating poetry has always been a significant subject in translation studies. Mixture of the language of poetry with the poet’s feelings and its benefit from ambiguity and complexity as well as presence of elements such as rhythm, sentiments, and fantasy puts poetry at a higher position than prose, and accordingly adds more importance to its translation. The translator of a poem should be privileged with more freedom. An efficient translation of poetry is the outcome of recreation rather than mere rendition, as it is the case with rhythmic translations. Not only should poetry translators have all proficiencies of literary translators, they should also be familiar with contemporary poetry and its specifications, including dominant themes and tones in poetry, functions of allegory, repetition elements, internal rhythm of the poem, and application of proper nouns. The purpose of this research was to investigate the difficulties and complexities of translating poetry and in particular translating contemporary Arabic poetry regarding the theoretical and functional aspects. For this purpose, a descriptive-analytical method has been employed in this library research. Translatable and untranslatable elements were studied from a theoretical perspective, findings of which then indicated the importance of diction, meaning, rhythm, sentiments and fantasy. The difficulties of translating poetry were furthermore pointed out. From a functional approach, the most significant challenges with which the translators of contemporary Arabic poetry have to deal were then discussed by citing excerpts from poetry by Arab poets including Nizar Qabbani, Badr Shakir al- Sayyab and Nazik al-Malaika.