Untranslatable Aspects in the Persian Poetry

Translatability is the capability of a meaning for being transferred from one language into another without undergoing fundamental change.A meaning will, therefore , be considered untranslatable when it cannot be transferred into another language without basic modification. The Persian poetry has certain linguistic characteristics and literary devices most of which are untranslatable though all are understandable. These literary delicacies and beauties, such as rhythm, rhyme, eloquence, fluence and musicality , are mostly inseparable from the original form, hence they resist translation without major adjustment. None of the English translations of the classical Persian poems is totally compatible with the original text, however precise it may be. In every translation some of the poetical aspects and literary devices have either been basically changed or totally lost. Consequently , the lovely pleasure and the pleasant impression gained from the reading of the original cannot be attained by reading a translation. The of this article is to investigate the scope of translatability in the Persian poetry . To attain this goal, various strategies of poetry translation are studied comparatively so as to survey their advantages and disadvantages and identify the extent of effectiveness regarding each strategy in translating the Persian poetry.