Article Criticism: The Selection Works of Benjamin Walter

Walter Benjamin, the famous German Philosopher and a Literature critic, had published some articles separately which were compiled and translated into English in the form of a selection titled: Illuminations. In 2014, a book under the title of The Selection Works of Benjamin Walter with a Persian translation was published by Nashre Elm. It is claimed inadequately that the five articles in this book are translations of the same five articles from the English Selection. We studied this work by finding the English text claimed to be translated by the Persian translator and some other sources that had not been mentioned. Despite the Content Analysis of the Benjamin’s articles, we compared the Persian translation with the original text to find out the accuracy of this translation. We concluded that the translation is full of formal and content problems which it does not succeed to deserve the title of translation of the regarded articles. It also does not qualify to be considered an academic and a scientific textbook, and even it is not proper for general use; nevertheless, it is valuable to attend these kinds of works. However, the translator should at least have considered the scientific patterns so that this attempt would be useful.