I'm now compelled through uttering Shams' name
To tell you of his gifts and spread his fame
Hosamoddin has flung me by my skirt
So I can breathe in scent from Joseph's shirt
Not an entirely fair comparison, but it makes the point. Barks' Rumi became such an unlikely best-seller because the poetry is breathtaking.
I know I’m glad to have read these English translations. And of course a good translator puts their own stroke of literary creativity into their translation.
I agree with you that for a full appreciation of the author’s artistry, it’s best to read the original in its native language. But that’s not always accessible.
Eg, I wouldn’t even be able to begin reading the original Beowulf despite being a native English speaker. Even something more recent like Canterbury Tales is slow-going due to the archaic spellings.
The valley spirit not expires,
Mysterious woman ’tis called by the sires.
The mysterious woman's door, to boot,
Is called of heaven and earth the root.
Forever and aye it seems to endure
And its use is without effort sureI read the OP a year ago, as well as a Twitter thread that was sharply criticizing Barks for what the critic felt was dishonest distortion in the famous "Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field. / I will meet you there." The next morning, by coincidence, I was listening to an online talk by a Sufi teacher (not a newfangled sort - from one of the ancient orders predating Rumi). To illustrate the theme of his talk, what did he quote? "Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field. / I will meet you there." I figure if the Sufi masters themselves are quoting Barks, that's got to count for something.
There is probably no doubt that the line from Barks' translation has much to offer readers who ponder it. If it provides benefit, people should keep using it. But they should be more clear in attribution - I would be happy if the quote was always presented alongside Coleman Barks' name, the same way Ezra Pound's translations of Li Bai are attributed more to Ezra Pound than to Li Bai.
Bark's content is, as the article describes, an unforgivable affront to Rumi, but also sounds quite poor to me (as a native English speaker), kind of like those stereotypical Instagram quotes.
Persian poetry is hard to accurately render in English.
Here's a Twitter account devoted to doing that (as well as exposing fake Rumi quotes in the wild): https://twitter.com/PersianPoetics
Though the motivations in undermining the context of Rumi by removing Islam may be more nefarious, the same thing happens with Stoicism. Take a few aphorisms, oversimplify them as an answer to a complex problem and repeat.
Much like Rumi can't be read without the context of Islam, Seneca or Epictetus can't be understood without the metaphysics of Stoicism, but endless volumes of self-help books disagree. I may be the wrong one in light of that.
It's hard to say with certainty where these things are 'back to basics' versus a high-brow form of cultural appropriation. Western, lower-case-p philosophy has been accused countless times of being reductive in nature (and our relationship to Nature is perhaps one of the clearest cases of this).
You would think that studying eastern philosophy and indigenous ways of thinking/being would counteract that, but even that is breaking down now.
I just opened my copy of The Sufi Path of Love by Chittick at random. The chapter is called Attainment to God. Here is (a sample of) Chittick's translation (indentations mine):
Oh rose,
adorn the meadows and laugh
for all to see!
for you had to hide
among the thorns for months.
Oh garden,
nurture well these new arrivals
the tales of whose coming
you had heard
from the thunder.
Oh wind,
make the branches dance
in the remembrance
of the day you wafed
over union.
Behold these trees,
all of them joyful
like a gathering
of the felicitous
Oh violet
why are you bent over
in heartache?
The lily says
to the buds:
though your eyes are closed
they will soon open,
for you you have tasted
of good fortune.
...
I speak of roses, nightingales
and the beauties of the garden
as a pretext.
Why do I do it?
For the sake of Love's Jealousy!
At any rate, I am describing
God's graces.
The pride of Tabriz and the world,
Shams al-Din [Sun of Religion]
has again shown me
favor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Chittick
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/157126.Sufi_Path_of_Love
> Islam is regularly diagnosed as a “cancer,” including by General Michael Flynn, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national-security adviser, and, even today,
This was in the middle of a paragraph about new-age books. How is this relevant? It's so annoying how everything has to do with modern politics.