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whimsicalmaria's review
Compared to Coleman Barks’ translation of Rumi’s poems in one of his books, The Essential Rumi, A Treasury of Rumi is a much better translation, complete with commentaries. This book was written by Dr Muhammad Isa Waley, published by Kube Publishing .
[Taken from themaydan.com :
Dr Wiley worked for 45 years as a Curator for Persian and Turkis, initially at the British Museum, and then at the British Library, London. His main research specializations are (i) the classical verse and prose literature of Islamic spirituality in Persian, Arabic, and Turkish; and (ii) palaeography, codicology, illumination and cataloguing of Islamic manuscripts. He has written, contributed to, or translated a number of publications in these fields. The subject of his Ph.D thesis was the poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi.]
True to his qualifications, we get the deeper meanings of Rumi’s poetries in his translations. His words make more sense, his discourse more familiar, the verses more profound. He inserted Quranic verses in the discussion of many of the poetries. Rather than the more shallow and meaningless love, wine and music, we get the true meanings of compassion, generosity, and contentment.
In short, Coleman Barks’ translation of Rumi made him sound like a drunk poet expressing his superficial struggles.
Dr Wiley’s translation made us see Rumi as an wise, philosophical and spiritual man that his learned background would have shaped him to be.
[Taken from themaydan.com :
Dr Wiley worked for 45 years as a Curator for Persian and Turkis, initially at the British Museum, and then at the British Library, London. His main research specializations are (i) the classical verse and prose literature of Islamic spirituality in Persian, Arabic, and Turkish; and (ii) palaeography, codicology, illumination and cataloguing of Islamic manuscripts. He has written, contributed to, or translated a number of publications in these fields. The subject of his Ph.D thesis was the poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi.]
True to his qualifications, we get the deeper meanings of Rumi’s poetries in his translations. His words make more sense, his discourse more familiar, the verses more profound. He inserted Quranic verses in the discussion of many of the poetries. Rather than the more shallow and meaningless love, wine and music, we get the true meanings of compassion, generosity, and contentment.
In short, Coleman Barks’ translation of Rumi made him sound like a drunk poet expressing his superficial struggles.
Dr Wiley’s translation made us see Rumi as an wise, philosophical and spiritual man that his learned background would have shaped him to be.
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