Spektrum Iran

Literature as medium for intercultural understanding: Opportunities and Challenges

Document Type : Original Research Paper

Author

Seyed Mohammadreza Hosseini Beheshti

Associat Professor of Tehran University, Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22034/spektrum.2023.184199
Abstract
Living in our global world, with its daily increasing encountering, or meanwhile mutual penetrating, different cultures requires a permanent intercultural confrontation with the Other, the Foreign and the Non- familiar; an attempt to understand and recognize the Other in his being and so-being. This attempt aims at providing a possibility of horizon extension and thinking together, rather than discovering merely commonalities and differences,. Hereby is literature, as the general substrate, which exceeds the boundaries of all disciplines, the most important medium, of this encountering. Among all the literary genres is poetry, as an „eminent” text in turn, the most significant genre, which leads us to the deep roots of thoughts, feelings, views and beliefs of cultures. This attempt for mutual understanding, however, is accompanied by difficulties, obstacles, incomprehensions and misunderstandings. These disturbances emerge by trying to translate and interpret poetry, especially lyric poems, in foreign languages, which makes them almost untranslatable. We notice these barriers in the attempt of German authors in transmitting the Ghazals of the great Iranian poet Hafiz. This essay tries to show briefly, as an example, the various facets of these difficulties, taking to account a number of German translations of the Ghazal 152 in his Divan.

Keywords

Literature
Intercultural Understanding
Lyric Poetry
German Translations
Hafiz
Subjects
Bethge, H. (1910): Lieder des Hafis. Freie Nachdichtungen. Leipzig.
Gadamer, H. G.: Der eminente Text und seine Wahrheit (1960). in: Kunst als Aussage. (Gesammelte Werke, Bd 8), Tübingen 1993.
Henning, M. (1960): Der Koran. Stuttgart.
Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph von (1812): Der Diwan von Mohammed Schemseddin Hafis. Erster Teil. Stuttgart&Tübingen.
Hashemi F., (1399/2020): Deutsche Übersetzungen Persischer Literatur (Tarjumehaye Adabi dar Zabane Almani), Tehran.
Ritter, J. & Gründer, K.: Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie. Stuttgart / Basel 1974 ff.
Rosenzweig von Schwannau, V. (1858): Diwan des grossen Lyrischen Dichters Hafis. Wien.
Rückert, Fr. (1926): Ghaselen des Hafis, München.
Urbich, J. (2011): Literarische Ästhetik. Köln /Weimar/ Wien.
Vries; J. de (1983): Grundbegriffe der Scholastik, Darmstadt.
Spektrum Iran
Volume 36, Issue 1
July 2023
Pages 65-80

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