Edward FitzGerald's Ideas on Translation

Abstract

It is generally agreed that the translation of poetry is a special case within literary translation, that is, poems, plays, and novels. The translation of poetry―because of sound patterns, choice of words, arrangement of words, peculiar rhythms, etc.―is widely held to be the most difficult form of translation. Undoubtedly, Edward FitzGerald (1809–1883) is one of the greatest poetic-translators in the world, and his translation of the Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam (1859) is one of the most widely read poetic translations. He never wrote an independent paper or a book on his ideas on translation. The present paper tries to extract and bold his ideas on translation through the introductions that he wrote on his translations such as Six Dramas of Calderon, Aeschylus' Agamemnon, and Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam and among his letters to his friends notably Edward Cowell. He believed that a translation must live even though one cannot retain the original. In his terms, better a live sparrow than a stuffed Eagle.