The Linguist

An excerpt from chapter 6 of the Poetics, which is known for its definition of tragedy. Butcher's 1895 translation into English: Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions. Matthew's translation into Arabic: Word-for-word back translation: The craft of praise is an imitation and mimicry of voluntary action, which is careful and complete that has magnitude and weight in useful discourse. Except for each of the constituent parts which are effective in the parts, not in narrative. It modifies emotions and effects by compassion and fear. It cleanses and purges those who are affected. @CIOL_Linguists AUTUMN 2023 The Linguist 27 FEATURES Averroes' purpose in writing his summary was to find common laws that most nations share with regard to their poetry, but westerners in medieval times mistook it for an explanation of the Poetics. Because the original Greek manuscript was lost, this led to a series of further misunderstandings. In the Arabic version, Aristotle's Poetics becomes a work about poetry rather than drama. This led the Italian Arabist Gabrieli to describe the history of the translation of Aristotle's Poetics into Arabic as the "history of an error". 3 Of its time Before we criticise Matthew for his pioneering translation we have to remember that it belongs to the 10th century in its vocabulary, language and style. Our linguistic preferences and modes of expression are different from medieval ones. Moreover, the translator dealt with what he thought to be a philosophical treatise, not a literary or critical one. The translation of the Poetics into Arabic was an unusual event for Abbasid culture because neither the book nor its contents fall within the 'proper' interests of the state or its philosophers. The subject matter is Greek drama, a topic irrelevant to Arabic literature. In fact, the Translation Movement itself showed no interest in the translation of theoretical texts or works related to literary criticism. The only exceptions were the Poetics and Rhetoric because, for the Syriacs and the Arab philosophers who followed them, these were among the eight books of Aristotle's Organon. Therefore translating them was part of the philosophical endeavors of the Syriacs. This assumption was to have dramatic consequences for the fortunes and misfortunes of the Poetics in Arabic. Matthew's contemporaries generally described his translation of the Poetics as unacceptable. To complicate matters, these philosophers were not knowledgeable about Greek or Arabic literature, so the impact of the translator not understanding the subject matter was compounded by the ignorance of the commentators. Coupled with Averroes' misleading summary, this is considered to be "one of the most productive misreadings in world literary history." 4 Adnan Abdulla has written in more depth on this subject in his book Translation in the Arab World: The Abbasid Golden Age. Notes 1 Gutas, D (1998) Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early 'Abbasid Society. (2nd-4th/ 8th-10th centuries), London, Routledge, 2 2 Ayyad, S M (1967) Kitab Aristotales fan al-shi'r, Cairo, Dar val-Kattib al-Arabi, 180; Kilito, A (2002) Lan tatakallam lughati, Beirut, Dar al-Ṭaliah, 110 3 Gabrieli, F (1929) 'Intorno alla versione arabe della Poetica di Aristotle'. In Rendionti della Reale Accad nazim. Dri Lincei, Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, Roma, 6/5, 235 4 Gould, R (2014) 'The Poetics from Athens to al-Andalus: Ibn Rushd's Grounds for Comparison'. In Modern Philology 112(1), 24 ARABIC DEPICTION An Islamic portrayal of Aristotle, c. 1220 Defining tragedy

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