Translating Emotional Charges in Poetic Discourse and the Disruption of Literary Taste among Non-Native Speakers of Arabic: Selected Poems by Mahmoud Darwish

Abstract

This study aims to examine the problem of translating emotional charges in poetic discourse and the role of the translational act in unsettling the poetic taste of learners who are speakers of languages other than Arabic. It does so by combining theoretical grounding with textual application to selected poems by Mahmoud Darwish in their French and English translations. The study departs from the hypothesis that the emotional charge of the poem is not an isolated lexical element, but rather the outcome of a complex interaction between linguistic, rhetorical, rhythmic and cultural levels, which makes its transfer into another language a highly sensitive interpretive and aesthetic operation.

Relying on recent literature on the "translatability of emotiveness" in Darwish's poetry, the study evaluates the translation strategies adopted between affective equivalence, image preservation, cultural adaptation and rhythmic adjustment. It concludes that translating emotional charges in Darwish's poetry is only partially attainable, on condition that the translator is fully aware of the sources of affect in the source text and of the expectations of the target-language reader. It further argues that success in this endeavour presupposes a composite strategic model that carefully balances fidelity and freedom.