What is the best translation of "One Thousand and One Nights"?

[cvn]

Currently, I'm considering purchasing the translation by Malcolm C. Lyons and Ursula Lyons which has been released by Penguin in three volumes.

[stlukesguild]

The Arabian Night's Entertainments or 1001 Arabian Nights is one of those core works of literature like Dante's Comedia, The Bible, Shakespeare's plays, Homer's epics, Firdawsi's Shanameh, Cervante's Don Quixote, and a precious few others. As such it is a book which is probably best eventually read in a number of translations if you cannot master the original language. But of course we all must begin somewhere. The translation you cite seems to have been quite well-received. I plan on purchasing it myself sometime soon. I have the classic Victorian version by Richard Francis Burton as well as excerpts by a couple of other translators. You can read the Richard Francis Burton version online:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search.html/?default_prefix=author_id&sort_order=downloads&query=898

This you can compare to the newer translations to get some feel for it.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Firdawsi's Shanameh

Okay .... this is one I've never heard of. Please don't pwn me too bad. :lol:

[stlukesguild]

Hakīm Abu'l-Qāsim Firdowsī Tūsī (حکیم ابوالقاسم فردوسی توسی) aka: Firdawsi... alternatively spelled: Firdowsi/Ferdowsi/Firdausi/Firdavsi:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdowsi

was a Persian poet c. 11th century who is most known for having composed the Shahnameh (شاهنامه) /šāhnāmeh or "Book of Kings" which is the great epic of Persia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahnameh

The Shanameh is like the Arabian Nights, Boccaccio's Decameron, Dante's Comedia, oir many other early texts, a large collection of tales structured within a frame story. In some ways it is like the Hebrew Bible in that it was an attempt at telling the history of the great Persian culture after they had fallen successively to the Byzantine Empire, the Arabs, the Mongols, and the Turks.

It is surely one of the towering works of fiction and one of the greatest books I have read.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

It shall go on my to-read list! Any suggested translations?

[JCamilo]

M&M, Stlukes drunk too much wine and invented it. It is a prankster of snob club. Persia? Hah!

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

:lol:

[mortalterror]

It shall go on my to-read list! Any suggested translations?

Firdawsi is like Shakespeare, Dante, or Homer, seriously a contender for greatest writer ever. Stlukes likes the Dick Davis translation http://www.amazon.com/Shahnameh-Persian-Book-Kings-ebook/dp/B001RTC0Y2/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1300808631&sr=8-5 . This is the only complete edition in print. The major drawback to this translation is that it is mostly written in prose whereas Firdawsi is a poet. I prefer the translations of Jerome Clinton http://www.amazon.com/Tragedy-Sohrab-Publications-University-Washington/dp/0295975679/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1300808843&sr=8-1 which are contemporary, in print, though as yet unfinished. The only complete poetical translation of the Shahnamah to date was made back in 1906 by Arthur and Edmond Warner. http://www.archive.org/details/shahnama01firduoft The whole thing is available for free online and is pretty tight. If you have a kindle or don't mind reading off your computer screen, this is the translation I suggest.

[stlukesguild]

Mortal... how does the Clinton translation stack up against the Warners? I have downloaded the Warners to my hard-drive some time ago, but have yet to read through it.

[stlukesguild]

Firdawsi is like Shakespeare, Dante, or Homer, seriously a contender for greatest writer ever.

Now I'm awaiting JBI's arrival with the names of seven of eight Chinese writers that are contenders for this title. And two years ago when he was gung-ho on his study of Italian it was all Leopardi.

Speaking of Leopardi... there is a new translation by Jonathan Galassi that looks quite promising. Galassi made a brilliant translation of the whole of Montale's oeuvre... although I personally prefer William Arrowsmith.

[mortalterror]

Mortal... how does the Clinton translation stack up against the Warners? I have downloaded the Warners to my hard-drive some time ago, but have yet to read through it.

Oh, it's better all around. Clinton is just a better poet than those guys. The verses are so clean and smooth. They have like a texture to them, and a proximity, the way Ciardi's Dante translation feels, like it could have been written by a contemporary poet yesterday. The Warner translation is Edwardian with hints of Victorian in it. To the extent that you can actually"hear" a translators voice within the text, it doesn't sound like Fitzgerald's Persian translations. There are obvious developments in verse form and style between the time of his translations and theirs, so they sound a lot like Edwin Arlington Robinson. The problem with the Jerome Clinton stuff is he's only translated a few hundred pages of this gigantic work.

[cvn]

Thanks for the help, guys. I think I will go Malcolm C. Lyons and Ursula Lyons translation.