ACADEMIA Letters
A comparison between the English poem “Don’t stand at
my Grave” by Elizabeth Frey and two possible Arabic
translations
Anas A. Busahhah, King Faisal University
Acknowledgment
It never escapes me for a second that what I have accomplished in this thesis was the result of a
tireless investigation and abundance support from a lot of people. I would like to thank Prof.
Ahmed M. Halimah for his dedication and guidance throughout the process of conducting
the research. My deepest appreciation is for Abdulrahman Alsayed who allows me to use his
beautiful translation in this humble thesis, and for my colleagues, especially Saad Almakhitah,
who has been a great support. Ghaida, Abdulrahman, Ibrahim, my sweet family, thank you for
your support, patient, and the quite atmosphere you provided for me to work on this research.
Abstract
This study aims at comparing between the English poem, “Do not stand at my Grave”
by Elizabeth Frey, and two suggested Arabic translations. It is discussed throughout the
research the eternal issue of the possibility of translating poetry. Linguists like Horace,
ALJAHIZ, Jacobson, and Michionik throughout history have argued that poetry is hard to
translate, or even impossible, like ALJAHIZ who refused the idea of translating poetry in.
However, some linguists believed it was daunting but not impossible to translate poetry
from a language to another like the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer and his quote about
poetry “ a poem is manifestation of an invisible poem that exists beyond the conventional
languages”. In my opinion, poets can translate poetry to any language once they mastered
conveying the sense written in the target text.
Academia Letters, July 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Anas A. Busahhah, anooos502@gmail.com
Citation: Busahhah, A.A. (2021). A comparison between the English poem “Don’t stand at my Grave” by
Elizabeth Frey and two possible Arabic translations. Academia Letters, Article 1928.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1928.
1
Literature review
Translation is the communication of meaning from one language (SL) to another. Both literary
and non-literary texts require a knowledge of the two languages. It is useful to remember what
Jean Luc Godard said: “ it is not where you take things from, it is where you take them to.”
The main concern of this thesis is to investigate whether poetry is translatable or not? and
who can translate poetry?
Poetry is one of the most interesting forms of literary branches to study. What distinguishes poetry is the unique elements which poets apply when writing poems like Rhyme,
figures of speech” metaphor, simile, etc…) meter, etc.
A critical debate emerged to answer the question of this thesis. ALJAHIZ claims in his
book ALHIWAN (the animals) (1965:75), that Arabic poetry loses its beauty when translated
to another language. “The books of India have come down to us, and the Greek philosophies
have been translated, along with the literary tradition of the Persians. Through this process,
some of these works have increased in excellence and some have forfeited a portion for their
original quality. And had the genius of the Arabs been converted, that miracle which is meter
would have been rendered null and void. Had they nevertheless converted this corpus, moreover, they would have found nothing that had not been mentioned by the non-Arabs in works
dealing with livelihoods, fields of knowledge, and philosophies, books that have been passed
on from people to people, from century to century, from language to language, until they have
ended up with us, and we have been the latest to inherit them and examine their content. Thus,
it has been confirmed that books are superior to the monuments and poetry in their ability to
preserve the grand achievements of civilizations” ALJAHIZ on poetry translation by Sherman
Jacobson (1984).
In contrast, a radio program interviewed Abdulrahman Alsayed, a translator, a poet, an
English BA holder, and a translation MA holder. Alsayed believes that poetry should not be
translated word-for-word, rather translators must do their best to convey the main message
of the poem and should study the source text carefully to choose the proper equivalent from
the target text. Also, it is a must to be aware of the target language’s culture to avoid any
misunderstanding regarding different cultural background. Alsayed advices the translator to
choose a text that does not clash with his religious thoughts and beliefs and to be neutral and
honest.
Dr. Halimah in his book Creative translation (2017:29) discussed the idea of translating
a literary text by considering five main criteria (ACNCS):
1. Accuracy: enables you to assess the quality of your TT.
2. Clarity: it is an integral part of the comprehension process of the TT reader.
Academia Letters, July 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Anas A. Busahhah, anooos502@gmail.com
Citation: Busahhah, A.A. (2021). A comparison between the English poem “Don’t stand at my Grave” by
Elizabeth Frey and two possible Arabic translations. Academia Letters, Article 1928.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1928.
2
3. Naturalness: It comprises a variety of idioms or style or register determined primarily
by the “setting” of the text.
4. Communication in translation involves the ability of the translator to transfer not only
the meaning but also the emotional aspects of the ST.
5. Style in literary text refers to the linguistics choices the author uses in his or her writings.
Purpose of the study
This study empathizes the importance of handing poetry to a specialist translator, for an ordinary translation would result in a gap in meaning between the source text (ST) and the target
text (TT). In this thesis, the researcher works to prove that poetry is not impossible to translate,
yet it requires careful search and through studying.
Methodology
The research aims at investigating the difficulties of poetry translation based on the criteria
used in assessing the quality of the translation of literary texts.
In order to achieve the goal of the study, a famous poem called (Don’t stand at my grave)
by Elizabeth Frye and two suggested Arabic translations, one by a poet called Abdulrahman
Alsayed and the other one is by a regular translator called Muath Alomari, were chosen for
this study.
You might wonder why I would choose these two translations. Well, the contrast between
the two translations is remarkable. Alsayed suggested a poetic translation for the poem, while
the other translation was almost literally (word-for word) translation.
So, the study aims to figure out the accuracy, clarify, naturalness, communication, and
style (ACNCS) which are sat out by Dr.Ahmed Mustafa Halimah, of the translated texts and
then discovering whether the claim of impassibleness of translating the poetry is appropriate
or not.
Data analysis and discussion
Halimah (2017:55) stated that: “ when trying to translate such a poetic line, the translator is
bound to face difficulties not only in conveying the religious implications of the poem, but also
in transferring the poetic form implied in the rhyming and rhythm of the line”. In the other
Academia Letters, July 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Anas A. Busahhah, anooos502@gmail.com
Citation: Busahhah, A.A. (2021). A comparison between the English poem “Don’t stand at my Grave” by
Elizabeth Frey and two possible Arabic translations. Academia Letters, Article 1928.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1928.
3
words if someone wants to translate a poetry, you should be aware of not only the religious,
culture, etc. But also, he should be aware of rhyming and the deep meaning of source text.
As part of data analysis and discussion of this research, our discussion has been done with
comparing two Arabic translations of the famous poem (Do not stand at my grave) written by
Elizabeth Frye. The comparison took a place by applying the five criteria (ACNCS).
It is helpful to notice the differences between the two texts based on accuracy, clarity,
naturalness, communication, and style. Examining the texts through these criteria shows the
contrast and the gap between literary and non-literary translation of the text. In addition,
rhyme and rhythm play a big role in the appreciating the beauty of the translated text, especially
when the translator tries to simulate the source text’s rhyme or create a relevant one that can
keep the beauty and the context of source text
In my opinion, it is important to maintain the original meaning of the poem even after
translating it to the target text (TT). What makes one text better than the other is the ability to
apply the five criteria mentioned previously.
You can easily tell the difference between the two suggested translations, for it is obvious that one of them is translated literally and the other was translated poetically. Read the
following discussions and comparisons for further clarification:
1. Accuracy
“It refers to your ability in conveying the exact and precise meaning of the source text to the
target text” (Halima 2017:42). In literary text, it is noticed that the translator was taking a very
well care about accuracy. The translator applies accuracy perfectly and it shows when he tries
to bring the exact meaning of the ST into TT. He commits to being faithful when transferring
meaning, and he makes sure he does not miss out any single information mentioned in the
source text (ST). The translator presented the poem differently, yet he preserved the meaning,
sense, and the beauty of the poem. All in all, However, Alsayed has successfully transferred
the overall meaning of ST to TT.
On the other hand, Alomari chose a literal translation for the poem, where he translated the
poem word-by-word to its equivalent in the target text (TT). You might think that he ignored
transferring the meaning, but he proves you wrong in his poem when he translated “I do not
die” to look like “I never die”.
Academia Letters, July 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Anas A. Busahhah, anooos502@gmail.com
Citation: Busahhah, A.A. (2021). A comparison between the English poem “Don’t stand at my Grave” by
Elizabeth Frey and two possible Arabic translations. Academia Letters, Article 1928.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1928.
4
2. Clarity
One can tell that Alsayed took great care of the clearness of the text. It is important that the
translation of the text makes sense to the reader, and that he does not have to exert effort to
work out the meaning out of the text. The reader of the translation by Alsayed would notice
that the translation sounds like it was written originally in Arabic. Whereas, Alomari caused
some loss to the text by translating it literally, although it was clear in general. In other words,
he did not have a full communication of the ST message clearly to the reader of the TT.
3. Naturalness
“It is used here to simply refer to the ability of the creative translator to apply appropriate
natural forms and norms linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychological, or others”. (Halimah
2017:43)
Naturalness can be easily spotted in Alsayed version of the translation. The text sounds
and reads like an authentic Arabic text. It is observed in many parts of the poem that he added
naturalness to the TT by using literary Arabic terms that added beauty to TT and ST.
While Alomari in his word-for-word translation did not care about reaching that level of
beauty in TT. He cared about conveying the ST message by translating every single word in
the poem to its equivalence in TT. In some parts of the text, he tried to touch the naturalness
of the TT and he could to some extent. But when you compare the two texts, absolutely you
will find a huge gap between them according to the naturalness.
4. Communication
“Involves the ability of the translator to transfer not only the meaning but also the emotional
aspects of the ST to the target reader as effectively and faithfully as they are communicated to
the ST readers in the first place”. (Halimah 2017:43)
It is important for any translated text to convey the emotional aspects of the ST. Alsayed
in his translation tried to deal with this criterion considering it as an important element that
TT cannot be done without it. As a poet makes an imagination of the ST then by his beautiful
Arabic language, he conveyed that imagination to the Arabic reader.
But when we look at Alomari translation, in my opinion, he failed in conveying the emotional aspect of the ST. You feel like you are reading a translated text that has its own culture.
He could not make his own imagination and transfer the whole idea by his TL, but he looked
Academia Letters, July 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Anas A. Busahhah, anooos502@gmail.com
Citation: Busahhah, A.A. (2021). A comparison between the English poem “Don’t stand at my Grave” by
Elizabeth Frey and two possible Arabic translations. Academia Letters, Article 1928.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1928.
5
for the equivalence meaning of each word, that killed the communication of the text. Thus, it
can be noticed that TT did not carry the same meaning and emotional features of the ST.
5. Style
“Refers to the linguistics choices the author uses in his or her writing to tell a narrative, to
describe events, objects and characters, or to voice ideas and views of a manner of his or her
choosing”. I think style can be discovered in the text by looking on how the translator transmits
the stylistic features of ST. In Alsayed’s translation, he provides an Arabic translation with
the stylistic features maintained. Whereas, in Alomari’s translation the stylistic features of
the target texts were not maintained. In addition, Alsayed paid attention to rhymes and, he
generated a very beautiful Arabic TT way without dropping the stylistic features of the ST,
while Alomari did not give any attention to this important issue, he translated the poem as
prose that does not have rhyme or rhythm. That created a clear gap between the ST and the
TT.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Based on the short and brief analysis and discussion above, we can conclude that poetry translation is translatable. We have looked at what ALJAHIZ and others said about the difficulties
of poetry translation, but these difficulties do not mean that it is impossible to translate poetry.
Thus, we can approve that poetry can be translated whether by a poet or by regular translator.
I believe that there are very big differences between the translation of poet and the translation
of a regular translator but at the end we have reached the result that poetry is translatable.
The second aim of this research is to prove that only poets can translate poetry. Through
the data analysis and discussion, we can observe the gap between translation translated by
poet and the one translated by a regular translator. It is explicit than the five criteria (ACNCS)
were applied in the piece translated by the poet. That leads us to prove that a poet is the best
person who can convey the message and the beauty of the ST into the TT.
Here is a list of recommendation as an outcome of a through searching worth listing below:
• People in charge should work hard on encouraging translation studies and train students.
• Annual conferences and assemblies should be held in order to discuss language and
translations matters to come up with new techniques and methods.
Academia Letters, July 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Anas A. Busahhah, anooos502@gmail.com
Citation: Busahhah, A.A. (2021). A comparison between the English poem “Don’t stand at my Grave” by
Elizabeth Frey and two possible Arabic translations. Academia Letters, Article 1928.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1928.
6
References
ALJAHIZ. 1965. ALHIAWAN. Egypt: MUSTAFA HALABI PRESS.
Alomari, m., 2008. Don’T Stand At My Grave And Weep. [online] Arabic translators international. Available at: <https://www.atinternational.org/forums/showthread.php?t=5211>
[Accessed 30 July 2020].
Alsayed, A., 2018. A Translation Of The Poem (Do Not Stand At My Grave). [image] Available at: <https://twitter.com/AbdulrahmanTR/status/955176404777398275> [Accessed 30
July 2020].
Alsayed, A., 2019. An Interview On UFM Radio With Abdurrahman Alsyed. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecbTyPczZfM&t=1473s> [Accessed 30 July
2020].
Halimah, A. and Aljaroudi, Z., 2020. Translating English-Arabic Business-To-Consumer Advertisements: A Domesticating Approach. [online] Sciedupress.com. Available at: <http:/
/www.sciedupress.com/journal/index.php/wjel/article/view/15946/10054> [Accessed 30
July 2020].
Halimah, A., 2017. English-Arabic-English Creative Transaltion.
Williams, J. and Chesterman, A., 2002. The Map. Manchester: St. Jerome.
Academia Letters, July 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Anas A. Busahhah, anooos502@gmail.com
Citation: Busahhah, A.A. (2021). A comparison between the English poem “Don’t stand at my Grave” by
Elizabeth Frey and two possible Arabic translations. Academia Letters, Article 1928.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1928.
7
Appendices
Academia Letters, July 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Anas A. Busahhah, anooos502@gmail.com
Citation: Busahhah, A.A. (2021). A comparison between the English poem “Don’t stand at my Grave” by
Elizabeth Frey and two possible Arabic translations. Academia Letters, Article 1928.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1928.
8
Academia Letters, July 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Anas A. Busahhah, anooos502@gmail.com
Citation: Busahhah, A.A. (2021). A comparison between the English poem “Don’t stand at my Grave” by
Elizabeth Frey and two possible Arabic translations. Academia Letters, Article 1928.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1928.
9
Academia Letters, July 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Anas A. Busahhah, anooos502@gmail.com
Citation: Busahhah, A.A. (2021). A comparison between the English poem “Don’t stand at my Grave” by
Elizabeth Frey and two possible Arabic translations. Academia Letters, Article 1928.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1928.
10