Translation as a sociallysituated activity: Two
instances in the history of
Shakespeare Translation in
Egypt
Sameh F. Hanna
Overview
 Tanyus Abdu’s Arabic
translation of Hamlet
(1901/1902).
 Accounting for Abdu’s translation through
Bourdieu’s sociology of cultural
production;
 Khalil Mutran’s translation of Othello
(1912).
Mainstream history of drama
translation in Egypt: Two
assumptions
 History
of drama translation is the story of
progress from ‘unfaithful’ to ‘faithful’
versions [linear historical narrative].
 History of drama translation is a history of
‘textuality’, not agents, institutions, cultural
markets, etc.
Tanyus Abdu (1869-1926)
Hamlet in Arabic (1902) – Front
Cover
Gloss of Front Cover
Riwayat (the Play)
of Hamlet
A text for acting in five acts
Authored by Shakesepeare, the renowned English Poet
Arabized by
The skilled writer, Tanyūs Effendī ‘Abdu
Owner of the well-reputed al-Sharq Newspaper
A second edition at the expense of Ibrahīm Faris, owner of
al-Sharqiyya bookshop, Cairo, Egypt
Al-Matba‘a al-‘Umūmiyya, Cairo, Egypt.
Early reception of the translation
 The
only Arabic stage version of Hamlet
for over 15 years.
 In
its published form, it went into two
different editions.
The translation as seen by
historians of drama translation
The undeniable fact is that the translator
availed himself of all the means of
distortion, which he brought to his
translation…The translator pioneered a
school known for deformation and
distortion in translation practice. No story
or play he translated was left unchanged.
(Najm 1956: 241; my translation)
Hamlet lives: change of plot
structure
The ghost (addressing Hamlet): And you
may happily live on earth, forgiven by
Heaven. Go before me where your uncle
sat; this throne was made but for you
(Hamlet ascends the throne, looking
admiringly at his father, while the ghost
gradually descends into the depths of the
earth, smiling at Hamlet. The curtain falls
slowly, while the public is chanting
outside).
Hamlet sings: change of generic
structure
Neutralising the tragic effects in Shakespeare’s
Hamlet.
 Hamlet’s monologues in Shakespeare: divided
identity, tension between the public and private
selves…distorted language/whispered discourse
(pauses, exclamations, questions, incomplete
structures)
 Monologues in Abdu’s translation: versified,
declamatory and smooth language.

The variety of Arabic used
A diluted variety of Standard Arabic: not
colloquial, but definitely not the kind of
Arabic used in Pre-Islamic poetry or
traditional Arabic narrative (maqamat).
How can we study this and similar
cases?
 Contrastive
linguistic, text-based
approaches
 Context-based approaches
Contrastive linguistic approaches:
Is that what Shakespeare really
said/meant?
Abdu’s translation of Hamlet is considered
“an awkward translation” marked by such
“deviations from the source text” that it
ends up offering only “a ghostly
resemblance of the original”
(Alshetawi 2000: 78).
Context-based approaches
 Locating
translation in its social context.
 Problem?
•
Unclear notions of ‘social context’: is it
used to mean the class structure, political
structure, or the societal context in which
translators live and work?
• Mechanistic understanding of the relation
between society and translation: causeeffect relation.
Bourdieu’s sociology: Multiple
contextualisation 1
Social
space
Field of
Drama
translation
Bourdieu’s sociology: Multiple
contextualisation 2
Theatre
Production
Literary
Production
Drama
Pg. T Translation
Sg.T
Read.
Perf.
Readership
Drama Translation
Criticism
Spectatorship
Bourdieu’s sociology: Translation
as a field of cultural production
The field:
1.
Structure
2.
Dynamics
1. Structure of the field of (drama)
translation:
1.

Options (positions) available for producers of translation in the
field:
Range of themes, motifs, genres, linguistic and aesthetic
practices;

Modes of production: translation for publishing vs. translation for
stage; publishing with government vs. private publishers;
publishing in a series for established writers/translators vs. a
series for marginal writers/translators

Options are culture-specific: naming theatre in the Arabic tradition
(Ibn Yunis’s translation of ‘tragedy’ and ‘comedy’ into madih and
hija’; the connotations of the term riwaya)
2. Producers and co-producers of
translation:
 Dispositions, orientations, world-views
(the outcome of socialization;
professional training) (habitus).
 Resources (cultural and social capitals).
 Trajectory: successive decisions taken in
the field and other adjacent fields.
Structure of the field:
3. Presupposed ideas (doxa).
2. Dynamics of the field of (drama)
translation.

1.
2.
Struggle between:
Profit-oriented and prestige-oriented
translators.
Established translators and newcomers.
Another case of drama translation?
Khalil Mutran’s translation of
Othello (1912)
1911/1912: Structural changes in
the field of drama translation
 A new
generation of drama translators.
 Middle-class salaried employees.
 Published drama translation becomes an
option.
 Achieving distinction vis-à-vis the early
generation of drama translators
A Translation of Makbith in Arabic verse
Makbith
Authored by Shakespeare, the greatest of the English Poets
The play of Makbith
Arabized in verse from the English language by Muhammad ‘Iffat
Our Arabization is dedicated to the whole world, to authors, poets and
scholars.
It is especially dedicated to the honourable scholar and distinguished
relative, Tabūz Zada Husayn Rushdī Pasha, Foreign Minister of the
Egyptian Government
3 December 1911
Muhammad ‘Iffat
Son of the late Khalīl Pasha ‘Iffat
Printed in al-Muqattam printing house, Egypt, 1911
Muhammad Hamdi’s translation of
Julius Caesar (1912)
Mutran’s Othello (1912)
 Classical
literary Arabic as a strategic
choice.
 Choice
is politically justified.
“By God, if I could put my hands on the
vernacular, I would have killed it
unremorsefully, and this I would have done
in revenge for a matchless past glory…
and for a nation whose unity had been
shattered by its vernaculars”. (Mutran
1912: 8, my translation)
Arabization as reclamation
 Arabizing
the play:
“I approached this play to arabize it, as if I
were retrieving it into its origin”. (Mutran
1912: 8).
 Shifting of positions between translation
and original.
 Arabizing/reclaiming the name of the title
hero.
 And Arabizing….
“In Shakespeare there is definitely
something of an Arab…in all he writes, in
general, there is something Bedouin,
something that anchors itself to the free,
genuine human instinct”. (Mutran 1912: 78, my translation)
Othello’s discourse
 Highly
classical Arabic; almost archaic
diction; stylized structures.
 The Venetian Senate scene: the
seemingly powerless Arab warrior is
powerful with…language.
Shakespeare:
Othello: And little of this great world can I
speak
More than pertains to feats of broil and
battle,
And little shall I grace my cause
In speaking for myself. (Othello. I.iii, 87-90)
Mutran:
Utayl: Apart from the feats of broil and battle,
I find little that my tongue can utter of the
conditions of this huge world, and if I
speak for myself, I cannot sweeten my
defence, and there is no need to worry
about the effect of my rhetorical devices
on you. (Mutrān 1912: 29-30, emphasis
added, my translation).
Mutran’s Pan-Arabism is secular
and inclusive
 Removing
references to religions, heathen
gods, Christian oaths.
 Removing
negative references to
ethnicities.
 Secular
Pan-Arabism in public space
Discourses on secular PanArabism in the social space
“Some might think that the purpose of the Arab unity…is
an Islamic unity, parallel to what existed during the apex
of Islamic civilization and that the aim of reviving the
language is the strengthening of the Islamic element and
the re-establishment of the Islamic Empire…The Arabic
unity has become something different from what it used
to be. It comprises today all those who speak Arabic,
regardless of their different denominations and
religions…the goal at which we are aiming must be
limited to the revival of the language disregarding
denominations. If anything else is intended, we will
regress to the darkness of the Middle Ages”.
(Jurji Zaydan, al-Hilal, vol. xv, 405-6)
