T H E A R T S & C U L T U R E The most important event of my early life was the suicide of my brother when I had just turned 21; he was 19. It was An Interview with mainly because of this event that I left England as soon as I went down from Cambridge – I just couldn’t bear to be Dick Davis there. And leaving at that age meant that a life out of England seemed to become Professor and Translator more or less inevitable for me. I feel a stranger when I go there now. As I do in the US too of course. I’m English, wholly part one so I think, but my England is the England of my adolescence, so not I’m not English as England now is.

What attracted you to Iran and Persian culture? Did the national past time of poetry have anything to do with it? What makes Persian culture different from that of other nations?

I went to Iran serendipitously. I had a friend who was working there on an ar- chaeological dig, and he absolutely loved it. He suggested I come out for a year and that we share an apartment and both teach English somewhere; it was fairly easy to get a job doing that then. So I found a job Brian Appleton at Tehran University, sponsored by the British Council, and went. After the year was up my friend went back to England, Tell us about your childhood, English teacher. His name is John Gibson; but I stayed, mainly because by that time perhaps a unique incident or he’s in his 80s now, and like me he moved I had met the person who later became experience that influenced to the US. He lives in Indiana, and we my wife. you in your career path and see each other once or twice a year. In a The importance of poetry in Persian did you have a role model way I owe him everything “professional” culture was certainly something that I or someone who had a large that has ever happened to me, as those found extremely attractive once I discov- influence on you? Which of things certainly wouldn’t have happened ered it; it was one of the many things that your parents was Italian and if I hadn’t gone to Cambridge, or they held me there. As for characterizing Per- where did you grow up? wouldn’t have happened in the same ways. sian culture, this is terribly hard to do in a Obviously I’m extremely grateful to him sentence or two without stereotyping and I was born in Portsmouth, on the for all he did for me. caricaturing, which of course we emphati- south coast of England, in 1945. We Neither of my parents was Italian. cally don’t want to do. I can perhaps say moved around quite a lot when I was My mother’s mother came from near that I’m constantly struck by the cultural young, but I spent much of my childhood Bellinzona, the border area between Italy parallels between Italy, where I also lived and adolescence in Yorkshire, again on the and Switzerland, and culturally she was for a while, and Iran. Both cultures have coast. I love the sea, and miss it, living in wholly Italian, so my mother was you extremely chaotic pastspolitically, with the mid west as I now do. A very impor- could say half Italian. My grandmother foreigners periodically marauding over tant person in my life was my high school was brought to England as a teenager to be the country and grabbing bits of it; both English teacher. It was fairly unthinkable a chambermaid in a hotel, before the First cultures are the heirs of great empires in for someone from my kind of background World War; she was virtually sold in fact, antiquity and aren’t going to forget that to go to Oxford or Cambridge at that time, by her parents. It was a sad awful story, fact; both have the most marvelous artistic but he strongly encouraged me to try, and and her presence in my childhood was a heritage of which they are very conscious to my and I think everyone else’s aston- very dour dark fraught one, through no and very proud; the cities of both cultures ishment I got a place at King’s College, fault of her own of course. Only after her have a wonderfully vibrant street life, full Cambridge. This literally changed my life, death did I begin to realize what she must of jokes and put downs and spectacle; mainly by the way it so vastly broadened have gone through, the violence that had both cultures have elaborately distinctive my sense of life’s– in particular my life’s been done to her psyche and the way this cuisines and a love of good food; both - possibilities. I’m still in touch with that had affected her whole sad life. cultures have a very powerful religious

Summer 2014 29 T H E A R T S & C U L T U R E establishment that spreads its authority How is it that you did not Western world, or even just the English- into almost every aspect of life, public or take an interest in translating speaking world, it’s obviously the case private, but is still shrugged off by large contemporary Persian poets that it’s, as you put it, “largely ignorant of sections of the populace; both cultures like Forough Farrokzhad or classic Persian literature and poetry”. In a place great importance on not losing face, Akhavan-Sales? way, that’s ok, because there are an awful in appearing admirable before others; both lot of cultures in the world and one can cultures have a rather obsessive sense of I mentioned my love of the past, and only take on board so much – given how honor centered on the family;both cultures especially the medieval past. Coupled with long we tend to be here, there just isn’t love conspiracy theories, and so on, and this, I fell in love with poetry very early time to read all the major works by all the so on. And if anyone feels that there has on, and because so much of my mental life major authors of every culture. But if you never been in Italy anything like the early as a child was taken up with pre-modern become interested in a culture’s literature, years of the Islamic Republic in Iran, I rec- things it was pre-modern poetry I mainly and its great works seem to you to be re- ommend that he/she read about the (thank- read and learned by heart and, when I ally marvelous, easily equal to anything in fully brief) ascendancy of Savonarola in started to write verse myself, imitated. your own culture’s literature, naturally you 15th century Florence, or the activities of Of course as an adolescent I learned that want to proselytize for them a bit. When the Roman Inquisition from the 16th to free verse existed, and I duly read a lot I was young I devoured Arthur Waley’s the 18th centuries. of it – the canonic authors as it were (I translations from Chinese and Japanese; was a total nerd as a young person, I was I thought they were wonderful, and they What caused you to take such always, always, always reading) and even opened up a whole new, enchanting (and an interest in the medieval tried to write a bit of free verse when I largely medieval…) world for me. They period? Is there something was about 17 or 18, but I quickly realized, are much criticized now, but his achieve- romantic or nostalgic about “This is not for me”. It seemed so thin and ment in drawing attention to literatures the pre-industrial age when meager, and also so narcissistic, compared that were hardly known in any depth in the fealty and chivalry were of with the richness of the poetry of the past. English-speaking world is unassailable. paramount importance and The urge to be like one’s peers, and un- He made available to us an astonishing and mysticism flourished? like one’s predecessors, is one I’ve never very beautiful world we’d barely heard really shared in any deep way,although of, and later scholars may quibble and I’ve always, from early childhood on, like all young people I flirted with it for a nuance what he did, but his achievement been fascinated by the past, in the sense of while. The notion that you can’t write in a was a great one. When I started my PhD wondering what people’s lives were like particular way because it is unfashionable in medieval Persian my advisor asked me “then”. How like us were they, and how / old-fashioned, or that you must write in why I wanted to do this, and I answered, unlike us? I think a lot of children feel this a particular way because it’s fashionable “I want to be the Arthur Waley of Persian (Whatever were our parents like before we / avant-garde, has always seemed silly to literature”. I’m not of course, or anything were here? That kind of thing). me. Equally silly to me has always been like it, but his achievement has remained And then the further back the ques- the notion that poetry is most interest- a kind of beacon for me, an unattainable tion takes you, the more mysterious, and ing when it breaks pre-existing rules. It’s model. for that very reason the more fascinating, the easiest thing in the world to break a the lives become. As a child the only lan- rule; it’s far harder to keep to one and You are one of a handful of guage I could read was (of course, in my still do something that seems real / true British Persophiles starting case) English, and the furthest back you to you, and which is, perhaps, authenti- with Edward G. Brown an can go reading English is to the medieval cally “you”. “The fascination of what’s amazing individual. Do you period; there isn’t English before then. difficult”, as Yeats says. You write, and have any thoughts or insights And so the medieval period became quite translate, the kind of thing you want to about him? What about Rich- an obsessive interest early on, and it’s just read, and free verse wasn’t what I was ard Burton? About the Shirley stayed that way for me. Later I learned interested in reading. Most contemporary brothers.... other languages, or tried to anyway, and Persian poetry, like that by the two poets read translations, and my horizons wid- you mention, is in free verse, so it doesn’t Every English speaker who is seri- ened, but the medieval period has always really attract me. I’m less doctrinaire ously interested in Persian literature is been where I’ve felt the strongest tug of about this than I used to be, and there is profoundly indebted to Brown, who re- intellectual, empathetic, interest (although some (not a lot, but some) free verse that ally established Persian literature as an most medieval societies must have been, I can now read with pleasure, but it’s not academic subject in the English-speaking for most people, really appalling – “nasty, at all where my heart is. world. Given the excessively jingoistic brutish, and short” as Hobbes says - to live period in which he lived, his sympathy in, by our standards and expectations), Did you feel that the world for non-European cultures, and for Persian and all this comes from my childhood I was largely ignorant of classic culture in particular, is a truly extraordi- think. My favorite poet in English, for ex- Persian literature and poetry nary act of sustained, life-long intellectual ample, by a long way, is Chaucer. And as I and were/are you on a mission and emotional empathy. And his multi- grew up this interest in medieval England to educate the world in that volume History of Persian Literature is morphed, as it seemed naturally, into an regard? the bedrock text on the subject, at least in interest in non-English medieval societies English, even though much of its schol- and literatures. Well, if by “the world” we mean the arship has been revised by subsequent

30 No. 74 T H E A R T S & C U L T U R E scholars, and some of its judgments can precedent of such works in Persian, all the especially hard because I only translate seem a bit eccentric (bravely eccentric, grammatical examples he gives are taken works I really love (I don’t see any point like his dislike of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, from medieval / classical poetry, which in translating things I feel half-hearted but still eccentric). But, as the adage has it, makes it a very charming read). One of about, especially when there’s so much I “if we see better it’s because we stand on my most treasured possessions is a first feel whole-hearted about). But if I abso- his shoulders.”He was at Pembroke Col- edition of Jones’s Persian Grammar. The lutely have to choose one, I must say that lege, Cambridge, and I’m lucky enough to Shirley brothers are, I agree, absolutely I have a special affection for Gorgani’s have been shown round his rooms there; I fascinating – and Bravo!that you got to Vis and Ramin. This is not an especially was delighted to learn that his rooms had act one of them in a movie! One of the admired work in Iran itself, but for me previously been the Cambridge home of longest of my own poems is a monologue it is an absolutely extraordinary poem, the poet-scholar Thomas Gray (the Elegy by Teresia Shirley, who was more or less a unique in its beauty and charm, and one in A Country Churchyard Gray), who was present given by Shah Abbas to Sir Robert of the truly great love stories of the world. equally averse to jingoism and sympathet- Shirley, to be his wife. As you know, she I have never felt so close to an author as ic to non-English cultures and literatures; was an extraordinary woman, and against when I was translating Gorgani’s poem; a nice coincidence of minds across the all odds, as we might think, the marriage almost as if he were spookily in the room centuries in that cozy little wood-paneled was apparently a very happy one; after Sir with me at times, particularly when I was space. Robert’s death she became a Catholic nun, translating in the silence of the night. There were people before Brown of and died in Rome. An incredible life! It’s But then there is marvelous, ungraspable course, though none, with perhaps one true there haven’t been that many rabid Hafez – a poet who, as a friend has phrased exception, as distinguished as him. For ex- Persophiles from England, but in general it, “remains always just out of reach”. If I ample, there was quite a lot of translation they’re an interesting bunch,who’ve led had to characterize the difference between done from Persian into English throughout interesting lives. my relationship with Gorgani’s work and the 19th century, mostly by people with with Hafez’s, I feel that Gorgani perhaps connections to the British Raj in India. Which of the medieval poets welcomes me, and does so with a kind of The exams for the Raj included papers or authors is your favorite and complicit affection, but that Hafez is a in Persian, and so anyone who wanted why? Which is your favorite perpetual, very fascinating, tease; indeed to do well in that world had to learn at work? part of the great allure of Hafez’s poetry is least a modicum of the language, which that so much is shown, but that so much is meant that you get lots of bored army of- This is a very hard, perhaps impossi- also withheld. He is absolutely not going ficers and Indian civil servants translating ble, question to answer. The works I know to be pinned down. the odd Persian text in their spare time, best are naturally enough the ones I’ve of which some of them seemed to have translated (there’s nothing like translating What are your thoughts an inordinate amount. And then there’s a work to ensure that you know it very on Sufiism? Tell us about Edward FitzGerald, someone for whom thoroughly indeed, or at least you should translating Rumi, Attar,Hafez I have enormous affection, in so far as if you do your job properly) and to choose and El Ghazali and what one can have affection for someone dead between those would be like asking a par- you think of them....Nizami’s long before one was born, who put Persian ent to choose between his children. It’s Divan. poetry on the map in England, popularly at least, with his 1859 publication of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. You mention Richard Burton; it’s a moot point whether he knew any Persian at all, and probably he didn’t. The one translation from Persian published under his name, a version of Sa’di’s Golestan, was in reality done by another scholar, Ed- ward Rehatsek. It was probably published under Burton’s name to boost sales, as Burton’s works were known to include lots of titillating sexual details about the cul- tures he was concerned with, often in his footnotes. Rehatsek didn’t do this, so there were probably some very disappointed buyers of “Burton’s” Golestan. The one scholar before Brown, whom we can perhaps put on a par with him, is the 18th century linguist Sir William Jones – the first man to postulate the ex- istence of an Indo-European family of languages - who published the first Per- sian grammar in English (following the

Summer 2014 31 T H E A R T S & C U L T U R E Another very difficult question! He’s more than a bit of a bully, in spiritual were, precisely, dogmatic. Now, whether When I was young, before I ever went to terms, and this can occasionally leave me Rumi “really” believed in the kind of open Iran, I was interested in medieval Euro- cold or irritated. Also his reputation in come-one come-all sentiments of some of pean mysticism, and read a fair number of the West as a kind of catch-allwelcomer his lyrics, or in the dogmatic exclusiveness its most famous texts (The Cloud of Un- of travelers on all spiritual paths really of some parts of his Masnavi, is hard to knowing, Dionysius the Areopagite, that ignores important aspects of his writings say, and perhaps it’s an irrelevant question. kind of thing …). When I started to learn (I think he himself would be appalled by (We can see a similar kind of genre-driven Persian it didn’t take me long of course to it, could he know how he is seen nowadays content in medieval Persian love poetry; realize that a great deal of Persian poetry by most of his western readers). narrative love poems are about hetero- has a Sufi / mystical tinge to it, and some His major work, the Masnavi, has sexual pairs of lovers, lyric love poems of it is all-out Sufi, as it were. My inter- a number of passages condemning other are taken to be about exclusively male est in mysticism continued after my wife religions, including Judaism, Christianity, couples (unless there is internal evidence and I left Iran, at the end of 1978, and I and Buddhism (which, like most medieval to the contrary, which is very rare); some even edited a little volume of the poems Persian poets, he confuses with Hindu- poets write both kinds of poem, and what- of the 17th century mystical poet Thomas ism) and their adherents. Now you might their own sexual preferences were seems Traherne, whose work I really admired say that this is just par for the course for largely irrelevant, the gender of the lovers very much (and still do). My wife Afkham his time, what do you expect? But Attar is decided by the genre in which the poet and I decided to translate Attar’s Manteqal doesn’t say such things (Attar is explicitly happens to be writing at a given time). Tayr mainly because we thought it was a sympathetic to other religions, and in the Given this it’s very hard to say whether text that could appeal to people from very Valley of Insight section of the Manteqal Rumi “really” believed in the latitudinar- different backgrounds, but also to some Tayr he says that each person reaches truth ian mysticism of his lyrics or in the much extent because we found its Sufi content following his own path, and this is fine, more dogmatic, Islam-centered, mysti- very attractive. – “Our insight comes to us by different cism of his Masnavi, but my own feeling is Over time I became rather weary of signs / One prays in mosques and one in that if he had to decide he would probably mysticism, both in its Christian and Sufi idols’ shrines …” etc). Neither does Hafez come down on the side of dogma (he’s forms, and I now think of myself more or condemn other religions; he too explicitly much more specific when he talks about less as an atheist. When I read mystical says that, if the heart is “true”, there is an dogma, as if the details of belief matter verse now it is really the poetry that I am equivalence between faiths.I think this is to him). For someone who doesn’t share interested in, rather than the Sufism. Still, partly to do with the personal backgrounds the dogma this is a barrier, one that isn’t a kind of respect for the spiritual serious- of the poets, and partly to do with poetic there in the work of either Attar or Hafez. ness of someone like Attar (or Traherne) genres. Rumi was trained as a theologian Don’t get me wrong, Rumi is obviously has remained with me, and in fact has and,despite everything that is said to have the most marvelous poet, a truly great begun to increase again over the years I happened with Shams-e Tabrizi, he has poet; but he’s less sympathetic as a poet think. That seriousness is just so humanly retained that sense of the importance of for me than either Hafez or Attar – I can moving, and even an avowed atheist can- dogma in his writings; neither Hafez nor find both his tone in many passages, and not wholly discount, I feel, the wisdom Attar were people whose profession was his didacticism, antipathetic (as one might gained by living a life with that kind of the religious life, and dogma means much acknowledge that Tolstoy is the most mar- focus and intensity. So I’m very drawn less to them. velous novelist, though still frequently to, and really respect, what I take to be The genre question is interesting; a finding both his tone and his preachiness authentic (a very loaded word, but it will lot of lyric poems in Persian celebrate a very off-putting). have to do) spiritual exploration / commit- kind of come-one come-all mystical reli- I’ve hardly read Al-Ghazali, and the ment, but I remain outside it; it’s not the giosity, and Rumi has a number of such bits I have read don’t do a lot for me. He’s world in which I live, or in which I think poems (and his popular Western reputa- an argumentative so-and-so, and I don’t I could live. tion largely rests on moments in poems of read literature to be argued with. He’s not Of the other writers you mention the this nature, and what we might call their really writing literature, he’s writing the- one of whom I have read the most, apart new-age extrapolation). But his didactic ology and philosophy, sometimes thinly from Hafez, is Rumi. I have problems poem, the Masnavi, has far fewer mo- disguised as a sort of quasi-literature. I ad- with Rumi. Both Attar and Hafez are poets ments like this, and it includes moments mire Nezami, but he takes an awfully long who admit ignorance, who say constantly when dogma is quite scathingly exclusive time to say anything, because his poetry is (especially Hafez) “I don’t know, we can’t of other faiths. In the Masnavi ignorance so extraordinarily self-consciously deco- know”, and this is one of the things that can be forgiven (as in the lovely story of rative (he’s quite like the British Elizabe- makes me trust them, and makes them the shepherd who wants to comb God’s than poet Edmund Spencer in this way); sympathetic to me (because I don’t know hair and catch his lice etc., who is reproved his poetry is very charming, but it’s very either, and like Hafez I really doubt any- for his blasphemy by Moses, and then much, for me, an incidental often rather one can truly claim to “know” about spiri- God reproves Moses for his reproof), but glittery charm (one is more impressed by tual matters, though some might be further adherence to the “wrong” faiths cannot. an image’s brilliance than by what is actu- along, as it were, than others). Now Rumi It’s partly poetic genre that dictates ally being said). I may well be wrong of is very sure he knows, and by God he’s such a division; Persian lyric poems tra- course. I have a feeling I should give Ne- going to tell you and you’d better listen ditionally were fairly latitudinarian about zami more time, as so many people whose and take his word for it. He hectors his religion, but long didactic / dogmatic judgments I trustthink so highly of him. audience; I really don’t like to be hectored. poems, like the Masnavi, were not; they to be continued

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