University of Oregon The Arabization of Othello Author(s): Ferial J. Ghazoul Source: Comparative Literature, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Winter, 1998), pp. 1-31 Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of the University of Oregon Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1771217 . Accessed: 16/07/2011 13:22 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=uoregon. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of Oregon and Duke University Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Comparative Literature. http://www.jstor.org WINTER 1998 Volume 50, Number 1 FERIALJ. GHAZOUL ?CC?9 The Arabization of Othello WORK OF SHAKESPEARE touches chords of Arab NOsensibility and identity so much as the tragedy of Othello.For one thing, the hero is a Moor and therefore an "Arab." Further- more, he is not simply an Arab character in an Arab context; he is an Arab in Europe, necessarily evoking all the complex confronta- tions of Self/Other in a context of power struggle. It is not surpris- ing, then, to learn that the first translation and production of a Shakespearean play in Arabic was the Othelloperformed in Egypt in 1884 (Badawi, "Shakespeare" 183). I shall explore the history of Othelloin the Arab World by examining not only its translation and interpretation in a different cultural context, but also and more significantly its manner of assimilation into the Arab literary con- sciousness, as well as its infiltration of Arab imagination and the Arab frame of imaginative reference as exemplified in adapta- tions, incorporations, and allusions to Othello in Arabic literary works.' Othello offers a special case of relations among literatures. It is the product of an acculturation involving a double circulation of the Other and a complex intertwining that combines the effect of an African/Arab (i.e., Othello and his background) on European imagination and, in a reversed way, its impact on Arabs/Africans. This exchange in both directions is necessarily modified by the perception of the Other and modes of literary production of the time. Through Othello, Shakespeare presented an outsider in Eu- rope; when Arabs look into the play, their point of view entails seeing the Self facing its "image" as delineated by the Other. In such a case, there is always the temptation not only to adapt and 1 Unless otherwise stated, all citations from Arabic and French are my transla- tion. Titles of Arabic works are given in standard transliteration, followed in parentheses by the English translation. I am grateful in collecting the material for this study to the kindness of Khalida Said, Thurayya Al-Jindi, Emile Jirjis, and 'Abd Al-Ghani Da'ud. COMPARATIVELITERATURE/2 adjust the borrowed product to local conditions, but also to "cor- rect" and revise the presence of one's own "type" in the foreign text-to reclaim and "re-authenticize" the image. For Arabs, Othelloposes two issues in reception theory: the dis- turbing question of the alien Other undertaking to represent the Self, and the even more problematic question of defining the Self and redrawing its contours, since the very perception of the Self is a function of ideological priorities, and its representation is a function of artistic choices. It is easier to point out misrepresenta- tions than to offer accurate representations. In Othello, Shakespeare does not simply present a portrait of an individual Moor in Venice; he presents a portrait of intercultural relations as conceived by an English Renaissance artist, and therefore his por- trait is subjected both to the ideological field of the author and to the exigencies of his art. The adaptations of, and reactions to, the work in Arab circles often reveal the level of sensitivity of the "in- terpreters" towards the intricate issues of ideology and art. Since the relationship of the modern Arab World to modern Eu- rope is based neither on equality nor on fraternity, but on depen- dency and subjugation, the literary "dialogue" between the two is likely to be sharp and polemical. The history of a text like Othello will necessarily show a variety of such reactions, starting with plea- sure derived from the presence of the Self in the canon of the Other, to anger at the deformation of the Self in a distorting mir- ror. This study does not attempt to survey all the instances of inter- pretive reactions to Othello among Arabs that can be witnessed in the choices made by translators, critics and creative writers' adap- tations and allusions to the work, but instead selects illuminating cases of the multifaceted operation of the "Arabization" of the work and the underlying efforts to repossess a foreign literary product centering around an indigenous hero. Translation The first translations of Shakespeare's plays were undertaken at a time when a nascent theatrical movement was taking place in the Arab world. Thus the early renderings of the dramatic works were concerned with performance and audience, i.e., with the oral and lived experience rather than the textual and academic aspects of the work. The most celebrated and best-known translation of Othello is that of Khalil Mutran (1872-1949), the Lebanese-born poet who immigrated to Egypt. He translated Othelloat the specific request of George Abyad-actor, director and head of the theatri- cal troupe known by his name-who asked for an Arabic render- ing of the Shakespearean drama of the Moor. Mutran was reluc- tant at first, but when he attended Abyad's performance of ARABIZATIONOF OTHELLO/3 Sophocles' OedipusRex he was sufficiently impressed to embark on the translation (Mutran 3). The play was performed in the Cairo Opera House on March 30, 1912. Abyad had returned to Egypt the year before, after a stay in France where he had learned the fashionable mannerist French style of acting. This style did not contribute to the success of the play (Adham 299). Mutran's trans- lation, which was to become the translation of reference for the coming six or seven decades, was essentially based not on the origi- nal, but on a French version of Othelloby Georges Duval (Badawi, "Shakespeare" 189). The characters in Mutran's translation, apart from Othello, kept their original names, approximating the French pronuncia- tion. The protagonist's name, however, was changed to 'Utayl, on the grounds that it had to be an Arab name, not a European name, since he was a Moor. Thus Othello, pronounced by Mutran as Otello-following the French reading-was seen as the deforma- tion of a possible Arabic name. Mutran argues in his introduction to the play that there are two Arabic names that could have been the original name: 'Atallah (literally, "gift of God") or 'Utayl (the diminutive form of 'Atil, which means "he who is unadorned by jewelry"). He concludes that it must be the latter, since the Arabic nominative declension of the name is "'Utaylu," which phoneti- cally echoes "Othello" (3-4). Mutran's argument handles the philological dimension as well as the cultural dimension: it dis- misses the first option ('Atallah) because the name is not found in the Maghrib where Othello comes from. Furthermore, the second option ('Utayl) is probable, Mutran argues, because diminutives are endearing forms of naming, such as the Arabs often gave to blacks, including our protagonist. Mutran's version is presented to readers as Arabization (ta'rib), and not as translation (tarjamah), and the translator devotes a lengthy paragraph to explaining how Shakespeare himself seems to reflect the Arab spirit-thus Mutran not only appropriates the protagonist of the play, but also naturalizes its author. He does not appeal to the "universal" dimension of Shakespeare, but argues specifically on the grounds of the English bard's Arab rhetorical sensibility: In Shakespeare, there is doubtless something Arabic, and it is more evident than in, say, Victor Hugo. Has he read our language or was it transmitted to him in some accurate translation? I don't know. But between him and us there are puz- zling and numerous common features. He has our audacity for metaphor and its manipulation. And he has the same predilection for abrupt changes without prior preparation of preliminaries, pushing you suddenly from one intention to an- other, leaving you to ponder and find the link. He also has our infatuation with hyperbole which is probably used and sensed by only those writers and readers who have imaginative intensity and defiance, as it is often with Orientals and espe- cially Arabs. On the whole, there is in the writing of Shakespeare a Bedouin spirit which is expressed in the continuous return to innate nature. (7-8) COMPARATIVELITERATURE/4 Besides dwelling on the affinities of Shakespeare with the Arabs and restoring the "correct" Arabic name of the hero, Mutran is also concerned with stylistic issues.