Coleman Barks Versions of Rumi

in the USA
Omid Azadibougar and Simon Patton

Jalaleddin Mohammad Balkhi (12071273), known as Molana or

Molavi in Persian and as Rumi in English, was a thirteenth-century
Sufi leader and poet born in Balkh and buried in Konya, located
respectively in todays Tajikistan and Turkey. His major works are
Divan-e Ghazaliyat-e Shams and Masnavi-e Manavi (hereafter the
Masnavi), both composed in Persian. The former is a collection of
ghazals, running to 26,000 couplets; the latter, his magnum opus,
comprises a massive six books. Rumi took over as the leader of a Sufi
sect after the death of his father in 1231, and turned to poetry after
his encounter with the enigmatic Shams-e Tabriz in 1244. His work
enjoys very high prestige in the canon of Persian classical literature;
the Masnavi has been described as the Persian Koran.
Rumis works were translated into European languages by numerous
translators during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was,
however, the publication of Coleman Barks English versions in
the 1980s that popularized Rumis poetry, particularly in the USA,
bringing him unprecedented fame in the West. This popularity has
led to contradictory responses: the translations have been criticized for
various reasons (see below), but scholarly response has been to welcome
the popularity as evidence of an other Islam, far removed from the
The authors warmly thank the editor of Translation and Literature and the anonymous
reviewers for their constructive comments. Translations from Persian and Latin are ours,
unless otherwise indicated. The transliteration of Persian words follows the scheme of the
International Society for Iranian Studies.

Translation and Literature, 24 (2015), 17289

DOI: 10.3366/tal.2015.0200
Edinburgh University Press
www.euppublishing.com/journal/tal

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rhetoric of fundamentalism.1 Remarking that Rumis influence in the
West [is] unmatched by any other Muslim author, Cyrus Mansoori
argues that at a time of suspicion and distrust, a person who can speak
to both Muslims and the West is of great value.2
Barks has no knowledge of the Persian language: his versions
of Rumi are based on Reynold Nicholsons and Arthur Arberrys
previously published translations, complemented by literals provided
by John Moyne.3 This is the reason why we generally refer to them here
as versions rather than as translations. Barks came to know Rumi
in 1976, when Robert Bly showed him translations of Rumis work
made by Arberry, and told him, in a memorable phrase, that these
poems needed to be released from their cages. In 1981 they jointly
published a volume of Rumi translations entitled Night and Sleep; in
1986, Bly produced a second without Barks assistance, When Grapes
Turn to Wine. After that, Barks went on to produce further versions of
Rumi, while Bly promoted them in several anthologies, including The
Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart (1992) and The Soul is Here for its Own Joy:
Sacred Poems from Many Cultures (1999). Barks versions of the Masnavi
appear in four books: Delicious Laughter (1989), Feeling the Shoulder of the
Lion (1991), One-handed Basket Weaving (1991), and The Essential Rumi
(1995). In addition to these dedicated collections, the Masnavi versions
also appear in some of his other Rumi books, including Open Secret:
Versions of Rumi (1984), We Are Three (1987), and This Longing (1988).
There are several indicators of the success of Barks versions of Rumi.
First of all, as of the year 2014 his books have sold over two million
copies worldwide, and been translated into twenty-three languages.4
This is at a time when winners of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry may
sell at most 10,000 copies of their book in the American market. What
is more, numerous articles have appeared in the mainstream Englishlanguage media since 1999 explaining how a Muslim mystic is the
bestselling poet in the USA and speculating as to why Rumi surpasses
every other poet in terms of sales.5 At the same time, in spite, or
1
Elena Furlanetto, The Rumi Phenomenon: Orientalism and Cosmopolitanism, the
Case of Elif Shafaks The Forty Rules of Love, European Journal of English Studies, 17 (2013),
20113 (p. 203).
2
Cyrus Mansoori, An Islamic Language of Toleration: Rumis Criticism of Religious
Persecution, Political Research Quarterly, 63 (2010), 24356 (p. 243).
3
This was the case at least for The Essential Rumi (1995) and Open Secret: Versions of Rumi
(1999).
4
Jane Ciabaratti, Why is Rumi the Bestselling Poet in the US?, BBC Culture, 14
April 2014, < www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140414-americas-best-selling-poet > (accessed
15 August 2014).
5
John Ryle, Madonna Loves a Whirling Dervish, Guardian, 15 February 1999, < www.
theguardian.com/Columnists/Column/0,5673,247536,00.html > (accessed 15 August 2014);

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perhaps because, of the Islamic element, the popularity of Rumis
poetry was unaffected by 9/11.6 In fact, the impact of Barks versions
of Rumi has been such that UNESCO made 2007 the Year of Rumi.
A year before that, Barks had been awarded an honorary doctorate in
Persian Language and Literature by the University of Tehran.7
Rumi first rose to fame in the USA after 1979, a turning point in
the political and cultural relations between Iran and the USA. More
importantly, this happened in spite of the one and unequal8 system
of world literature being weighted in favour of the so-called central
languages. This case is even more curious given that literary circulation
usually favours prose forms rather than poetry. It is also interesting that
Rumis profile in the West is highest in the USA, despite the existence
of translations into languages other than English. Hence numerous
questions surround this phenomenon. First of all, what makes Barks
versions so popular? After all, his were not the first translations of
Rumi into English or in the North American context. In fact, the
first American translations of Rumis poetry date back to Emerson in
1867. More recently, in the 1970s and 1980s, writers such as Robert
Duncan, Daniel Liebert, and David Martin also produced versions and
translations.9 Again, if the appeal is Sufism, then why is it Rumi, rather
than any other Persian or Sufi poet, who has become so popular? And
a different sort of question may be implied by these: do Barks versions
represent Rumi and his cultural otherness in an authentic way, or is
there evidence that he has modified Rumis work in order to enhance
its appeal to North American readers?
In what follows, after surveying the reception context for Barks
versions and some critical responses to them, we will examine how
he goes about the task of translation. On the basis of a case study,
we will then identify some of the factors that may help to explain
the appeal of Barks versions. These we will characterize in terms of
William Dalrymple, What Goes Round . . . , Guardian, 5 November 2005, < www.thegua
rdian.com/books/2005/nov/05/featuresreviews.guardianreview26 > (accessed
15
August
2014); Ptolemy Tompkins, Rumi Rules!, Time, 29 October 2002, < http://content.
time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,356133,00.html > (accessed 15 August 2014).
6
Furlanetto, The Rumi Phenomenon, p. 203.
7
Barks and Bly were both present at the ceremony. See Marzieh Kavosi Hosseini, Ruh-e
Rumi dar Kalbad-e Barks: Gozareshi az Marasem-e Eta-ye Doktora-ye Eftekhari be Coleman
Barks (Rumis Soul in Barks Body: A Report from Coleman Barks Honorary Doctorate
Ceremony), Sokhan-e Eshq, 29 (1385 = 2006), 10813.
8
Franco Moretti, Conjectures on World Literature, New Left Review, 1 (2000), 568
(p. 55).
9
For a comprehensive history of the translation of Rumi in the US, see Franklin Lewis,
Rumi: Past and Present, East and West: The Life, Teachings and Poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi (Oxford,
2000).

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cultural entrepreneurship and the profound discordance between the
logic of late capitalism and spiritual values.
Turning first to the issue of reception, Rumis popularity has often been
explained by reference to extra-textual and extra-translation factors.
In their effort to explain the Rumi phenomenon, scholars have often
argued that certain entirely independent ideologies and aspirations
have contributed to the appeal of Rumis poetry in the USA. A major
source of this appeal is Sufism. Furlanetto reads the popularity as
the culmination of a much older cultural dialogue between American
literature and Sufi poetry (p. 202). In a similar spirit and as early
as 1976, Farzans study of Whitmans A Persian Lesson examines the
impact of Sufi poetry on American poets, commenting that Whitmans
poem is not an isolated case, the reflection of a brief interest in Sufism,
without relevance to the rest of the poets work.10
These commentators are far from being alone, but we should
cast this net wider, and go beyond Sufism: the wider relevance of
spirituality to Rumis appeal is apparent given that the USA is not at all
unfamiliar with cyclical infatuations with forms of Eastern spirituality
(Furlanetto, p. 202). Spiritual movements from the Transcendentalists
to the New Age existed before Barks translations appeared. More
importantly, there is a persistent connection in America between
spiritual movements and translators of oriental poetry. Emerson,
who in 1867 made the first US versions of Rumi from German
translations, was involved with the Transcendentalist movement, and
Barks considers himself a disciple of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen.11 For this
reason, it is not unlikely that Barks versions benefited to some degree
from an existing interest in forms of spirituality. Nevertheless, even
though the spiritual element is significant, Rumis popularity does not
seem to derive from this factor alone.
The appeal of Rumis poetry has also been explained in terms
of educational and entertainment values and/or its poetic style.
Jawid Mojaddedi lists four innovative factors in Rumis poetry that
contribute to its popularity: it addresses readers directly in the rarelyused second person, it contains an impulse to teach readers, it uses
everyday imagery, and it is optimistic in a poetic tradition that stresses
10
Massud Farzan, Whitman and Sufism: Towards A Persian Lesson, American Literature,
47 (1976), 57282 (p. 582).
11
This relationship is important, and Barks has mentioned it on several occasions as
evidence of his familiarity with Sufism which would, it seems, legitimize his translations:
my relationship with him is the only credential I have to work on Rumis poetry. Hosseini,
Ruh-e Rumi dar Kalbad-e Barks, p. 111.

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unattainability.12 Beyond textual elements, Barks himself relates the
popularity of Rumis poetry to its startling imaginative freshness, to
his sense of humor, and to what, according to his reading, is Rumis
transcending of religious boundaries, a powerful element in his appeal
now.
Such analysis is of course based on general and subjective assertions
rather than on empirical data. For example, when a spiritual hunger
in the USA is invoked to explain the phenomenon, it is difficult to
substantiate that claim by means of relevant data. And if spirituality
is a decisive factor, then why isnt any other Persian or Sufi poet
similarly popular? At the same time, discussing Rumis appeal in
terms of the stylistic features of his poems is not very convincing.
There are, of course, many other popular styles available on the
American market. In short, spiritual appeal or stylistic beauty seem
like reasonable explanations but are not sufficient. Perhaps it might
be more productive to seek such explanations in terms of translation.
Certain features characterize Rumis poetry in its original language and
culture; how far are these reflected in Barks versions? An exclusive
concern with Rumis poetry itself obviously cannot take account of
the way translation can produce variations on it, and this is a factor
of specific relevance to Barks case because, as he himself admits,
intentional formal and linguistic changes have been carried out.13 One
point to note here is that Barks versions tend to transform Rumis
work from a high culture product into a popular culture one. This
means we must treat the new version as part of what it has become, i.e.
popular culture. In other words, the translated version is not merely
high culture with higher sales figures, but is a new entity, and functions
in a field which has its own rules. If the original Rumi has appeal on
account of its spiritual or philosophical values, the popular Rumi may
not necessarily have appeal for the same reasons.
No commentator has been so critical of Barks work as Hassan
Lahouti, an Iranian scholar of Rumi. Lahouti refers to creators of
popular versions of Rumi quite derogatorily as ammeh juyan (the massseekers), among whom Coleman Barks is the most productive.14 He
also describes such writers as charlatans who have been publishing
their incorrect [na-savab] interpretations of Molavis words . . . as a tool
12
In Ciabarattis online BBC article (n. 4), also the source of the ensuing quotations from
Barks in this paragraph.
13
Coleman Barks, Delicious Laughter (Athens, GA, 1990), pp. xxii. This is also evident in
the fact that he chooses to use versions by on the book cover.
14
Hassan Lahouti, Mawlana Rumi Review Vols 1 and 2, Ketab-e Mah-e Adabiyat, 59
(1390 = 2011), 5661 (p. 59).

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for mass deception and as the capital of their own literary commerce
and divine shop-keeping.15 His main criticism of Barks is that he does
not translate from the original Persian, and therefore has very little
familiarity with the culture he translates from, be it classical Persian
literature, Islam, or Sufism.16 Barks, he claims, Americanizes Rumis
poetry to the extent that no traces of the original culture are left in
the text, and what is worse, he commercializes Rumi. In short, Lahouti
argues that Barks versions bear no resemblance whatsoever to Rumis
poetry, either in thematic or stylistic terms:
Coleman Barks . . . draw[s] an American picture of our Iranian Molavi
more in tune with the lack of restraint and dissoluteness of American
culture than with Molana Jalaleddins Islamic knowledge and Iranian
culture. Even though [the] translations have increased Molavis fame in
the West, they have unfortunately no colouring of Islamic and Iranian
Sufism it is as if Molavi were American, born in New York, and trained
in the schools of Dr. Barks, Dr. Chopra and their ilk.17

Another major criticism of Barks translations is that he interprets

Rumi materialistically, and reads the elements of spiritual love in
his poems erotically, thus reducing the divine to the sexual.18 This
distortion has been related to the fact that the translations are indirect.
What aggravates the situation is that in Barks narration physical love
can lead to spiritual love, which is the love of God, prophets and saints.
Instead of presenting the non-sexual concept of love in the Masnavi
as it is, Barks distorts it . . . he pretends that in the Sufi tradition
satisfying the desires of nafs, particularly sexual gratification, is one
of the stages of achieving the divine love.19 But these are not the
only grounds of complaint against Barks. Parsinejad protests that Barks
separates the Sufi concepts of that emancipated Sufi from its historical
15
Hassan Lahouti, Molana Jalaleddin Mohammad (1), Etelaat-e Hekmat va Marefat,
57 (1389 = 2011), 369 (p. 36); Hassan Lahouti, Molana Jalaleddin Mohammad (2),
Etelaat-e Hekmat va Marefat, 58 (1389 = 2011), 369 (p. 36). Note that the phrase divine
shop-keeping (dokkan dari-e ruhani) is odd in Persian, too.
16
Hassan Lahouti, Masnavi dar Orupa va Amrika-ye Emruz (Masnavi in Europe and the
US Today), Bokhara, 15 (1379 = 2000), 31726 (p. 319).
17
Hassan Lahouti, Franklin D. Lewis, Ketab-e Mah-e Adabiyat va Falsafeh, 79
(1383 = 2004), 503 (p. 50).
18
As well as Lahouti, Masnavi in Europe and the US Today, see also on this topic Iraj
Parsinejad, Az Nicholson ta Barks: Negahi bar Tarjomeh-haye Englisi az Adabiyat-e Kelasik-e
Farsi (From Nicholson to Barks: A Look at English Translations of Classical Persian
Literature), Sokhan-e Eshq, 212 (1383 = 2004), 1825 (p. 22); Ali Dehbashi, Seytareh-ye
Manavi Molavi dar Jahan-e Gharb (Molavis Spiritual Dominance in the Western World),
Bokhara, 7 (1378 = 1999), 4046; Franklin Lewis, Rumis Masnavi: Part 5: On Love,
Guardian, 28 December 2009, < www.theguardian.com/profile/franklin-lewis > (accessed 15
August 2014).
19
Parsinejad, From Nicholson to Barks, p. 22.

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and social context and adapts it to the contemporary worlds culture;
Farahzad argues that Barks selections present a specific image of
Molana, which is more entertaining than spiritual or Sufi.20
Barks is aware of the criticisms made of his work, and has responded
to them. When asked in a radio interview to comment on Franklin
Lewis concern about Molavi being divorced from his own culture, he
replied:
Oh, I think Franklin needs to loosen up a little bit. This exclusivity bit
that this was the last prophet, and that the Jews are the chosen people,
and that Jesus is the only begotten son of God, that exclusivity and each
of those religions is dangerous to the health of the planet. I am more in
favor of the health of the planet than I am of placing Rumi back in the
thirteenth century.21

Two observations are in order here. First, there is obviously a clash

between those factors which it is proposed explain Rumis appeal and
those that are given as reasons for complaint about Barks. The appeal
of Rumis poetry is not separable from the translations because Barks
versions have actually led to the popularity of the poems. While some
commentators relate the popularity of Rumis poems to a spiritual
quality which presents a moderate image of Islam in the West, others
argue that Barks work has downplayed the associations between the
poet and both Sufism and Islam. This clash may derive from different
expectations with regard to degrees of spirituality (e.g. maximalist
versus minimalist) in Barks versions. Second, critics of Barks seem
to presuppose a high status for the poet and a sacred value for the
text; that is why they insist on a very specific interpretation of Rumis
poetry. According to this view, the relationship between the translation
and its audience carries two possibilities: either the audience strives to
understand the poet (an upward and positive movement) or the poet is
degraded for the sake of the audience (a downward and negative one).
We will shortly seek to clarify which of these two courses Barks takes.
Despite general criticisms, very few comparisons of the source text
with Barks translations ever seem to have been conducted, formally
at least. The only example we have come across is a study of Barks
translation of a ghazal by his most rigorous critic, Lahouti. Here
Lahouti argues that since the implied love relationship in the ghazal
20
Parsinejad, From Nicholson to Barks, p. 22; Farzaneh Farahzad, Naqd-e Tarjomeh
(Translation Criticism), Bokhara, 62 (1386 = 2007), 4204 (p. 423).
21
Robin Young, Why is the Muslim Mystic, Rumi, Americas Bestselling Poet?, Here and
Now, 18 January 2011, < http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2011/01/18/rumi-poetry > (accessed 15
August 2014).

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is divine, Barks presentation of it in sexual terms is incorrect, even
producing a comic effect. This is a couplet from the ghazal in question:

Har ke beguyadat ze mah abr cheguneh va shavad

Baz gosha, gereh gereh, band-e qaba ke hamchenin

Barks translation reads:

When someone quotes the old poetic image
About the clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
Slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
Of your robe.
Like this?

Acknowledging that Barks rendition of this line has a slight similarity

with the Persian version, Lahouti argues that band-e qaba goshudan
(parting the robe) presents an image of the beloved undressing in
front of the lover. Rumis phrase, however, like others in the ghazal, has
Sufi connotations, and must be understood within the context of its
literary tradition, whereas the translation evokes sexual images which
are incompatible with Iranian and Islamic culture. Barks rendition is,
therefore, a complete distortion of Molanas words to the extent that
the poetic and Sufi imagery has been subverted, Iranian culture has
been eliminated and the interference of American culture is obvious.
Since Barks was not aware of such connotations, he either omits the
relevant images or replaces them with his own fantasy images.22
Lahouti makes a valid point here: when interpreting a Sufi poem, it
is necessary to consider the textual network surrounding it. But where
Lahouti sees interpretations as either right or wrong, we may prefer to
think of them in terms of adequacy. In this sense, Barks reading is not
false, even though from a Sufi point of view it may seem distorted, as
Lahouti puts it. In fact, if we read the couplet (or the whole ghazal, for
that matter) independently of received Sufi ideas, it does have sexual
undertones which could not be more explicit and poetic: just as the
clouds disappear and reveal the white moon, the beloveds qaba (a long
dress covering the whole body) is pushed aside to expose the skin. As
such, the beauty of the beloveds naked body is likened to the beauty of
the moon, emerging from behind the clouds. The sexual reading is no
less tempting when, in the ensuing lines, the beloved is asked for a kiss
and we read of moaning lovers. Whether or not Rumi intended the
lines to be interpreted this way is beside the point; they are strongly
suggestive of sexuality, and Barks take on them seems to this extent
22

Lahouti, Barks and Distortions, pp. 66970.

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legitimate. Again, though, Barks adds a question mark at the end of
the couplet, thereby changing it into a dialogue. His version suggests
a scenario in which a man makes the comment about loosening ones
robe to a woman, and she responds to his suggestion by saying Like
this? In other words, she responds to the sexual nature of the comment
with a direct sexual gesture, undressing in front of the man. This adapts
the text to a contemporary, sexually liberated American setting.
The interpretation of sexual themes plays a part in our case study as
well, which involves a poem from Book Five of the Masnavi, The Maid
and the Mistress Donkey,23 rendered by Barks as On the Importance
of Gourdcrafting (the title is his own invention). The poem we have
selected should serve as an excellent example. The conflict between the
sexual subject matter and the esoteric spiritual meaning is more acute
here; in fact, the poet seems to enjoy the challenge of incorporating
his teaching into an outrageous narrative, and is generally successful in
this aim because the text itself contains ample directions about how the
sexual subject matter is to be read. This, as well as the larger scale and
greater complexity of the text, raises the stakes in translation, forcing
the translator to invent ways to reconcile the popular element with the
spiritual meaning. Finally, the poems structure, and its religious and
literary allusions, allow us to examine the translation from a literary
rather than a merely thematic point of view.
First, a few words on the masnavi form are in order. In Persian poetry,
each couplet (known as a beyt) is made up of two mesras, separated
by a caesura. Many rules regulate the rhythmic and metrical patterns
of each poetic form. The masnavi is defined by three features: all the
couplets in a poem follow the same metrical pattern; every couplet
rhymes; and a couplet does not have to rhyme with adjacent ones. The
rhythms and rhymes of the masnavi form are suited to the didactic ends
of Sufism: since they are easy to memorize, they contributed to the
dissemination of ideas among largely illiterate populations.
The poem tells the story of a maid who has trained her mistress
donkey to have sex with her and has a trick: she uses a gourd to
prevent a fatal penetration. Her mistress finds out about this and
desires to have sex with the donkey herself. She, however, is not aware
of the trick and therefore gets herself killed. The narrative carries a
network of literary, philosophical, and religious allusions. Narrated
in ninety-seven couplets, the story is arranged in five episodes which
23
This is the title by which the poem is celebrated in Persian literature. However, the
original does not make use of a title as such. Instead, it begins with a summary which recounts
the fate of the mistress.

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alternate narrative, descriptive, discursive, and didactic passages. The
episodic structure allows for the interruption of the narrative by means
of digressions which comment on the story as it develops.
The first segment (couplets 130) begins with a description of the
maids act and ends when the jealous mistress sends her away. The
second (couplets 3149) is didactic, and uses several similes to explain
what sexual desire is (e.g. it is drunkenness and deserves mockery; it
prevents us seeing the truth of things). Taking up the narrative from
where it paused, the third segment (couplets 507) narrates how the
mistress is killed. The fourth (couplets 5884) is a long digression
elaborating the didactic ends of the story. It is the key section of
the poem because it comes immediately after the stage has been set
for the poet to explain why he told such a story, and to expand
on its philosophical aspects. The maid returns in the fifth segment
(couplets 8597) and finds her mistress dead. The poem ends with
metaphorical expressions in free indirect speech which deal with the
topic of differentiating the genuine and the fake, especially with regard
to spiritual understanding.
Regarding the loose coherence in the general logic of the narrative
as well as the relationship between the narrative and digressive
sections, Rypka writes: The point in view is sometimes neither allegory
nor moralising fable, but that the tales should simply arouse the
interest of the listener for what is to come.24 In other words, the shock
value of the narrative prepares the listener/reader for something more
important, i.e. the digressive episode that warns, informs, and teaches.
Discussing storytelling techniques in the Masnavi, Hamid also argues
that the interruptions serve the ends of the ideology: throughout this
entire exercise Rumis goal is to drive home various precepts of Sufism
. . . the form of the narrative in the Masnavi is a necessary outcome,
indeed, an instrument of Rumis didactic purpose with the use of
a homiletic method.25 As such, the poems narrative and discursive
passages are both integral.
It is now time to make an assessment of Barks rendering. This
excerpt is from the beginning:
There was a maidservant
who had cleverly trained a donkey
to perform the services of a man.
24

Jan Rypka, History of Iranian Literature (Dordrecht, 1968), p. 241.

Farooq Hamid, Storytelling Techniques in the Masnavi-yi Manavi of Mowlana Jalal alDin Rumi: Wayward Narrative or Logical Progression?, Iranian Studies, 32 (1999), 278.
25

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From a gourd,
she had carved a flanged device
to fit on the donkeys penis, to keep him
from going too far into her.
She had fashioned it just to the point
of her pleasure, and she greatly enjoyed
the arrangement, as often as she could!
She thrived, but the donkey was getting
a little thin and tired-looking.
The mistress began to investigate. One day
she peeked through a crack in the door
and saw the animals marvelous member
and the delight of the girl
stretched under the donkey.

Obviously Barks does not restrict himself to the original form. He

employs relatively short lines arranged in strophes whose extent
often corresponds to grammatical sentences. This arrangement might
be motivated by the need to lighten the visual appearance of
the text by introducing more blank space, which may seem more
welcoming to readers who could otherwise be intimidated by a denser
format consistent with narrative poetry. Barks adopts a simple, direct
diction with little modification of noun phrases and relatively simple
grammatical structure
In his preface to Delicious Laughter Barks makes three observations
that give insight into how his version was created and his attitude to
the sexual material it contains. He begins by stating that the poems in
Delicious Laughter contain the Latin parts of Nicholsons translation
of the Masnavi. Barks versions are thus partly motivated by the wish
to remove the Latinate coverings which have hidden Rumis poetry
from English-language readers. Second, Barks argues at length for the
metaphorical nature of everything in Rumis text. In this, he seems to
wish to compensate for his omission of a large number of non-narrative
elements. Specifically, he seeks to explain the meaning of his version
when he comments that moments of sexual shame, erections and their
sudden droopings, a clitoral urgency that admits no limit . . . there are
recognizable behaviors, and Rumi does not so much judge them as
hold them up for a lens to look into the growth of the soul, which is
the deep subject behind these stories. Finally, Barks emphasizes the
comedy of the poems, a comedy that he explicitly links to vulnerability.
In his view, the weirdly funny situations evoked in the Masnavi move

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the characters in the text toward a bursting open point at which
spiritual understanding takes place.26
Barks has implemented several major transformations in the
structure of the poem. First there are extensive omissions. A frequent
thwarting of the narrative expectations of the reader is a feature of
the Masnavi, as extended interruptions are used to frustrate a wish
for closure and to signal the didactic purpose of the text. In Barks
version, however, digressions are kept brief to maintain the flow of
events. When interventions do occur, they are often structured as direct
appeals to the reader, appeals supported by the use of the term reader
and imperative verbs such as remember (stanza 12). These appeals are
generally hortatory, providing succinct (but vague) spiritual advice.
The raison dtre of Rumis poem is the elaboration of esoteric truths
that his somewhat unlikely narrative illustrates; hence the far greater
weight placed on the non-narrative material. The inferiority of the
narrative is signalled by the fact that the mistress fate is revealed in a
summary that precedes the poem proper. In other words, any suspense
about the fate of the characters is removed at the outset.27 Barks, in
contrast, creates suspense about the fate of the mistress, using it to
generate interest. In this regard, the original poem and its translation
are completely different: the former subordinates the narrative to the
expression of esoteric truths whereas the latter promotes it for its
suspense and entertainment value.
In the source text, the shock value of the sexual content contributes
to driving specific points home. Explanatory passages interpret the
elements of the story and give the reader perspective on how
to react to the erotic element. Since the eroticism is combined
with a disgraceful death, the titillating aspect of the narrative is
minimized and controlled. Barks translation, however, is almost
exclusively focused on the sexual narrative, and this results in a third
transformation. His desire to present sexually explicit content in a
way that is both metaphorical and humorous means that he tends to
resort to innuendo. This functions as a major source of pleasure in the
reading experience, and at the same time creates complicity between
the narrator and the reader, playing off the appearance of spiritual
decorum with a delight in the scandal of bestiality. Barks version is coy
rather than graphic: sexual content is expressed in comprehensible but
26

Barks, Delicious Laughter (n. 13), pp. xxi.

Nicholson renders this key piece of information as making a pretext, she sent the maid
away to a distant place and cum asino concubuit sine curcurbita and perished shamefully.
Reynold Nicholson, The Mathnawi of Jalalluddin Rumi, 8 vols (Cambridge, 192540), Vol. 5;
lines 13314.
27

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veiled language throughout. So, apart from the reference to penis
(stanza 2), and the comic image of the mistress vagina glowing |
and singing like a nightingale (stanza 9), the entire sexual history of
the narrative is related through euphemisms: to perform the services
of a man (stanza 1), the animals marvelous member (stanza 5),
to join with this donkey (stanza 8). The source text is much more
direct.
Changes to the characterization of the maid and the mistress
are a further development. In Barks, the maids resourcefulness is
accentuated, turning her into a largely positive character with whom
the reader is expected to side. She becomes, despite her social status,
a kind of master, and, as a result, all negative references to her in
the source text are omitted. These are quite scathing in Persian. For
example, in the very first couplet the maids act is described as the
result of vofur-e shahvat va fart-e gazand (literally: an excess of lust and
abundance of damage). In addition, she is referred to as an ajuz (that
witch) in the fourth couplet. In Barks translation, by contrast, the
maid is described as clever for training the donkey (in the second
line of our earlier quotation). Barks treatment of the mistress is more
detached. Because his democratic ethos favours the down-trodden
maid, the mistress is cast in the role of a jealous rival who, lacking any
initiative of her own, plots merely to keep the donkey for herself. An
idea of their respective roles can be gained from the following passage,
in which the initial she refers to the mistress:
She said nothing. Later, she knocked on the door
and called the maid out on an errand,
a long and complicated errand.
I wont go into details.
The servant knew what was happening, though.
Ah, my mistress, she thought to herself,
you should not send away the expert.
When you begin to work without full knowledge,
you risk your life. Your shame keeps you
from asking me about the gourd, but you must
have that to join with this donkey.
Theres a trick you dont know!
But the woman was too fascinated with her idea
to consider any danger. She led the donkey in
and closed the door, thinking, With no one around
I can shout in my pleasure.

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The mistress is depicted in disparaging terms here. Her ruse to
get the maid out of the house is so obvious that the maid has no
trouble seeing through it, and her fascination with the donkey reveals
her to be too easily swayed by sexual desire. Compare this with the
figure of the maid, who confidently asserts her expertise, and suggests
that she has a fair inkling of what will happen while she is off the
scene.
While some of these transformations may be explicable in the light
of what Barks says in the introduction to Delicious Laughter, i.e. Rumis
original is not compatible with contemporary moral standards, such
factors create contradictions in Barks versions. For instance, after
the fate of the mistress has been decided in stanzas 1112, Barks
fills out his rendering with a highly abbreviated version of material
drawn from couplets 5870 of the original text. This amounts to little
more than two instructions to the reader: (a) Dont sacrifice your life
to your animal-soul! and (b) She is an image of immoderation. |
Remember her, | and keep your balance. Neither of these instructions,
however, carries much weight because the hero-maid has herself
ignored them. Since no ill fate befalls her, the logic of the poem is
seriously undermined.
We are now in a position to see how far Rumis poem has been recast
in Barks version and to shed some light on the nature of its appeal
to an American audience. Obviously, Barks transformations make a
very considerable difference. They tend on the whole to privilege the
popular Rumi at the expense of the high culture Rumi. As we have
seen, the Persian poet mobilized popular elements in order to attract
attention and to present outrageous parallels with his esoteric spiritual
propositions. Barks, demonstrating shrewd insight, has capitalized on
the sexual content in the popular element, realizing that this and
the tension it creates with the established image of a spiritual Rumi is
capable of exerting a powerful pull on an American readership attuned
to the scandalous and the sensational.
As we have seen, Barks uses innuendo in approaching this sexual
material, presenting taboo material in a euphemistic way. Barks
carefully adapts his text to the values of his audience in other ways
too. By reconfiguring the role of the maid, he is able to maximize the
appeal of the text for a readership that endorses female assertiveness
and a broadly democratic ethos. In this way, his drastic reworking of
the source text is designed to give it a new lease of life in a very
different cultural milieu. In order to achieve this purpose, however, he
has reduced the spiritual element to a bare minimum and distorted it to

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the point of contradiction. The entertainment value of his performance
emerges predominant.
These conclusions have implications for the translatability of
literature and culture, as well as the nature of world literature.
In making his versions, Barks obviously dispenses with traditional
translation knowledge, i.e. intimate knowledge of the source language
and culture. He seems, in fact, to represent a reaction to the academic
model of translation based on linguistic and cultural expertise. His
alternative model derives its legitimacy from writerly skill (he has
published verse of his own) and spiritual understanding, two factors
aligned with intuitive knowledge. As the history of Rumi in the USA
makes clear, there is a tradition going back to Walt Whitman of
American free verse spiritual poetry, and Barks taps into this source.
Nevertheless, his departures from the original seem to partake of
a principle in the Masnavi itself. Rumi exploited popular elements
in order to hook his listeners. In this sense, Barks appeal seems
to be partly in his recognition of this element: he maximizes the
popular cultural elements but reduces the spiritual ones to the level
of a platitude. A major problem of the translation ensues, in fact, from
the possibility of presenting spiritual texts in an atmosphere saturated
by the logic of exchange value and the market. Barks seems to attempt
to find a way through this clash, and does indeed manage to reach
a wide audience, but in the process he has to trivialize the spiritual
purpose of his material. This implies that the issue is really one of
cultural translation.
Barks versions of Rumi are characterized by the features of intercultural translation: they are not and cannot be complete. Since he is
open about the procedures he uses, an assessment of the translation
seems irrelevant. But does this mean that criticism must defer to the
dictates of the market? Hermans solution is to look into the uses of
translation: who it is produced for, who is addressed by it, and what it
aims to achieve. If the translation fulfils these purposes, it is adequate.28
Viewed in this way, Barks versions are perhaps even more adequate
than expected because no one could have predicted their commercial
success, or the recognition of his work by the award of an honorary
doctorate.
The end-oriented approach seems to fit well with Barks
methodology. He has transformed the source text in significant ways
in order to appeal directly to an American readership. His rewriting
28

Theo Hermans, Cross-cultural Translation Studies as Thick Translation, Bulletin of the

School of Oriental and African Studies, 66 (2003), 3809 (p. 385).

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of the formal features of the poem, his omission of most of its nonnarrative material, his handling of the popular sexual contents of
the text, and his re-characterization of the maid in terms that are
positive, democratic, and broadly feminist are all indications that Barks
is clear about such criteria as Hermans outlines, and has managed
to achieve his ends. However, such an approach leaves us with a
number of uncomfortable issues because it judges a cultural process
by its uses. Since Rumis name and biography are used to convince
consumers of the referentiality of Barks versions, a major problem is
the representation of Rumi as a poet. There is an ethical responsibility
involved which, in Barks case, leads to the withholding of significant
information from the reader. For example, in the second episode
(couplet 39), Rumi writes that the power of sexual desire can make
a donkey seem as desirable as a Joseph. This is a Koranic reference:
Joseph was so good-looking that the women admiring him did not
realize they had cut their hands instead of the oranges they were
holding. If desire can make a donkey seem like Joseph, then what
can the Jew do with a good-looking Joseph? The implicit reference
to the Jew invokes a prejudice shared by the poet and his audience
(Muslims all) which is taken for granted. Such details are integral to
understanding Rumis Sufist humanism, but naturally enough play no
part in Barks versions. Such aspects of the poets cultural context can
play no part in the themes that are extracted from the poems and
skilfully packaged for readers. Rumis name is still attached to the
poems, but Barks feels free to eliminate this antisemitic element.
The problem is the cultural logic that motivates these versions
and leads to their commercial success. It is an image of the poet
that has become significant, and is presented to the market. In
comparison, previous translations of Rumi such as those by Nicholson
tried to introduce the poet more comprehensively, without regard for
marketability or entertainment value.29 This logic, of course, has not
specifically targeted Rumi. The cultural logic of late capitalism is
based not on inherent value but exchange value, something beautifully
summarized in a remark attributed to Andy Warhol. When he learned
the Mona Lisa was being brought to New York for an exhibition,
Warhol argued that since people could not tell the difference between
the original and its copies, it would save trouble to exhibit photographs
of the painting instead. Warhol does have a point: the crowd that
29
One simple sign of this is that Nicholsons translation of the Masnavi in six Books was
followed by two volumes in which he interprets and elaborates on Rumis thoughts and
philosophy for the English reader. Nicholson, The Mathnawi of Jalalluddin Rumi, Vols. 78.

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gathers to see the image is more interested in the idea of the painting
than the painting itself. This applies to Rumis case as well.
We could go further. Barks versions of Rumi, it might be argued,
encourage American readers to believe that, with a little up-to-date
Western know-how, cultural differences are not insurmountable (even
if the result retains a frisson of shock power). But, if he does not really
overcome the difficulty of comprehending the others difference, his
claim that his versions would contribute to the health of the planet
by transcending religious boundaries is unjustified. In any case (we
could argue), it is not by denying the existing boundaries but rather by
acknowledging them that the health of the planet could best be served.
To turn the globe into a place in which everything is reducible to
everything else is not sustainable either practically or philosophically.
This also has implications for theories of world literature which,
following in Goethes footsteps, are generally humanist in approach.
For example, Damroschs definition of world literature is fairly broad:
I take world literature, he writes, to encompass all literary works
that circulate beyond their culture of origin, either in translation or
in their original language . . . a work only has an effective life as world
literature, whenever and wherever it is actively present within a literary
system beyond that of its original culture.30 Yet if the original is poetry
because of its metrical and rhythmic system, because of the language
used, because of its didactic purposes and its values, Barks version has
none of these. To all intents and purposes, Rumis poetry is clearly
an example of a literary work that now circulates beyond its culture
of origin. But the very qualities that would make us wish to define it
as literary in the first place have been lost, or at least transformed.
The political implications of humanist definitions of world literature
are revealed in the light of the logic of cultural dominance that is
in play here. Since literature as it is conceived in English is different
from adabiyat in classical Persian literature,31 the process of translating
the exotic into the familiar phrase of the dominant culture evokes the
orientalist and colonial approaches in which the translated culture is
aligned with the dominant culture in the translation process. In other
words, a peripheral literature can find its way into the mainstream
market only if it is appropriated. The struggle is over authority: Rumi
30

David Damrosch, What is World Literature? (Princeton, NJ, 2003), p. 4.

For a recent and detailed elaboration of the concept of adabiyat in Persian literature, see
Hamid Dabashi, The World of Persian Literary Humanism (Cambridge, MA, 2012). For a study of
the transformation of adabiyat into literary in Arabic literature, see Michael Allan, How Adab
Became Literary: Formalism, Orientalism and the Institutions of World Literature, Journal of
Arabic Literature, 43 (2010), 17296.
31

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Translation and Literature 24 (2015)

has to be submitted to the mastery of Barks, who, like the maid, is in
possession of the trick.
In the final couplet of this poem, Rumi uses the metaphor of
parroting to comment on the themes of mastery and knowledge:

Surati beshnideh gashti tarjoman

Bi-khabar az goft-e khod chon tutian.
You heard the appearance and translated it
Unaware of what you said like a parrot.32

On one level, this indicates Rumis frustration with language because

it fails adequately to deliver the experience of Sufi insight. On
another, it serves to differentiate between the fake Sufi who, without
authentic spiritual understanding, wears the clothes of a Sufi and
the genuine Sufi. In the absence of knowledge, the act of translation
becomes a form of parroting, the repetition of something without
really understanding it. In the same way, Barks rendition of the
gourdcrafting text parrots the most superficial and populist elements
in the source while subtracting its spiritual significance and hence
its coherence. Making Sufism relevant in the context of a capitalist
economy is an ambitious project, and the mismatch could not be more
obvious: the former retreats from the world in its desire to transcend
it, while the latter owns the world in order to dominate it. It is in fact
this incompatibility that is at the root of all Barks transformations.
For people from a peripheral culture in the modern world like
Iran, where imitating the West has been the dominant form of literary
and cultural production for a long time, Barks Sufist posing is all
too familiar. His kitsch Sufism is, however, not so different from the
way Iranian translators and writers misapply caricature versions of
Western -isms to modern literature and culture. Here precisely lies the
critics responsibility: to call attention to the neglect of untranslatable
cultural differences which instead require respectful acknowledgement
and understanding.
University of Gttingen

32
Nicholsons translation: Having heard a form (of words), you have become its
expounder, (though) ignorant of (the meaning of) your words like parrots. Nicholson
(n. 27), line 1425.

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