A Study of English Translation of Proverbs in Molana's Masnavi

Literary works are full of figurative devices which in fact have the crucial role in making them distinct from other types of texts. Maybe this is why translating literary texts is often more challenging than other types of texts. Hence, one of the most important tasks of a literary translator is doing his/her best to maintain the figurative devices of the original text by applying the most appropriate strategies. This study investigates the English translation of the proverbs in Masnavi Manavi by Whinfield (1898). We tried to answer the following questions: 1) What strategies have been used by the translator for the translation of the proverbs? 2) Has the translator been successful in translating the proverbs given the nature of the proverbs used in Masnavi?  As for the first question, it was found that all the proverbs in the source text were translated literally. A survey of the identified Persian proverbs revealed that a relatively large number of the proverbs have exact or near equivalents in English. However, literal translation is the last option chosen by the translator for all of them. Given the high importance of proverbs in Masanvi, we can argue that the didactic nature of Masnavi might have been reflected better by using the exact or near proverb equivalents.