Translation and the Intertextual Space: The Translation of Religious, Historical and Mythical Allusions in the Poetry of Mahmoud Darwish

For many decades, allusions have become the ‘Treasure Land’ that has brought the attention of many scholars and researchers to write about. This study tackles the translation issue of religious, historical and mythical allusions in the literary works of Mahmoud Darwish in view of intertextual space concept. Firstly, it proves that writing is not a mere alteration and adjustment of the existed texts, but it is a re-invention of an invention and a renewal of the previous meanings, thoughts and ideas; thus, adopting the rhetorical semiotic approach is very fundamental in the study of allusions in translation for the meaning matters before adopting any translation strategy. Secondly, translators need to engage themselves in the translation process with the assumption that texts are not genuinely created, but they can be intersected with an anthology of texts from everywhere. Last but not least, the translator should be a subject-matter expert and sensitive to all the meanings aroused by different types of the allusive references to enable her/him to select the most convenient strategy that is fair for both of the source text (ST) author and target text (TT) readers. Through examining different examples (quotations, utterances, poems and verses), one can find that the translator opted for retaining the proper-name (PN) allusions, to use the standard translation for the key-phrase (KP) allusions, to delete, add or change them. We cannot evaluate this translation as right or wrong, but translators should conduct readers-response tests to examine the efficiency level of translation, and to evaluate the extent to which translators are able to transfer the meaning of the allusions from the ST into the TT.