A ‘Polyphonic Score’: Basil Bunting’s Persian Condensations

Abstract In 1932, Basil Bunting was lodging with the Pounds in Genoa when he first encountered a French manuscript translation of Abul-Qasem Firdausi’s classical Persian epic Shahnameh (1010). Upon realizing that incomplete, decided there ‘nothing to do but learn and read Firdausi, so I undertook that’. By 1942 his knowledge good enough for Ministry Information send him Iran Royal Airforce, at which point toured Middle East, Central Asia, parts Africa. Through these travels, particular time Iran, discovered renewed possibilities personal poetic life. His engagement literature over 1940s extensive allowed eventually compose masterful translations canonical poets. argue later translations, especially those written from 1947, demonstrate how translating poetry refined Bunting’s Poundian poetics condensation. show this synthesis produced formally generically pluralistic poems straddle multiple cultures, such as Odes 35 (1947) 36 (1948). an analysis The Spoils (1951), explore way own inflected by Arabo-Persian ‘bait’ its literary traditions were made resonant Anglophone ones. then conclude illustrating odes, enabled write irreducibly magnum opus Briggflatts (1965).