From sands to salons: rethinking William Jones’s pioneering translation of the Mu‛allqāt

This postcolonial analysis of William Jones’s groundbreaking English translation of the Mu‛allqāt (1782)–while praising Jones as an Orientalist–contends that his translation strategies often conformed source texts to Western paradigms. Shifting away from equivalence-based evaluations, this study explores how Jones integrated the Mu‛allqāt into neoclassical genres, adjusted narrative structures that were inconsistent with the Arabic tradition, recontextualized the desert setting within eighteenth-century British contexts, and acculturated scenes and images. Additionally, the study presents examples of Jones explicating implicit meanings, intensifying emotions, and infusing stylistic elements that align with pre-Romanticism. Jones sought to make Eastern works accessible, but his limited Arabic proficiency and colonial mindset led him to reshape the Mu‛allqāt to fit Western standards rather than engage with their distinct Arabian artistry, even as he succeeded in broadening their audience. His assimilative translation strategies undermined his stated objectives. Therefore, Jones’s translation functioned as a complex cultural mediator that simultaneously expanded and limited cross-cultural understanding, thereby broadening Western awareness of Arabic poetry and constraining authentic engagement with its conventions. This study offers new critical insights into this foundational translation and its impact on the Western appreciation of Arabic poetry.