Mystical Poetry and the Middle Eastern Mind:
Experiments in Multi-leveled Poetic Translation

A Short Course

In 1990, Dr Neil Douglas-Klotz pioneered a poetic approach to interpreting and understanding the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospels from his native Aramaic language. Drawing upon the centuries-old Jewish tradition of midrash (interpretive translation), Douglas-Klotz used a traditional Syriac-Aramaic version of the Gospels to show how a non-Western listener might have heard the words of a Semitic prophet in a multi-leveled way. His first book, Prayers of the Cosmos, became an international bestseller and led to subsequent works continuing the exploration, which have raised many questions for Biblical and Quranic scholars about their own methodologies.

During this evening mini-course, he discusses the use of multi-leveled poetic verse to translate and interpret ancient Semitic languages in a way that fits the worldview and ways of knowing inherent in these cultures. He relates his work to the movement of ethno-poetics, beginning in the 1970s and talks about his personal background and preparation for the work.  He reads from and discusses a number of his translations from the Aramaic of the words attributed to Jesus, from translations of mythic poetry from the Hebrew bible and from verses of the Quran, including selections from the books Desert Wisdom, Prayers of the Cosmos, The Hidden Gospel, Genesis Meditations and Blessings of the Cosmos.

This short course was offered on March 3, 2008 as part of the 5th Edinburgh International Festival of Middle Eastern Spirituality and Peace.

Download a sample of this mini-course (30 min) on the PodCast in Mp3 format.

To order the complete 90 minute couse add this item to your cart below.

$7.00 download