Entre el delito y el deleite : la traducción del universo báquico de Abu Nuwás

This article examines some of the major translation problems stemming from the transfer from Arabic to Catalan and Spanish of an entire corpus of poetic imagery, namely that in Abu Nuwas’ bacchic songs. Subversive, pleasure-seeking and wine-loving Abu Nuwas, whose celebrity has well surpassed that of his famed poems, soon achieved legendary status and entered the imagination of the Arab people. Abu Nuwas continues to be remembered as both the likeable, happy-golucky fictionalised character of One Thousand and One Nights and one of the greatest poets in Arabic literature. Part One of the article presents some salient features of Abu Nuwas’s imagery, thus contextualising his poetry and providing some signposts for Part Two, which focuses on strategies for solving specific difficulties encountered in translating those features.