ABSTRACT
The early development of modem Persian literature has been discussed in a number of important studies, beginning with E.G. Browne's writings on contemporary literary trends and encompassing several important recent works on both general and specific aspects of the subject.1 In particular, we have learned much about journalism and the rise of the journalistic essay, early experiments in prose fiction, and efforts to introduce European-style drama into Iranian cultural life. Yet a number of important questions concerning this period remain unanswered: questions which relate to the specific role played by literary translation, and the related phenomenon of literary adaptation, in the evolution of modem Persian literature. To what extent did this movement create new models on which writers might base their own compositions, and to what extent did it encourage new audiences which would be receptive of, nay, come to demand, such compositions? It is to aspects of these questions, rather than to a more general consideration of the literary production of the period, that this chapter is addressed.
