A strange dream....

I almost never dream about my work and so it was very strange for me to wake up this morning from a dream about the literary translations I am working on. I am translating works of classical Persian literature, some of which have not been translated into English in more than 100 years, and the goal is to create versions of these texts that, like Barks' Rumi or Landinski's Hafez, will work as literature in English--though from what people tell me what these two translators produce has very little connection to the original texts. Anyway, I am in Philadelphia to present a paper on the work that I am doing--at the Community College Humanities Association Eastern Regional Conference--and this is the dream I had last night: I was somewhere arguing with two men from Iran, one the guy my wife and I recently bought a car from, and the other someone I knew in my dream, but whom I never called by name and whom I don't recognize from my life. The argument was about whether or not I could teach effectively--because while I speak some Persian, I do not read or write it--a course on classical Persian literature dealing with the texts I am translating. I was arguing that while it would be much better if someone who was fluent in the language was teaching the course, since there was no one available, I understand enough about the culture and the history and the texts that I could do a reasonable job. The Iranian whose name I never used got very insulted at this because he did not believe that anyone who was not fluent in Persian should teach the course, and this bothered me terribly--I'm not sure why, though I think it may have had to do with the possibility that he might out of spite sabotage my buying, in the dream, a second car from the other man--so I pursued the argument even further, following the two men to this cafeteria-like place. There, I tried again to make my case, but this time I told the guy who didn't like the idea of my teaching the course that if he knew someone who could teach the course on his terms, he should call me and I gave him my card. That was when I woke up. There is more to say about this dream, because it speaks to my anxieties about the translations I am doing, but I need to get ready. I moderate a panel in an hour.