Form Equivalence In Literary Translation

During the development of translation theories, the argument that which is more important, form and content, never stops. Generally speaking, form tends to be ignored intentionally or unintentionally, which naturally results in free translation predominance. However, as for literary translation, the translated work, under the guidance of free translation theory, usually degrades the literariness of the original work, thus giving birth to mediocre work. Katharina Reiss put forward that literary translation possessing its own beauty belonged to the expressive text type and translators should transmit the aesthetic form of the original text; a poem is a highly expressive, form-focused type. The form bears certain meanings, so it should go closely with the content.According to Lv Jun and Hou Xiangqun, in the aspect of literary semiotics, the relation between form and content has turned to a multi-level structure instead of remaining the separable binary relation. Moreover, attention should be paid to phonetic problems, structure arrangement and the conveying of meanings, represented object and schematized aspects etc.My translation practice work,I Love a Broad Margin to My Life, by Maxine Hong Kingston, characterized with short sentences, is a literary novel in poetic form, which shares both the features of poems and novels. Based on the multi-level structure relation theory between form and content raised by Lv Jun and Hou Xiangqun, this thesis is elaborated on the aspects of rhymes, literary structure and the description of scenes so as to reproduce the artistry and literariness of the original text.Therefore, from the translation practice we can see that form equivalence is significant and indispensable in literary translation.