| From a historical perspective, the leading translation theories either abroad or at home tend to attach great importance to content rather than form, which directly results in the loss of literariness . In view of this phenomenon, Meschonnic emphatically criticizes Nida s dualism of content and form , pointing out that it is useless to distinguish content from form . Then he advances his own poetics of translation theory, holding that translation is the reconstruction of the original rhythm , namely the particularity, which is a harmonious blend of meaning and form.Lolita, as a masterpiece of Vladimir Nabokov, the famous Russian American writer, plays an important role in the history of modern literature. First published in 1955, Lolita has 18 Chinese versions by 20 translators, but studies on its translations seem to be rare, and even less ones on its language characteristics. And the most remarkable language feature of Lolita lies in its defamiliarization devices, which means intentionally violating the linguistic norm and making forms difficult, with a view to increasing the difficulty and length of perception and endowing readers with fresh aesthetic enjoyment.The thesis is to take the famous French translator Henri Meschonnic s poetics of translation theory as a tool, the two versions translated by Yu Xiaodan and Zhu Wan respectively as the subject, to analyze and compare the source text and the target texts in terms of multilingualism, wordy expressions, new coinages, collage, narrative point of view, and narrative time. After illustrating the influence of the defamiliarization devices for producing the thematic significance and artistic values, the thesis discusses whether and how the defamiliarization devices are properly represented in the two Chinese versions in light of the poetics of translation theory so as to manifest the instructive role of the theory in literary translation practice and criticism.Through the comparative analysis of the source and the target texts, the following conclusions are drawn: 1) On the linguistic level, multilingualism adds exoticness and obscurity to the novel and prolongs readers perception, thus, the defamiliarization effect is achieved. However, as a special language phenomenon, multilingual text will inevitably incur some loss in literary translation. Wordy expressions serve to evoke certain feelings or emotions in the readers and heighten the atmosphere to achieve the effect of foregrounding; collage refers to the mixture of different literary genres, which generates not only new meaning in the overlapping parts, but also the defamiliariztion effect on the whole. As long as adequate attention is paid, the aforementioned defamiliarization devices can be perfectly reconstructed in the target texts by applying the poetics of translation theory. As for neologisms, it all depends due to the insurmountable differences between English and Chinese. 2) On the narrative level, the first person focalization grant the protagonist an advantageous position to exonerate himself from his sins so as to gain readers compassion, while the external focalization adds a sense of truthfulness and objectivity to the narrative. And the shift of point of view gives rise to the defamiliarized flavor and artistic appeal.; the disordered narrative time (anaplesis intermingles with prolepsis) exempts the narration from being a dull day-to-day account and produces an aesthetic effect which is absent in the linear narrative, giving more prominence to the causal relationship between events. Seen from the poetics of translation theory, the two Chinese versions have successfully reproduced the defamiliarized narrative techniques. 3)The poetics of translation theory serves as a useful tool to offer a more scientific and objective investigation into the long-lasting controversy over content and form , literal translation and free translation , and will shed some light upon literary translation practice and criticism.
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