Translatability Of Poems And Relevant Translating Strategies

The"translator, traitor"is a motto that is believed by many to be true, not mentioning poetic translation, the one area too divine to be touched for literary enthusiasts, or more specifically, poetic enthusiasts."Poetry is what gets lost in translation,"Robert Frost, American poet and critic, once says. This thesis, starting from a brief account of old ideas of the untranslatability of poetry, proposes instead a hypothesis that poetry is translatable (Chapter One). In the next chapter (Chapter Two) an analysis of why poetry is untranslatable is made in both linguistic and cultural respects. It goes on giving a detailed analysis of translation in general, its various definitions, its multiple functions and the author's own idea of it (Chapter Three). Chapter Four deals with features of poetic translation, treating at the beginning making a comparison of Sino-West poetic theories. What follows is a discussion of the longstanding issue of form vs content and the criteria of poetic translation. At the end of this chapter, the function of poetry is discussed. Chapter Five suggests some strategies in poetic translation, all with a strong consciousness of compensation of possible loss of the source text. The thesis ends with a conclusion—poetry is translatable, if translation is regarded as a purposeful act rather than a sterile irrational pursuit of exact duplication.