On Translating Defamiliarization Devices In E.E.Cummings' Poetry

This paper attempts to explore the translation of defamiliarization devices in E.E.Cummings' poems,which are characterized by the use of defamiliarization devices. Therefore,how to deal with those defamiliarized language and form in E.E.Cummings' poems is a key factor to the quality of the translated version.As Russian formalism holds, the essential trait of literature is literariness,that is,what makes specific works become literary works.Literariness is embodied in those carefully chosen defamiliarization devices. It was Shkolovsky who first systemized the theory of defamilirization.In fact it is the defamiliarization of artistic forms that help to realize literariness.Thus,defamiliarization devices are essential to the value of literary works.Defamiliarization devices in the present thesis refer to those linguistic devices which are intentionally created by the writer and which can help readers gain fresh and new aesthetic enjoyment through posing difficulties for the reading process.In English literary works there exist large numbers of such devices on the phonetic,lexical,syntactic and textual levels.These devices help to enhance the literariness of their respective works and to achieve better artistic effects.E.E.Cummings,as a famous modernist poet,has been known as an innovator and experimentalist because of his unique poems and fresh techniques.He employs a lot of defamiliarization devices in his poems.When we look into his poetry,we find that those defamilirized languages and forms have close relationship with the subject,the style and the emotion of the poem.So it means a demanding job for the translators to present to the Chinese readers a good translation.This paper suggests that translators should represent the defamliarization devices of the original so as to deliver the readers the same aesthetic effects and characteristics of the original.For the translator,how he(she) views and deals with those devices can be the difference between a good translation and a bad one.Based on the translation strategies of three scholars,namely Homles,Liu Miqing and Zhao Yanchun,this paper thinks that analogical translation can serve as a basic strategy for the translation of the defamliarization devices in literay works,especially in E.E.Cummings' poetry.And this thesis wants to justify this strategy on the basis of the comparison of two Chinese versions of Cummings' poem "In Just".