From The Perspective Of Semantic Field Theory Of Edgar Allan Poe's Poetry Translation

Poetry is one of the most beautiful things in the world. It is the earliest form of literature and every language has classical poems of its own. In order to appreciate poetry of other languages, translation becomes inevitable. In China, translation of poetry has been studied from many aspects. Rhyme and rhythm, meter and foot, etc. are all targets of studies. However, seldom are the semantic relations among words in a poem studied. According to the theory of semantic field, vocabulary is an integrated system interrelated in sense and can be divided into semantically related sets or fields. Words in each semantic field define one another. Change of meaning of one word will change the whole semantic field. Based on such assumption, this thesis analyzes the semantic fields in Poe’s poems and their translations in Chinese versions in order to perceive if there exists a difference in semantic relations among the words of the source poems and that of the Chinese versions. And if there is such a difference, how would it affect the effect of the whole poem.After comparing and analyzing, the author comes up with three findings:(1) Words in certain context form semantic relations, and change of the selection of words will change the semantic relations formed by them; (2) In the translations of Edgar Allan Poe’s three poems, a few important features are changed, specifically the Chinese translation of "To Helen" has lost the mythological allusions of the source poem, the translation of "To-the-lake-" changes the mood of the source poem, and the translation of "The City in the Sea" changes the pace of the source poem; (3) when doing translation, we should not only focus on the conceptual meaning of a word, but also pay attention to their associative meanings as well as their semantic relations.This thesis is divided into five parts. The fist chapter is the introduction part. The second chapter introduces the development of semantic field theory including its representative linguists and features. The third chapter gives a brief introduction to Edgar Allan Poe’s life and poems. Special attention will be given to the features (especially the diction) of Poe’s poems and his poetic theory. The fourth chapter analyzes three of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous poems and their translations from the perspective of semantic field. This includes "To Helen," "The Lake-To-," and "The City in the Sea." The last part concludes this research, and points out the limitation of it and suggestions for further studies.