Form Equivalence in Translating Chinese Poetic Prosody into English

Abstract

Poetry, especially metrical poetry differs from other genres of literature for its unique creation of meter and rhyme. Form and content are the two criteria of poetry appreciation. Form includes the outer poetic structure, the use of meter and rhyme and antithesis (dui zhang) particularly in Chinese metrical poetry. Content refers to the meaning, imagery and mood of a poem. The quality of poetry translation is also assessed by comparing both form and content between two languages. This article aims to discuss the possibility of making pure form correspondence by exploring the maximum equivalence in translating Chinese metrical poetry into English. Such “form equivalence” in Chinese poetry translation refers not only to the structure and rhyming that have long been studied, but to the tonal prosodic patterns, in other words, whether the ping and ze tones of Chinese characters can correspond to the stressed and unstressed syllables of English words, and whether the number of syllables per line can be consistent with the number of tones in the original poem, all of which have rarely been discussed in translations between Chinese and English metrical poetry. Keeping the meaning and spirit of the source text (hereinafter referred to as “ST”) is important, but if the form (both meter and rhyme) of poetry can also be entirely rendered into another language, would that be even more perfect or is such perfection attainable and necessary?