Poetry Translation and Creative Misreading—on Gopal Sukhu’s English Rendering of “Lisao”

Abstract

This article aims to analyze Gopal Sukhu’s singular misreading of the Chinese poem “Lisao” in his English translation, examine the reasons and types of his misreading, and explore the wider implications of misreading for literary translation. Misreading is integral to poem translation due to the semiotic nature of language, the aesthetic appeal of poetry, the idiosyncrasy of translator, and the communicative purpose of translation. It is found that in his translation of “Lisao”, Sukhu makes deliberate misreading in four dimensions, namely, retelling the allegorical story, turning ambiguity into clarity, making adaptation on rhetoric devices, and creating textual cohesion. Sukhu’s creative misreading endows a renewed poetic value to the original.