The Creative Translation of Poetry

Abstract

The translation of poetry is not a traditional process subject to mechanical rules of translation that act more or less like a computer program. The creative translator of poetry might frequently be bothered by a great deal of criticism from dogmatic linguists regarding the grammatical and structural accuracy and correctness of their translation in the same way they face the green and red highlights of a computer spelling and syntax check program whenever they attempt to type their translation. In comparison with the translation of other literary genres, the translation of poetry has been less attempted and researched and has suffered a great deal of marginality. Most researchers who tackled this field attempted to address some problems and tried to provide solutions within the framework of already existing notions. On the other hand, most creatively-translated poems have been attempted by talented translators or professional poets who rendered their translations by means of personal creative flair which acted autonomously with no theoretical framework to rest on. The result of such attempts is that we may find a translation that may probably match, sometimes divert from or even more surprisingly exceed the original. Therefore, what is new about this study is that it tries to map out some new boundaries in both theory and application of this field.