Translation of Poetic Diction in Literary Translation: A Case Study of Macbeth and Its Persian Translations

Abstract

This study is an attempt to identify and examine the poetic diction in dramatic/literary texts and their translations. Diction is an important stylistic element of all literary texts. The present study focuses on this element in texts of drama and the strategies used for its translation. To show such strategies at work a dramatic/literary text, namely Macbeth by Shakespeare, and its four Persian translations, (Ahmadi (1957) - Shadman (1972) - Ashouri (1992) and Pasargadi (1999)), were selected. A descriptive/comparative analysis was done on the original text and its translations and their use of adjectives as a component of poetic diction. To see how the poetic diction of the ST in terms of adjectives is rendered in the translations the following were considered: the selection of appropriate equivalents in terms of semantic/thematic aspects as well as stylistic aspects and the literary discourse patterns. Also of importance is the role of diction in making a dramatic text performable/speakabel, hence its further significance in the translation of such texts. Thus the present study has paid close attention to aspects of each of the translations as the effectiveness of the procedures applied by translators for translating them.