Translation of Poetry: Towards a Practical Model for Translation Analysis and Assessment of Poetic Discourse

Abstract

Among translation issues, poetry translation is the most problematic area challenging both translators and authorities in the field of translation studies. Translation of poetry as a yet unanalyzed ‘black box’ (Francis 2006) has been a much debated issue since olden times, with many pros and cons and dichotomist reasoning as to its possibility or impossibility. This is due to the high cultural prestige of poetry which requires time, effort and ingenuity to translate traditional rhyme, rhythm structures and the figurative language involved. In the present study, a Persian piece of poetry by the contemporary Iranian poet, Musavi Garmaroodi, A. (1984) and its English translation by Vahid, D. H. (2006) will be focused upon and descriptively analyzed at both linguistic and extra linguistic levels. The aim is to identify the formative elements of versified discourse in the source and target texts (ST/TT) and to arrive at a tentative model of translation analysis which can serve as a measure for translation assessment of poetic genre.