Cirrus@Austlit

'This paper attempts to clarify the issue of the translatability of poetry. However, the question whether poetry is translatable is a paradox because while quite a few renowned poet-translators like Dryden and Paz tend to deny the translation of poetry, poetry has been translated from ancient to present. The key point of the issue is not whether poetry is translatable, but what gets lost in the translation of poetry. Dryden sees the translator as servile, yet Bassnett emphasizes the “creative” spirit in translation, and points out “gain” in the translation against the persistent tendency to overemphasize on “loss” in translation in discussions of translation. This paper hence focuses on the key issue of “loss and gain” in the translation of poetry. As it proceeds to reveal the loss of sound qualities of the original in transferring a SL text to a TL text, it also displays some significant gains in the translation. All this is demonstrated and justified with concrete cases in my translation of an anthology of contemporary Australian poetry.'

Source: Abstract.