Cultural factors in translation of Chinese and English poetry

Poetry is a most refined product of the human mind in its historical development. At the same time, it is rich with deep level cultural information, and is an indispensable part for the study of human culture and history. However, in the light of translation studies, poetry has the least translatability. It is agreed among translators that poetry translation is a very difficult task. The present paper discusses, from the perspectives of linguistics, translation and cultural studies, the important function of cultural factors in translation of Chinese and English poetry, and the various ways of solving these difficulties through transformation and adaptation.