On Poetry Translation: Poetic Form、Poetic Flavor and Poetic Essence

The primary reason why poetry occupies a far more important place than any other literary form in the history of Chinese literature is that Chinese was born with a poetic nature. This unique nature should not be neglected in translation of or into Chinese poetry. Based on a contrastive study of Chinese and English and their poetry, this paper finds that it is impractical to apply the universal translating standards to poetry translation, which is very different from any other kinds of translation. The author of this paper also points out that the practice-oriented poetry translation needs not only good accomplishment and taste in literature, but also flexibility.