Since Mr. Fu put forward the famous translation principle “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance”, the future generations usually regard it as a translation standard. Literary translation is a painstaking and mental-related work which has to recreate under the original ones. The language in poems are metrical, refining implicative and rhythmic, containing distinct culture characteristics.
When comes to poetry translation, Chinese translation circle have never stopped the debate. Of course, poetry translation also requires faithfulness to the original work, but instead of absolutely limited by the original poem. The primary criterion to translation is faithfulness. “Faithfulness” standard applies to poetry translation showing great flexibility. That’s to say we should not only take care of the sound and form issues, more importantly is to keep the contents and image of the original poem.
This paper put forward with many famous predecessors’ poetry translation and the principle of “faithfulness” as theory foundation; in conjunction with the relevant scholars in translation practice as theory basis; research and collect the latest relevant field theory; through the comparative analysis of some poetry translation examples, compared with the original poem repeatedly and analysis from the aspects of likeness in the form and likeness in spirit even sound aspect. To explore “faithfulness” in poetry translation, it plays a significant role for translation criticism and translation practice.
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