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.

“Faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance” is a translation standard put forward by Yan Fu in the 19th century, has always been a practical rule to the translators. In this standard, “Faithfulness” means faithful to the original works. Obviously, ‘faithfulness’ is the most important one among the three, and it is the first responsibility to a translator.

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That’s to say it is all the most basic guideline of poetry translation. It is point to use one language target language (TL) to express another language source Language (SL). In this thesis the faithful content includes the following three aspects: one is a form of faithful (formal correspondence). It refers to only from formally consider, in order to make expression information reproduced TL and expression of SL form in similar, to make the words information correspondence, and the structure, the analogy as similar as the original work.

Secondly, that is in the loyalty of contents (equivalence in terms of meaning). It requires the text of the ideological contents and the original consistent in meaning equivalence. The third is faithful to rhythm and style of the original poem, and it will be embodied with details in this paper. It is for these reasons that the author of this thesis tries to.

This thesis centers about faithfulness in poetry translation. And it will be thoroughly described through the following three parts; the first part is general remarks about poetry that will help us grasp the general expression about poetry; In part two，the author devotes the main space to talk about faithfulness in poetry translation which is the core element of the thesis; Part three is chiefly concerned with the factors that affect faithfulness in poetry translation, for there are various disparities between one language and another.

An excellent poetry translation must reproduce the artistic beauty of the original one, and should be faithful to the original poem’s theme; it’s not just faithful to the literal meaning of words, so absolute faithfulness is impossible. And discussion in this article emphasizes on the relative faithfulness in a possible sense.

All literary arts are specific vivid art to reflect social life. The artistic image of a poem, is a poet deep understanding on the basis of social reality, through the highly centralized and summarized in the form, is of the poet’s emotional materialized and is the poet’s subjective feeling. Therefore, the artistic image is the essence of poetry.

When translating, it has to use visual translation technique, try to translate the atheistic beauty of the original poem so that reproduce the aesthetic meaning of artistic image and artistic conception of the source language. The process of translation is also an understanding process, which is the translator’s process of understanding of original work or authorship.

The translator’s possession of identity requirements are not as simple as the readers that just have general understanding of reading material, he should deal with the original text with nuanced understanding and comprehension, try to avoid for negligence in understanding that makes translation errors.

The translator’s understanding of the original text must reach the real author of depth; so that to shoulder the responsibility of faithfully and poetically express the deep meaning in poetry translation