The Effect of Utilising Poetry Translation Strategies in Poetry Translation: with Reference to Selected Published Poetry Translations from English into Sinhalese

Abstract

Given its personal and concentrated nature, poetry falls under serious literature. When translating poetry, most translators follow literal translation method. As a result, the poet sometimes may fail to carry across the Source Language culture to Target Language culture. As a result, it mostly does not preserve the aesthetic value of the translation. Hence, it is important to identify effective translation strategies for translating poetry. To investigate the effect of utilizing poetry translation strategies in poetry translation, the study selected published poetry translations which are literally translated from English to Sinhalese based on purposive sampling techniques followed by the theorists’ interpreta- tions on features of the literal translation procedure. The selected samples of poems were then again translated by the researcher using poetry translation techniques introduced by Lefevere to investigate types of applicable poetry translation strategies, their level of effectiveness compared to literally translated poetry and finally the most effective poetry translation strategies were identified. The reader responses were recorded by providing a questionnaire with an assessment criterion to evaluate literally translated poems and the translated poems were named as TT1 and TT2 respectively. It was highlighted that Rhymed Translation and Metrical Translation are more effective strategies to translate poetry after analyzing the data. Further, interpretation of Poetry into Prose Strategies was also revealed in this study