Poetry Translation, from Text to Metatext

Abstract

The paper starts with an analysis of poetical discourse within the theoretical framework of Systemic-Functional linguistics (Halliday, 1985 & 1994). Then it goes on to put emphasis on the roles of "system" and "function" notions in analyzing, interpreting and translating poetry. Through giving some samples of English Poetry translated into Persian and vice versa, the paper tries to clarify the necessity of rendering the way the source poet deals with the three metafunctions of language particularly with the "ideational" and "textual" matafunctions. It will be argued that the translator's selections among linguistic signs and the way s/he combines them within the target system should, as far as possible, be based upon the ideational aspects and the textual patterns of the original poem (though the target choices are not necessarily supposed to be equally correspondent with the source elements). Furthermore, it will be emphasized that the final translated work should be in line with the target readers' criteria of textual acceptability and with their intertextual experience of what is considered to be a poem.