By Yangfan Helynna Lin, VI Form 

Preservation of Metaphor in Translation: Analyzing the Chinese Poet Su Shi

“Bad translations communicate too much” (1). In After Babel, George Steiner points out that a bad translation strips the original text of something important by unnecessarily applying new elements to the original text. In English translations of Chinese poems, one type of bad translation attempts at over-explaining the metaphors, or metaphorical objects, in the poem, which puts readers at the risk of accessing less information that the metaphor otherwise would have presented to the reader- – that is, a fuller image that the poem originally presents.

Let’s compare the following two translations of the same poem: Nian Nu Jiao: Chi Bi Huai Gu by Chinese poet Su Shi (2). *Literally translated into “Nian Nu Jiao: At Chi Bi Cherishing the Past”, with which Nian Nu Jiao is the tune that the poem rhymes.

念奴娇（赤壁怀古） 苏轼

大江东去，浪淘尽、千古风流人物。故垒西边，人道是、三国周郎赤壁。乱石穿空，惊涛拍岸，卷起千堆雪。江山如画，一时多少豪杰。

遥想公瑾当年，小乔初嫁了，雄姿英发。羽扇纶巾，谈笑间、樯虏灰飞烟灭。故国神游，多情应笑我，早生华发。人生如梦，一尊还酹江月。 (more…)