Comparative analysis of two translations of the poem 서시 (seoshi) by the Korean poet Yoon Dong Ju from Korean into English

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show that even if the translator understands two different languages, translating poetry is challenging, as there are many cases when, we have to omit or change words or phrases to keep the poetical or prosodic aspects. We can also see that in this case translators can understand that the denotative options do not carry the emotion of the words that are expressed. For this thesis I will study two translations into English of the poem 서시(seoshi) by a famous Korean poet Yoon Dong Ju (1910–1945) and analyse the differences between them. The translations under scrutiny are: Chae-Pyong Song and Darcy Brandel’s Prologue, Kyung-nyun Kim Richards and Steffen F. Richards Foreword.