Metaphor In English Poetry And Its Translation

The study of metaphor has become extremely hot in modern times. It is no longer confined to the rhetoric domain, but in linguistics, sociology, psychology, etc. It has achieved a lot as a multidisciplinary research. In the field of translation, many scholars have studied it, but few of them have proposed the translating method of metaphor in English poetry.The author does some research in this aspect and classifies metaphor into three types according to structural linguistic theory, namely phonological metaphor, lexical metaphor and textual metaphor.Based on the "Three Beauty Theory" (beauty in form, sound and meaning) of Xu Yuanchong (许渊冲) in translating poetry, the author puts forward the "Four Beauty" criteria in translating metaphor in English poetry into Chinese: The ideal version should retain the original beauty of metaphor in image, form, sound and meaning.Metaphor usually goes beyond the denotative meaning and comes under the influence of contexts (linguistic context and cultural context). In view of this, accurate understanding of the contexts serves as the foundation to the understanding of metaphor.This paper concludes with the view that the structure and structural linguistic level of a metaphor as well as the specific contexts and artistic mood work as the key factors in the translation of metaphor in English poetry.