Translation of the Reverie in Romantic Poetry into Arabic

This thesis investigates the translation strategies applied by Arab translators when rendering English Romantic reverie into Arabic. It closely examines the translation of non-figurative images, metaphors, similes, and personifications in light of a proposed model specifically created for analysing the original images and their respective translations. The strategies adopted by each of the nine translators selected for close examination in this thesis are identified to determine whether the image type, meaning, and sensuous effect are retained or substituted via the use of any of the proposed sub-strategies of substitution. The results show that substituting the type of the source text (ST) image was the most used strategy by the translators followed by substituting the type and meaning of the ST image in the target text (TT). Furthermore, the study demonstrates that the type of image – whether nonfigurative or a personification, metaphor, or simile – and the nature of the image itself have a significant influence on the translation strategy chosen by the translator in the TT. In other words, when the image features a metaphor and/or a personification, a subcategory of substitution was applied by the translator in the TT. Since most of the Romantic reveries contain figurative images, substitution of one or more element of the ST reverie in the TT was the most adopted strategy by the translators. However, omission was barely used in the TT, which indicates the translators’ awareness of the importance of these Romantic images and their contribution to the structure of the ST reverie. The translators’ attempts to convey the reverie might have compelled them to apply different forms of substitution strategy in order to avoid omission strategy. This study concludes that 55% of Romantic reveries portrayed in the selected stanzas were not retained in the TT.