Mr. S. Pathmanathan‟s Poetic Translation of “Thennilankaikkavithaikal” -A Study.

Abstract

Translation serves as a cultural bridge between two different communities by creating mutual understanding and reconciliation among the communities. It can also be classified as a science, which needs a systematic study. Translation is an essential skill and depends largely on a series of disciplines, for example, linguistics, cultural anthropology, philology, psychology and theories of communication. This paper focuses on the poetic translation of southern Sri Lankan poems translated by S. Pathmanathan. The research is aimed at learning the techniques of poetic translation, the ways of overcoming the cultural barriers, and how to create reconciliation between Sinhala and Tamil communities. According to the statement of Robert Frost, "a poem must be translated by a poet". Since S. Pathmanathan is a poet, his translation will be very effective because he has used various techniques of poetic translation. The objective of this study is to examine as to how to succeed in poetic translation by overcoming the cultural barriers and to analyze the techniques of translation used by S.Pathmanathan. This study is concerned on the effect of Translation of Southern Sri Lankan poems into English and Tamil from original Sinhala poetry. This research helps the students in the translation course and the researchers in the literary field, to study the techniques of poetic translation and the impact of cultural barriers. Data for the study were collected from S. Pathmanathan's translation of Southern Sri Lankan poems and its original poem extracted from Sinhala and English poetry books. Meanwhile, other data were obtained from library books, web site, articles related to poetic translation. Descriptive and comparative methodologies were used to analyze the translations of Southern Sri Lankan poems by S.Pathmanathan. He, being a poet, has used poetic license for the benefit of the readers of poetic translation and he has utilized certain techniques in his poetic translation, such as lexical deviation, deviation for register, omission of comprehension to preserve the semantic meaning. According to Robert Frost, “A poem must be translated by a poet” has been proved by S. Pathmanathan through his task of poetic translation. It can also be mentioned that S. Pathmanathan‟s mode of poetic translation could serve as a guide to the future generation of translators.