An Analysis of Narrative and Discourse Levels in Poetry Translation: The Case of Robert Frost’s Fire and Ice

Abstract

Poetry translation is a multilayered rewriting process shaped by the attempt to preserve rich symbolic structures, rhythmic elements, and sound patterns while maintaining semantic integrity. This study aims to comparatively analyse Robert Frost’s poem Fire and Ice and its translation into Turkish created by Talât Sait Halman from an interdisciplinary perspective. Based on a qualitative research method, the study adopts Holmes’s (1972) descriptive translation approach. The texts are analysed along the levels of narrative and discourse within the framework of Barthes’ (1967) layers of meaning, Derrida’s (1978) deconstruction theory, Kristeva’s (1980) concept of intertextuality, and Lefevere’s (1992) rewriting approach. The analysis reveals that Halman’s translation largely preserves the narrative level of the source text, including the binary opposition constructed around the signs of fire and ice and the lyrical subject’s choice between these two forces. However, significant transformations are observed at the discourse level. It is determined that the emphatic positions of the signs at the end of the lines are partially lost and that the lyrical subject’s epistemic hesitation is largely eliminated in the translation, resulting in a more certain and dramatic discourse. The findings demonstrate that poetry translation is not a process of transferring meaning in a fixed manner, but rather a dynamic creative process that reconstructs meaning in accordance with the expressive possibilities of the target language. Since limited to a single source text and its translation, this study does not claim generalizability. Yet, it offers an interdisciplinary analytical model for poetry translation studies.