Lost and found in translation: the case of alliteration

Abstract

The paper examines the transmission of alliteration in Estonian and Russian translated verse. The main focus is on the translation of alliterative epic, on the one hand, and more recent literary alliteration, on the other hand. Various alliterative techniques in different genres are observed, as well as various strategies in conveying alliteration: rejection of alliteration, transmission of alliteration, compensatory translation, for example, with functional equivalent and eventually, saturation with alliteration, to signal alliteration in a tradition without corresponding framework.

Keywords

• alliteration
• metrics
• parallelism
• poetry translation
• sound repetitions