Following the Trend and Focusing on Pastime—A Critical Review of the Poetry Translation by the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School

Looking close into poetry translation published in major magazines of the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School, this paper finds out “pastime” has been a key word to explain the preferred themes, style and poetic features of its poetry translation. Using modern poetic theories, this paper also carries out contrastive analysis between original and translated poems, to diagnose poetic deficiencies and trace poetic genes of the translated poems. Besides, this paper tries to explain poetry translation development of this School based on its interaction with new literature groups in “May 4th” movement. A critical review of the poetry translation of this School can help to understand vernacular poetry creation and translation, and popular literature development in modern China.