Daniele Duscovich

Alma Mater Europaea

DOI : https://doi.org/10.58806/ijsshmr.2025.v4i11n01

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ABSTRACT

Translating poetry is not about linguistic accuracy (Malmkjær, 2020), and if Torop finds that translation has not to be a mere word-by-word replacement (Torop, 2024), but has to deal with the transmission of whole experience of the original text, this is more the ever the case for poetry. The translation process is about getting the real voice and the real intention of the author, in prose, in drama and in poetry. It is about understating real cultural aspects, historical references and much more. Moreover, in poetry there is the challenge of the rhythm, metric and the rhetorical devices. AI has made big steps forward in the field of language and translation, but it is a fact that limitations persist in analysing and processing symbols, hidden messages and context, as well as – just to make an example – alliterations, assonances and metaphors. The aim of this study is to identify some of the challenges and main issues of Artificial Intelligence while translating poetry. Qualitative research will be conducted to analyse the role of AI in dealing with semantical, rhetorical and poetical aspects, so that translation choices do not prejudice any dimension. For this purpose, a contrastive analysis will be conducted between a Chat GPT-generated translation and a human-translated version of the same original text. This study focus on the poem Suicide in the Trenches by Siegfried Sassoon. Afterwards, the investigation will be about the analysis and interpretation of the poem, referring to the translation process into Italian itself. Considerations will be made in order to understand if AI was able to produce a translation which does need human intervention. Nevertheless, more empirical research is needed so that this study and its findings are generalised and positive and negative aspects in the translation process with AI are ultimately identified.

KEYWORDS:

Translation, Poetry, Chat GPT, AI, Sassoon

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VOlUME 04 ISSUE 11 November 2025