The translation of Tolkien's poetry : "Far over the Misty Mountain cold" and "Nüüd mingem siit, veel koidu eel"

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to analyse the translation of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s poem ‘Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold’ from his book The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, which was published in 1937. The thesis will analyse the English version of the poem and compare it to its Estonian translation “Nüüd mingem siit, veel koidu eel” by Harald Rajamets, which was published in 1977 in Lia Rajandi’s translation of The Hobbit called “Kääbik, ehk, Sinna ja tagasi”. The first part of the thesis will give an overview of the role of poetry in Tolkien’s writing, discuss the key aspects of translating poetry and introduce Harald Rajamets as a translator. The empirical part consists of the analyses of ‘Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold’ and its Estonian translation “Nüüd mingem siit, veel koidu eel” concentrating on the comparison of the differences between the source text and the translation regarding the narrative structure, metre, rhyme, and repetitions. A summary of the analysis will be presented in the conclusion.