Representation of poetics and conceptual metaphors of death in Russian translations of Dylan Thomas’s poetry

The study aims to determine the specific features of the representation of conceptual metaphors of death in Russian translations of Dylan Thomas’s poetry, in comparison with the poetic and philosophical content of the original texts. The research focuses on the verbalization methods of metaphorical images related to the theme of death and the analysis of poetic devices used by translators to preserve the semantic depth and emotional impact of the original. The scientific novelty of the research lies in establishing the characteristic strategies for conveying the conceptual metaphors of death in poetic translations of D. Thomas’s works into Russian and identifying the specifics of lexical-semantic and rhythmic-intonational transformations. The Russian versions of the poems “And death shall have no dominion” and “Do not go gentle into that good night”, translated by V. Betaki and M. Koreneva, were selected as research material. The analysis revealed that key metaphors and images related to the theme of death undergo semantic and stylistic transformations in the translations, due to both the individual interpretation of the translators and the peculiarities of the target language culture. The translations that successfully combine the preservation of the original conceptual metaphor with its adaptation to the poetic norms of the Russian language demonstrate the greatest semantic accuracy and poetic expressiveness.