ABSTRACT
The extensive use of poems in the novel adds a further dimension to the identity of the narrator, who cloaks him/herself not only in the persona of a storyteller, but also as a poet. Therefore, any translator working from a traditional Chinese source text (ST) has to meet the concomitant challenge of punctuating and paragraphing before setting out to translate. David Tod Roy orients more towards the ST as a classic novel; although he is devising a 'modern translation', he attempts to preserve the ancient form of the poem, which is even obsolete in China. In Roy's translation, however, the flirtatious language evaporates: 'brother' and 'sister' are replaced with 'the patron' and 'the girls', which turns the lively interactive tone into an alienating business voice, distancing the target text from its audience and the ST, and thus weakening the ironic power of the poem.
