Abstract: Poetic function is regarded as the "dominant, determining function" of verbal art.Accordingly, the dominant and determining goal of literary translation should be the retaining of the poetic function of the original text as much as possible in such a way as to reflect its poetic value.This paper tries to elaborate the mechanism of poetic function from the perspectives of linguistics and semiotics.This mechanism shows that the poetic function of literary works is primarily realized by literariness, which is featured by different ways of defamiliarization chosen aesthetically and purposefully by the author on the axis of selection.However, in actual translation, a large number of defamiliarizing expressions are replaced by familiarizing ones, resulting in great damage to the poetic function and poetic value of the original text.This paper puts forward the concept of poetic translation in terms of poetics, and explores the application of the poetic methodology to poetic translation.