Translating Musicality in Poetry: Hugh MacDiarmid's 'the Eemis Stane' in Chinese

Musicality and literature have often been closely related to each other, though the concept of each is shaped by social and personal contexts. Musicality plays a particularly important part in both western metrical poetry and Chinese classical poetry. Chinese translators have made diverse attempts to reproduce western poetic musicality in their translations. The early Scots lyrics of Hugh MacDiarmid are widely renowned for their musical qualities, which pose great challenges for the Chinese translators. This chapter addresses the challenges of translating the linguistic features of MacDiarmid's Scots that constitute its musicality, for example, rhyme, metre, alliteration and assonance. It assesses in detail two Chinese translations of Hugh MacDiarmid's 'The Eemis Stane', by Wang Zuoliang and Zhang Jian, and discusses the ways in which each translator attempts to find a translational equivalent in Chinese for the musical qualities of the Scots lyric.