SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This article explores a contemporary Chinese poem, Zhang Zao's “Dadi zhi ge,” as an intermedial translation of an intermedial source text—Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (musical and verbal). The article's aim is threefold: to enhance appreciation of the Chinese poem, to understand what intermedial translation means in practice, and to draw from this analytical exploration theoretical propositions that can help us reconceptualize literary belonging and cross-cultural encounters. Zhang Zao's “Dadi zhi ge” helps us move from a notion of translation as something that deals with the problem of the incommensurability of the material conditions of languages to one of translation as transcending such incommensurability. In fact, the poem is here to be considered as both an original and a translation at the same time. Primary questions include: Where does this poem begin? What does this poem translate? What's behind the choice of the source text? A metaphor underscoring our exploration is that of the “skein of yarn” (Calvino) or of the spinning of a “thread” (Wittgenstein)—that is, an image reporting on relational theories of literature, history, and translation.