Thinking Other People's Thoughts: Brian Holton's Translations from Classical Chinese into Lowland Scots

Abstract

Brian Holton (b. 1949), the only currently working translator of classical Chinese poetry into Scots, is here approached biographically, through his personal history and his career in translating and publishing. Holton's collection of his own translation materials, including drafts, proofs, scores, translations, notes, lectures, correspondence, and journalistic writings, has been made available to the author. As a voice of history, Holton's life and work constitute a subjective narrative that enters into debate, discussion, and interpretation with larger narratives, spheres of diffusion, and power relations. Hence the discussion touches on such matters as as language policy in education and national literatures, and issues of centre and periphery, foreignization and domestication.