An Aesthete's Chinese Dream

Sir Harold Acton is an very important person in the literature interchanging of Chinese and English in the Twentieth Century. He had lived in China for seven years, and he had also made a large amount of Chinese and many other countries friends in China. He loves Chinese Literature a lot, and he made good efforts to study Chinese civilization and produced huge achievement to it.In the year 1932, Sir Harold Acton decided to go to China to find his Chinese Dream, for escaping from the bad atmosphere of the Western world. He enjoyed himself in Beijing, and he also find a good job in Beijing Union University. He took enthusiasm to teach English Literature, and he really did best in his way. At that time, he thought Beijing was his paradise, the heaven of the aesthetes. But the Sino-Japanese War forced him to leave Beijing, so he came back to European with a broken heart. His Chinese Dream would never been true.There are many western people wanted to find a paradise in China. In history, China is a mystical place of the far East, its gorgeous and harmony made it too much like an dream in the brains of the western world. The war force people to think their faith again, they couldn't avoid from the wars, which caused the western people give up all hope of living. So the scholars changed their eyes to China once and once, striving gain a good therapy to the western world.There aren't many people put attentions to Memories of An Aesthete, the reminiscences of Sir Harold Acton. This paper is just to find some historical facts from this book, about the tracks of Sir Harold Acton in China. We can get the facts that how many places he had been to, and who were the people he associated with during his life. We can know him better from his own sight, and make clear to his definition of "the aesthete".The paper will also introduce a novel of Sir Harold Acton named Peonies and Ponies, this book is about the living of the westerners in Beijing in the early Twenties Century. Acton made a figure of aesthete called Philip Flower, he was also an aesthete who wanted to achieve his Chinese Dream in China. He is an person just like Sir Harold Acton, the difference is that Philip find his paradise in Beijing at last, but Acton never would. During Acton's teaching in the university, his student Pien Chih-lin encouraged him to translate the modern Chinese poetry to English, so Acton and Ch'en Shih-Hsiang, who was also the student of him, cooperated to the first English book on translating modern Chinese poetry, that is Modern Chinese Poetry. Famous Chinese Plays is another book which translated famous Chinese plays to westerners, Acton collaborated with the American drama learned man L·C (Lewis Charles)·Arlington, and this book translated thiry-three famous Chinese plays to introduce the Chinese plays to the western world.There are seven parts in this paper.The first one is according to the Memories of An Aesthete, we should learn the environment of the family of Sir Harold Acton, the environment he grew up, and the source of his faith and interests. Then we will comb out the routes of his traveling to China. The second part is about the aesthete and his friends, including the westerners and Chinese. The third one links with the novel Peonies and Ponies, we will find the Chinese Dream in it. The fourth part is related to Modern Chinese Poetry and Famous Chinese Plays. The fifth part is the differences of the Chinese between Sir Harold Acton and other English author who came to China in the early Twentieth Century. And the sixty one is about the Chinese of Acton and the theme of the rescuing from the East.