On the afternoon of November 24th, 2025, a special lecture entitled “Harold Acton’s Translation and Introduction of Chinese Literature” hosted by the Center for Globalization of Chinese Poetry of the School of Foreign Studies (SFS) of Nankai University was successfully held in Room 110 at SFS. Prof. Guan Xingzhong, a doctoral supervisor from Beijing Language and Culture University’s School of Translation and Interpreting, was invited as the keynote speaker. Presided over by Professor Zhang Zhizhong, director of the Center for Globalization of Chinese Poetry of SFS, the lecture attracted many teachers and students to learn and communicate.
Professor Guan Xingzhong takes Harold Acton, an English aristocrat who lived in Beijing in the 1930s, as the research object, and systematically sorts out his important contributions in translating and introducing Chinese poems, classical novels and operas. The lecture focuses on Peach Blossom Fan translated by Harold Acton and the manuscripts of Popular Chinese Plays Translated by Harold Acton, in which the latter contains 38 Beijing operas and Kunqu operas, showing the translator’s in-depth understanding and artistic reproduction ability of Chinese traditional operas. In the lecture, he analyzed Acton’s translation generation process and summarized his translation strategies from the perspective of translation generation. Professor Guan Xingzhong pointed out that Acton paid attention to the use of visual language in translation and was good at enhancing the drama and readability of the text through “multi-modal modification”. His “gardener-style pruning technique” provided valuable reference for the foreign translation practice of Chinese literature.
In the questioning session, the teachers and students exchanged views with Professor Guan Xingzhong on opera translation and multilingual dissemination of classics. The atmosphere at the scene was positive and enthusiastic. Teachers and students indicated that this lecture not only deepened their understanding of Harold Acton’s translation achievements, but also provided theoretical enlightenment for the path exploration of Chinese literature to go global.
Professor Guan Xingzhong has devoted himself to the study of Chinese literature and culture translation for a long time. He has presided over a number of national scientific research projects, has recently published works such as Jinju and Kunqu Bilingual Dictionary and Popular Chinese Plays Translated by Harold Acton, and has published several papers in Chinese Translation Journal and Journal of Foreign Languages.
