Goldsworthy lowes Dickinson and the King's College Mandarins

Abstract

This article examines the interrelations between Cambridge and Chinese writers and intellectuals during the first half of the twentieth century. It takes as its starting point the writings of Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson and explores his personal influence upon three generations of Kingsmen - Roger Fry, Arthur Waley and Julian Bell - who mediated Chinese art, literature and philosophy in Cambridge and beyond. It is argued that Dickinson's aesthetics and his liberal world-mindedness were crucial in laying the foundations for interchange between the Cambridge English Faculty and China, which bore fruit in the careers of I. A. Richards and William Empson. © 2011 The Author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Cambridge Quarterly. All rights reserved.