China Mirror The Light And Dark,

Portugal was one of the earliest European countries to establish contacts with China, and the Portuguese occupancy of Macao lasted for 450 years. During the years of encounters and clashes, China had become an inevitable theme for the Portuguese in the aspects of politics, diplomacy and culture. Politicians, diplomats, missionaries, travelers, adventurers, novelists, poets, and even commoners had written a variety of works about China. The country was described and its ever-changing images were created at different dimensions of space and time, according to these people's imagination, experience, or even needs. In the 16th century, in particular, Portugal was the most active image creator of China among other European countries.For various reasons, no research has been carried out regarding the study of Chinese images in Portuguese literature. Thus, taking Imagology or Image Studies, the branch under the discipline of Comparative Literature, as an entry-point and theories of Orientalism as reference, the intention of this research is to investigate trends of formation and changes of the Chinese image. Selected Portuguese literary texts of the 16th to 19th centuries will be analyzed. During the process of imagination and recognition, the image of China as the "other" (the observee) created by the author as the "ego" (the observer) will also be discussed on the basis of parallel comparison, with emphasis on the Chinese culture revealed under such observation.Aside from the Introduction and the Conclusion, this dissertation consists of six chronologically arranged chapters. Chapter One presents the western yearning and the imagination of China, the motivation of Portuguese navigation as well as the formation of the Portuguese social psychology; these were the elements that construct the differences in the shaping of the Chinese image. Chapter Two outlines the images of China for the Portuguese in the 16th century and how these images were used or manipulated. Chapter Three identifies the reasons for Fernao Mendes Pinto's excessive praise for China. Chapter Four discusses the attitude held towards China by poets and missionaries, and the European misinterpretations of the Chinese image. Chapter Five reviews the Chinese image portrayed by Eca de Queiroz, a Portuguese novelist, and the translations of Chinese poems by certain poets. Chapter Six investigates how poets, especially those who had once stayed in Macao, viewed and perceived China.