The Evolution Of The Image Of China In The West From13^th To18^th Century

The imagologie founded in French in the1950s is a new research field in thecomparative literature. As its name suggests, the imagologie is the study of images,but the images on the significance of comparative literature are the investigations ofcreation and description on the exotic location or alien races, instead of those of afigure or a type of figures in the literary works. Although the Chinese scholars wereinvolved in this field nearly a half century later than the westerners, the topics relatedto imagologie had entered China through the western translations, accompanied by thebooming in comparative literature studies since1990s. It has achieved fruitful resultseither in the theory of construction or in the practical research, especially in the last10years, when the research on the images of China in the foreign culture or literaryworks has became an active field. It mainly includes the images of China in differenttimes, countries, ideologies and texts.The image of China in the west is continually changing in the long process ofhistorical development, but its clue can also be followed. The Travels of Marco Polowhich was published in1298, has been considered by Zhou Ning as the starting pointof the image of China in the west. Also, some scholars believe that China had beenwell known in the early time of ancient Greece and Rome. It is widely acknowledgedthat the image of China in the west was constantly in an ascent stage of idealizedtreatment from its naissance to18thcentury. But it was sharply reversed since the lateperiod of18thcentury, from being beautified to being vilified, from being adored tobeing abhorred, from being idealized to being demonized. Both international anddomestic scholars have contributed and achieved considerable achievements in thestudy of the image of China in the west in the later stage from modern tocontemporary time, and this paper selects the preceding stage in which few peopleconcerned, that is the transition process from the beautification to the reversion. In thepractical research, this dissertation attempts to comb and classify the representativeimages of China created in the texts or transmission medium which influenced greatlyin the western in different historical periods from13thto18thcentury, intends toinvestigate the changes and its historical and cultural contexts.Basically, this dissertation can be divided into the following six parts:The first part is the introduction. In this part, it defines the theory and category of imagologie and the research of the image of China in the west, and outlines thehistory and current situation of the research, the value of the thesis theme and thepractical methods.The second part presents the image of China in the west during the Later MiddleAges. In13thcentury, the conquest of the Mongols made the traffic of Eurasia into anunprecedented open stage, and it also made the first direct contact between theChinese and the Westerners. Giovanni da Pian del Carpine and William of Rubruk, themonks of the Franciscan Order, mentioned Khitan for the first time, and concludedthat it must be the ancient Seres. During the next200years, there were manydescriptions about Khitan and Manzi in different types of texts in the west. The mostinfluential works were The Travels of Marco Polo and The Travels of Sir JohnMandeville. Especially the former created the western collective imagination of Chinaintegrating the wealth, power and earthly pleasures.The third part analyses the image of China in the west during the period of theGreat Discoveries of Geography. Columbus discovered America in1492. It wasregarded as the starting point of western modem culture. His inspiration ofadventurous voyage came from the Chinese mythology full of wealth and earthlypleasures which was built by Marco Polo. Going to the East, was an access to thewealth. Impelled by the spirit of mercantilism and freedom, the businessmen andadventurers embarked on the journey to China. The western expansion abroad wascharacterized not only by the economic and military conquest, but also by thespreading of Christianity which is the representative of western cultural spirit, and themission was carried out by the missionaries. If we say Marco Polo built a materialimage of China for the Europeans, then the missionaries promoted it to the spirituallevel. They implanted the historical and cultural factors on the basis of Chinesemythology, and built a real and clear, civilized image of China, made it become a newstarting point just like the milestone in the history of the evolution of the image ofChina in the west.The forth part describes the image of China in the west during the period ofEnlightenment. At the turn of17th-18thcentury, following the Great Discoveries ofGeography, the western countries were ushered in the era of cultural discoveries. TheConfucius Sinarum Philosophus edited by Philippe Couplet, was published in Paris in1687. It was the first book which introduced completely Confucius thought and hisworks in Europe. It was also the first time that the Europeans understood deeply the philosophical foundation of the Chinese culture, and the enlightened thinkers took thelead in finding the available cultural values of it. For Europeans, the image of Chinaat this time not only meant the opportunities to find the land and to gain the wealth,but also represented a kind of unique, superior political system and ethics culturebased on the rationalism and moral. They embodied in enlightened monarch andConfucian thought. It provided a kind of motive power to rebuild society and a modelof innovation and transcendence for Europe. At the same time, an upsurge of Chineseworship was widely spreading in the western society. The so-called “Chinoiserie”became the object which was worshipped and imitated competitively by theEuropeans. The China’s image in the west of this period also reached its brilliantculmination of its evolution.The fifth part dissects the image of China in the west in the late18thcenturywhich was quickly reversed after nearly five centuries of continuously rising phase ofthe beautification and the reason of the change. During the18thcentury, with thecolonial expansion of western countries, the hegemony supremacy was graduallyformed in the areas of politics, economy and even the culture. As a result, the culturalutilization function of the image of China as an “other” feature changed. China whichwas still under the ruling of feudal autocracy could no longer be the model for thewestern civilization which was developing rapidly. As the antithesis of westerndemocratic politics and liberal ideology, an ignorant, moral degeneration, autocraticand stagnant image of China formed and continued to now days.The last part is the epilogue. It summarizes the track of the evolution of China’simage in the west from13thto18thcentury, and discusses further the academic valueand significance of the research on China’s image in the west. In the study on theevolution of China’s image in the west, we can find that the image of China in thewest is not all entirely true, complete and objective reflection of China, it is also the“reproduction” of China mixed with knowledge and imagination, formed during thespecific historical and cultural context. Therefore through the western perspective wecan not only see the image of China existing as the “cultural alien” of the west formedin its own historical accumulation, but observe back in Chinese culture itself frommultiple views, and understand it more comprehensive as well.