The Western Society Impression Of Occidental Travel Notes In Late Qing Dynasty

Travel notes on foreign places in late Qing Dynasty is the product of special historical circumstances. The defeat of the Qing government in the opium war compelled many scholar-bureaucrats exploring earnestly a bright future for the nation and people. Under this circumstance, a trend of thought, that is,"literary works should serve the need of society", emerged in the field of literature. Travel notes, as an important literary style, tend to emphasize its role on the running of the country. In this case, numerous travel notes which described and presented foreign landscapes and cultural systems, were created at that time. Through the research of travel notes on foreign, we could learn the process of scholar-bureaucrats'feelings changed from resisted at the beginning to accept in the later.For some unknown reason, such kind of travel notes has long been ignored and nearly no study has been made on it. Since that kind of travel notes features large number and various themes, I would like to make detailed study on Occidental travel notes which are typical and systematical.This thesis is divided into three sections:In the first section, from the angle of social background, the thesis explores the causes of the creation of the travel notes on foreign places in the late Qing Dynasty, and then summarized the characteristics of traditional travel notes. Based on this development, travel notes in the late Qing Dynasty emphasised on the inherited and carried forward the traditional travel notes .In the second section, this thesis divided to three chapters introduced the dynamic force for the development of modern science, the superiority of the economic and political system, and the modern western social customs. The travelers concerned about the difference between western and Chinese cultures and made some reflection.This thesis emphasis on described the real situation of western countries and revealed the western travelers'thought and reflection. At the same time, this thesis combine analysis with background, fully display the impression of western society in western travelers'eyes.