The Image Of United Kingdom In The Literatures Pertinent To UK In Late Qing Dynasty

Through reading literatures pertinent to United Kingdom (UK) in late Qing dynasty in detail, this paper has presented the negative image of UK from the perspective of domestic citizens and the ideal image from those who had traveled UK. With literary genealogy, cultural background and cognitive patterns have been analyzed, both of which have influenced creation of the different images.For domestic people, the image of "barbarian" had been developed into worse image of "beasts" or "monsters". Such demonization of UK is the result of the ongoing conflict between China and UK and the traditional concept which valued China with complete disrespect for foreign countries. For travelers, who were usually enlightened intellectuals and intended to learn more from UK after reaching some objective information in China, an "ideal" image began to appear in their literature works. However, the new image does not represent the whole picture of United Kingdom civilization.It is quite complicated for them to understand UK in the field of ethics. Affected by the traditional culture, travelers criticized English ethics for the most part in addition to some approval.The last chapter compares the different images of UK created by Chinese travelers and Japanese, which indicates different attitudes towards the culture of UK. It is argued that enthusiasm for western culture made Japan defeat China in the process of modernization in which more motivation and initiative promote Japan's learning advanced culture from comprehensive perspectives.