The Research Of Kang Youwei's Overseas Travel Essays

The failure of the two Opium Wars in the late Qing dynasty made China be gradually a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society,and the gate of the country was forced to open,the thought of concerning reality and applying was revived.During the reign of Emperor Xianfeng in the late Qing Dynasty,the government began to send officials to go abroad to finish an inspection tour.Later,there were a large number of great performers went abroad to inspect western culture in order to reform Chinese social evils and achieve free-standing self-improvement such as Zhang Deyi,Wang Tao,Guo Songtao,Li Shuchang,Huang Zunxian,Zeng Jize,Zhang Yinheng,Wu Rulun and so on,subsequently,the travel essays of social inspecting and political content emerged at a historic moment.The most overseas travel essays of Kang Youwei were written after the failure of the Reform Movement of 1898 during the time of living abroad,there was nearly 16 years from 24trh year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu(1898)to 2ed year(1913)of the republic of China that he traveled around the world for three times,and more than 30 countries and few people can achieve his width of traveling abroad and length of time at that time.Academics have more studies of political and academic works of Kang Youwei,while the study of his overseas travel essays is relatively less.The overseas travel essays of Kang Youwei have special significance in terms of the Chinese prose of old and new transformation,and its content is exceedingly rich with relatively high research value.The overseas travel essays of Kang Youwei have certain historical value.Record articles are rich in content,involving uphold a constitutional monarchy in the political system,hope the emperor and his ministers to keep unity in order to achieve a great succession,force against the revolution and claim the unionist,promote local autonomy and civil rights,and strive to military power;on the protection of cultural relics admired the preservation of western countries to cultural relics and historic sites in rocky,it is pointed out that China cannot preserve well the antiquities because our Chinese concept of protecting cultural relics is not strong,and cultural relics are the mterial of wood;promoting foreign advanced science and technology education on science and education culture,introducing some good methods of making the state of self-improvement;introduce some geographical location by latitude and longitude on overseas geography,emphasize the effect of geographical environment about foreign amorous feelings;although there are Confucian and Buddhist and Christianity on religious customs aspects to only respect Confucianism,according to three phased theory of Gongyang,recorded overseas customs,borrowing from ancient Chinese customs of recording written notes etc on the subject.As a result,expanded its vast historical data content and the rich value,there have been inspiring national wisdom and widening our sight.The overseas travel essays of Kang Youwei which literature characteristics are outstanding.It is relatively evident in the travel essays by the diary form and order body writing form;it mainly assume the form of prose with poetry style so that forms a kind of stylistic mutual participation phenomenon;reportage has three features(news,political and literary)to be prominent,showing the journalism of the travel essays of news magazine published in newspapers and magazines,containing the emotional inciting literariness,having certain social critical;narration,discussion and exposition of expressions highlight in the travel essays;mainly assumes the travel essays of collecting a quantity of curious things of view,it is affected by the nature of Kang Youwei that his hobbies are extensive and he likes collecting curious things,reflecting in the scope of travel essays,they tend to exotic cultures,different things outside,one end of anecdotes and legends and so on,which reflect the literary value of the overseas travel essays of Kang Youwei.The overseas travel essays contains Kang Youwei's academic thoughts and ideas.Academic thought focuses on the comparison of Chinese and Western culture which contains three connotations,Western culture is upper than Chinese culture so that we should learn from its advocates,it reveals national confidence that Chinese culture is better than Western culture in some aspects,the similar between Chinese and Western culture can also be used for reference,revealing the "two-way" choice method in Chinese and Western culture mutual certification,and Kang Youwei constructs the efforts of the equilibrium position of Chinese and Western culture construction by "reading Chinese books" and "traveling foreign countries”;the thought of notifying and applying ancient classics in his overseas travel essays aims that Kang Youwei has the ideology of Confucian thought profound and the use of communion between Chinese and Western culture;in addition,Kang Youwei also pitcher into the evolution point of view in his overseas travel essays in order to inspire people and so forth.The thought of Kang Youwei is different from before and after his overseas travel,and after this,his thought has obvious changes,it displays in:first,by the western view of the praise to the critique,there is a blind worship for western advanced culture before his overseas travel,and after this,there is a calm objective ana lysis for the advantages and disadvantages of western culture and he reveals western bad custom which shows his thought is gradually maturing,Kang Youwei put forward that we should be adhering to the correct attitude to treat the western culture,and do not blindly worship or totally repudiate it;second,from simple to more advanced view of saving the nation--seeing the advanced western culture,the ideas of saving the nation are no longer limited in a corner,in addition,he claims a constitutional monarchy on the political,on the economy,he also requires material saving the nation by the development of industry and commerce,such as,the establishment of banks and other financial institutions and so on,overall layout,the idea of saving the nation are gradually to be perfect.The overseas travel essays of Kang Youwei have certain status and influence in the history of Chinese prose.Comparing by the travel essays of Kang Youwei and his poems,we can know the consistency of his topic and epoch innovation,and the difference of literary genre and the methods of performance;compared with Chinese ancient writers,travel essays,the overseas travel essays of Kang Youwei can reveal different from traditional travel essays of the ideological content and language style;compared with the travel essays of Guo Songtao of the Xiangxiang School,and Xue Fucheng,Li Shuchang,Wu Rulun,Zhang Yuzhao of "four followers of Zeng Guofan" and so on these diplomats,it highlights the characteristics of the overseas travel essays of Kang Youwei as an escaping minister.The overseas travel essays of Kang Youwei have further expansion basing on the aspects of theme,form and so on in the traditional landscape;break the shackles of Tongcheng prose "argumentation",there are coming into being of the essays which break the genre and "don't learn the ancients",it laid the foundation for the ancient prose to "May 4th",prose rheological,all this,there is great influence for the evolution of transition from classical to modern Chinese prose.