The Invention of China in Early Modern England

Spelling the Dragon
2021
ISBN: 978-3-030-84031-0
Verlag: Springer Nature Switzerland

Buch, Englisch, 224 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 418 g

Reihe: Early Modern Literature in History

The Invention of China in Early Modern England describes how several different English communities became aware of China. It begins by describing how early modern intellectuals used the utopian ideal of China to license all kinds of progressive innovation before chronicling how England’s growing commerce in southeast Asia radically changed China’s representation in the English discourse community. For the new community of English merchants proposing to trade in Chinese goods, China became the seminal example in the growing discourse community of English Orientalism. It was an absolute or arbitrary authoritarian state, associated with crooked business dealings, and cloaked in a rhetoric of secrecy and exclusion—a dangerous exception to the traditions, values, and identities of the emergent English speaking states. Finally, the book points out some of the ways that contemporary English language sources continue to represent this early modern English thought tradition, labelling the complexities of modern China with analytical vocabulary perhaps better suited to the pressing political anxieties of the seventeenth century.  

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lux, Jonathan E.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Stoffe, Motive und Themen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturen sonstiger Sprachräume Ost- & Südostasiatische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction—The Invention of China in Early Modern England.- 2. Utopian Sinophilism in Early Modern England.- 3. “This Lov’d Golgotha”: The China Trade in Early Modern England.- 4. Aftershocks: Changing China.- 5. Conclusions and Reflections.

Über Autor(innen)

Jonathan E. Lux, Ph.D. serves with Leadership Development International; he teaches at Tianjin International School, China, and resides with his family in Tianjin.