Due to its construction of an image of modern Chinese philosopher who comments and reflects on what he has seen in England in comparison to China,Oliver Goldsmith’s The Citizen of the World(1760)has contradictorily b...Due to its construction of an image of modern Chinese philosopher who comments and reflects on what he has seen in England in comparison to China,Oliver Goldsmith’s The Citizen of the World(1760)has contradictorily been interpreted in two ways:One considers it as an orientalist discourse denigrating Chinese culture,while the other takes is as an utopian fabrication idealizing Chinese culture.Seeking“difference”between English and Chinese cultures is the underlying logic of these two types of interpretations.On the contrary,rooting on the“sameness”between them,this essay offers a new understanding about The Citizen of the World through a close textual analysis.The aim is to demonstrate how The Citizen of the World makes use of the image of Chinese philosopher to represent English cosmopolitanism featured with“polite”and“universal”and how the principle of equality operates through English cosmopolitanism.展开更多
In eighteenth-century Britain, knowledge about animals from around the world was rapidly increasing. This paper focuses on what the British knew and imagined about the animals of China from reading the works of Europe...In eighteenth-century Britain, knowledge about animals from around the world was rapidly increasing. This paper focuses on what the British knew and imagined about the animals of China from reading the works of European travellers and natural historians. Whereas the animals of Africa and America served to foster a growing sense of European mastery of less civilized parts of the world through trade and possession, those of China were understood as embedded in a highly advanced civilization and therefore as sources of knowledge about that civilization. This paper examines the way in which British understandings of China were mediated through accounts of Chinese animals and of human-animal relations in China. Looking at works of popular natural history and at Oliver Goldsmith＇s fictional letters of a ＂Chinese philosopher＂ in The Citizen of the World （1762）, I argue that the animals of China bore several messages about their country. Focusing on the particular examples of the golden pheasant, the horse, the cormorant, and the cat, I suggest that British writing about Chinese animals served as a way of expressing mixed feelings about the value of advanced civilizations, whether Chinese or European.展开更多
文摘Due to its construction of an image of modern Chinese philosopher who comments and reflects on what he has seen in England in comparison to China,Oliver Goldsmith’s The Citizen of the World(1760)has contradictorily been interpreted in two ways:One considers it as an orientalist discourse denigrating Chinese culture,while the other takes is as an utopian fabrication idealizing Chinese culture.Seeking“difference”between English and Chinese cultures is the underlying logic of these two types of interpretations.On the contrary,rooting on the“sameness”between them,this essay offers a new understanding about The Citizen of the World through a close textual analysis.The aim is to demonstrate how The Citizen of the World makes use of the image of Chinese philosopher to represent English cosmopolitanism featured with“polite”and“universal”and how the principle of equality operates through English cosmopolitanism.
文摘In eighteenth-century Britain, knowledge about animals from around the world was rapidly increasing. This paper focuses on what the British knew and imagined about the animals of China from reading the works of European travellers and natural historians. Whereas the animals of Africa and America served to foster a growing sense of European mastery of less civilized parts of the world through trade and possession, those of China were understood as embedded in a highly advanced civilization and therefore as sources of knowledge about that civilization. This paper examines the way in which British understandings of China were mediated through accounts of Chinese animals and of human-animal relations in China. Looking at works of popular natural history and at Oliver Goldsmith＇s fictional letters of a ＂Chinese philosopher＂ in The Citizen of the World （1762）, I argue that the animals of China bore several messages about their country. Focusing on the particular examples of the golden pheasant, the horse, the cormorant, and the cat, I suggest that British writing about Chinese animals served as a way of expressing mixed feelings about the value of advanced civilizations, whether Chinese or European.
