Великобританската представа за китайския език между XVII и XIX в. – Павел Петков

• Author(s): Pavel Petkov
• DOI:
• Language: Bulgarian
• Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology
• Issue: 1/5/2020
• Page Range: 199-212
• No. of Pages: 14
• Keywords: Chinese Language; Travel Writing; Imagology; Enlightenment
• Summary/Abstract: During the period under discussion the idea of the Chinese language underwent a substantial change. While in the seventeenth century – when Britain was in the grip of a powerful sinophile sentiment – many intellectuals were inclined to view the language and the writing system of the Middle Kingdom favorably, seeing in the Chinese characters a remnant of the first human language, during the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries the popular views changed and the Chinese language was examined with a more critical eye. The paper discusses these changes, focusing on a few authors whose views can be considered fairly representative of the prevalent societal trends at the time. Among the authors I discuss are John Bell, Samuel Johnson, Francis Bacon and John Webb.
• PDF: LINK