Image of “Travelers” in the Overseas Travel Notes in Late Imperial China

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  • 晚清域外游记中的“行游者”形象

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Abstract

Using imagology as a method of the comparative literature research, this paper studies the image of “travelers” in overseas travel notes from the late Qing dynasty. The “travelers” in the travel notes are “self-shaped images”, which reveal the relationship between the external shocks and self-identity and indicate the identity issues of many Chinese in “transitional era”. When the people of that time traveled the world, traditional travel based on the historical background and cultural accumulation was inherited and transcended. People would accept modern new knowledge based on the traditional writing, where the “West” was the most important “other”. It was the cultural mission of travelers to complete their own “self” with the help of “the other”. In the world landscape and civilization mechanisms of the “Tianxia Doctrine” and “Yixia Conception”, the image of China made a breakthrough through the continuation of the promotion of Western images. The ambition of “educating the world” and the demand of “seeking solutions” from the West coexisted and went through changes of growth and decline.

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