China and the Writing of English Literary Modernity, 1690-1770

Argues that eighteenth-century literature defined itself as 'English' and 'modern' by engaging with debates about Chinese history and culture.

List of contents

1. China between the ancients and the moderns; 2. Robinson Crusoe and the Great Wall of China; 3. The new, uncommon, or strange; 4. Oliver Goldsmith's serial Chinaman; 5. Thomas Percy's Chinese miscellanies and the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.

About the author

Eun Kyung Min is Professor of English at Seoul National University in Seoul, Korea. Her published work appears in such journals as The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, Eighteenth-Century Studies, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, Social Text, and English Literary History.

Summary

This book shows that the self-conscious construction of ideas about modern English literary character derived in part from debates about Chinese history, taste, and culture. By writing China into new literary forms such as the novel, periodical paper, and newspaper, writers helped define what constituted modern English identity.

Product details

• Authors: Eun Kyung Min, Eun Kyung (Seoul National University) Min
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.04.2018
• EAN: 9781108421935
• ISBN: 978-1-108-42193-5
• No. of pages: 288
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; China, English, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800