The Chinese language in European texts: The early period

255 Pages·2016·3.449 MB·English

by  Dinu Luca

CHINESE LITERATURE and CULTURE in the WORLD
The CHINESE
LANGUAGE in
EUROPEAN TEXTS
The Early Period
Dinu Luca
Chinese Literature and Culture in the World
Series Editor
Ban   Wang
Stanford University
Stanford ,  California, USA
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Dinu   L uca
The Chinese
Language in
European Texts
The Early Period
Dinu   Luca
National Taiwan Normal University
Taipei City, Taiwan
Chinese Literature and Culture in the World
ISBN 978-1-137-51225-3 ISBN 978-1-137-50291-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-50291-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016947979
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For my parents

P
ERMISSIONS
For kind permission to reproduce illustrations and quote copyrighted
sources, I am grateful to the following institutions:
The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, for permission to repro-
duce the illustration from Von der erfarün[g] des strengen Ritter[s]
johannes von montauille (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Rar. 982,
fol. 51v and 52r).
Cambridge University Press, for permission to quote from Perot de
Garbelai’s D ivisiones Mundi , edited by O. H.  Prior, in Cambridge Anglo-
Norman Texts, edited by J. P. Strachey, H. J. Chaytor, and O. H. Prior
(1924; reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
Romania , for permission to quote from Pierre de Beauvais’s
Mappemonde (Annie Angremy, “La M appemonde de Pierre de Beauvais,”
Romania 104 [1983]: 316–450, 457–98).
The Kirishitan Bunko Library, Sophia University, for permission
to reproduce the illustrations from C artas que os Padres e Irmãos da
Companhia de Jesus, que andão nos Reynos de Japão escreverão aos da mesma
Companhia… (JL-1570-KB4, pages 0106v, 0107r, 0161r, and 0161v)
and from Juan González de Mendoza’s H istoria de las cosas más notables…
(JL-1585-KB62, pages 0104 and 0105).
Cantabria University Press, for permission to reproduce the illustration
from Bernardino de Escalante’s D iscurso de la navegacion…. Discurso de
la navegación… de Bernardino de Escalante (ISBN 978-84-87412-59-2)
fue publicada originalmente en español por la Editorial de la UC en el
año 1992, w ww.editorialuc.es . Discurso de la navegación… de Bernardino
vii
viii PERMISSIONS
de Escalante (ISBN 978-84-87412-59-2) was originally published by
Cantabria University Press in Spanish in 1992, www.editorialuc.es.
University of Antwerp Library, for permission to reproduce the illus-
tration from Abraham Ortelius’s T heatrum orbis terrarum (University of
Antwerp Library, Special Collections, MAG-P 15.101, fol. 106).
The Ossoliński Institute, Lower Silesian Digital Library (DBC), for
permission to reproduce the illustrations from Blaise de Vigenère’s T raicté
des chiffres… .
The Bibliothèque Municipale d’Orléans, fonds ancien—Bibliothèques
Virtuelles Humanistes, CESR, Tours, for permission to reproduce the
illustrations from Claude Duret’s T hresor de l’histoire des langues de cest
univers (Yverdon, 1619—Cote: D25).
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book began when doctoral work on early Chinese poetics seemed
somehow unable to advance without a thorough investigation of the
European hallucinations of Chinese writing. When the chapter pro-
duced as a result of highly delectable early forays into this fi eld began to
threaten the logic of the ensemble it was supposed to fi t into, it became
obvious that further exploration of the domain would have to be left for
another time. This came in 2008, when a grant from the National Central
Library of Taiwan took me to its rich collections, and in 2009, when a
Fulbright fellowship enabled me to spend many hours in Yale’s fabulous
libraries. I am very thankful to the superb staff of the two institutions.
Most subsequent research was conducted as part of two National
Taiwan Normal University grants (2010–2012) as well as in connection
with two grants offered by Taiwan’s National Science Council (2011–
2012 and 2013–2014; grant numbers: NSC 100-2410-H-003-041, and
NSC 102-2410-H-003-106). These funded the employment of several
research assistants, and Cate Chang, Stacy Liu, Annta Su, Vivian Chiu,
and Chelsea Chang did an excellent job of collecting and organizing some
of the data this book builds on. In these and related matters, assistance was
also kindly provided by Véronique Dai, Candice Hsu, Mélodie Wu, and
Linda Hsieh. I thank them all again for their valuable support.
I owe much gratitude to Oana Popescu-Sandu and to my former stu-
dents Chia-hui Chiang and Rita Lo, who facilitated my access to hard-
to- get materials. I am particularly indebted to another former student,
Victoria Lupaşcu, who spent much time and energy tracking down and
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