Performing China : virtue, commerce, and orientalism in eighteenth-century England, 1660-1760

Resource Information

The work Performing China : virtue, commerce, and orientalism in eighteenth-century England, 1660-1760 represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri-St. Louis Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Performing China : virtue, commerce, and orientalism in eighteenth-century England, 1660-1760

Title remainder

virtue, commerce, and orientalism in eighteenth-century England, 1660-1760

Statement of responsibility

Chi-ming Yang

Creator

• Yang, Chi-ming

Subject

• China
• China -- Civilization | History
• China -- Foreign public opinion, British | History -- 18th century
• Civilization
• European literature
• European literature -- 18th century
• History
• Public opinion, British
• SOCIAL SCIENCE -- General
• 1700-1799

Genre

• History

Language

eng

Summary

"China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was a model of economic and political strength, viewed by many as the greatest empire in the world. While the importance of China to eighteenth-century English consumer culture is well documented, less so is its influence on English values. Through a careful study of the literature, drama, philosophy, and material culture of the period, this book articulates how Chinese culture influenced English ideas about virtue. Discourses of virtue were significantly shaped by the intensified trade with the East Indies. Chi-ming Yang focuses on key forms of virtue--heroism, sincerity, piety, moderation, sensibility, and patriotism--whose meanings and social importance developed in the changing economic climate of the period. She highlights the ways in which English understandings of Eastern values transformed these morals. The book is organized by type of performance--theatrical, ethnographic, and literary--and by performances of gender, identity fraud, and religious conversion. In her analysis of these works, Yang brings to light surprising connections between figures as disparate as Confucius and a Chinese Amazon and between cultural norms as far removed as Hindu reincarnation and London coffeehouse culture."--Publisher's description

Member of

• UPCC book collections on Project MUSE

Cataloging source

CN8ML

Dewey number

303.48/24205109033

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

LC call number

DS754.25

LC item number

.Y364 2011

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

• dictionaries
• bibliography