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This study explores the previously overlooked influence of Qiu Jun, a renowned mid-Ming dynasty scholar, on Jesuit missionaries and Chinese Catholic believers. Although Qiu's impact on Confucian scholars of the mid-to-late Ming period is well established, his role in shaping formalized Chinese ritual systems and Chinese Catholicism has received little attention. A closer examination of Jesuit missionaries' translation of Confucian classics and Chinese Catholic texts from the late Ming and early Qing periods reveals that Qiu's works were frequently cited, particularly in relation to the abolition of divine titles, the worship of Confucius, and the establishment of the City-god system. Qiu's responses to these issues, informed by Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang's efforts to centralize power and establish authority in both secular and religious spheres, served as key references for mid-Ming reforms. Moreover, Jesuit fathers and Chinese Catholic adherents drew on Qiu's perspectives in their writings to address various issues during the Chinese Rites Controversy. This research uncovers the profound impact of Qiu Jun's ideas on the cultural exchange between China and the West in the 17th–18th centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The book Lidai Shenxian Tongjian (The Comprehensive Mirror of Immortals Throughout the Dynasties), a compilation of Taoist narratives from the early Qing dynasty, contains a dedicated section on "The Life of Jesus," accompanied by two images portraying Jesus and the Virgin Mary. "The Life of Jesus" is believed to have originated from Gaspar Ferreira's Nianzhu Guicheng (Rule for the Recitation of the Rosary) and Diego de Pantoja's Tianzhu Yesu Shounan Shimo (The Passion of the Lord Jesus). The narratives and images of Christian content within Tongjian showcase the influence of Chinese Ming–Qing Taoist immortal stories and the indigenization of Christianity that resulted in a fusion of Chinese and Western cultural elements. Multiple versions of the accompanying images exist in different editions of Tongjian, indicating an evolution in the depictions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Through a comparative analysis of these images and their variations, we can glean valuable insights into the Qing dynasty editors' reception of Western culture, shedding light on the process of localizing Christianity during the Ming–Qing period and emphasizing the significance of the cultural exchange and mutual understanding between Chinese and Western civilizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voltaire praised Alexander Pope's poem, An Essay on Man, as a magnificent and profound philosophical work that garnered widespread popularity and had a significant impact. It was believed that the poem's philosophical concepts were influenced by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who drew inspiration from Jesuit writings and regarded Neo-Confucianism as China's "natural theology". In December 1897, Yan Fu translated six lines from Pope's poem into Chinese as a part of his translation of Tianyan lun. Subsequently, Timothy Richard and Ren Tingxu collaborated for five months to translate An Essay on Man into Chinese, known as Tianlun shi (A Poem of Heavenly Ethics), which was published in mid-summer 1898. This Chinese translation became the first extensive Western poem to be translated into Chinese. It consisted of four parts, with over 1300 lines in its original form and approximately 17,200 Chinese characters in translation. Ren rendered Pope's heroic couplets into a quatrain-style Chinese poem. The term "Tianlun" (Heavenly Ethic) was derived from Young John Allen's theory, which aimed to supplement Confucian ethics by illustrating the "man and heaven" (or "man and God") relationship. The poem successfully intertwined Christian and Confucian ideas, harmoniously blending the two discourses of natural theology and Neo-Confucianism. Ren's literary embellishments played a significant role in this remarkable achievement. Richard and Ren's translation of the poem served various purposes, including introducing Western knowledge to China and promoting political reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cheng Yu is a significant yet underexplored figure in modern Chinese history. His ideas on Confucianism were closely linked to three pivotal moments of crisis in modern Chinese history: The First Sino-Japanese War, the May Fourth Movement, and the Second Sino-Japanese War. The First Sino-Japanese War led to the Qing government's Hundred Days Reform, initiated by Kang Youwei in 1898. When the Reform failed, Cheng, the secretary of Timothy Richard, assisted Kang in his escape and became Kang's disciple. In 1906, he traveled to Japan to investigate the development of industries, manufacturing, and hospitals, but his primary interest lay in Japan's educational model. Cheng believed that China's education lacked moral advancement compared to Japan's, and he deemed it necessary to promote practical learning and moral education. Following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, he vigorously advocated moral instruction and hoped the government would establish Confucianism as the state religion. He believed it was the only way the government could preserve the country's culture and save China from imminent destruction. Cheng's ideas of Confucianism were emblematic of his era. In 1938, he attempted to reform Confucianism and promote Confucian moral education in the school system by cultivating the Chinese people's cultural confidence and national identity. Cheng's solution to China's moral crisis was a response to the challenging question of the modern fate of Confucian China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between June and August 1947, Qian Xuexi and William Empson exchanged 12 letters on the issue of Arthur Waley's misinterpretation of the Daodejing. Through a thorough analysis of these new-found letters and Qian's English translation of the Daodejing, I intended to show that the central arguments between Qian and Empson are around two major problems concerning Waley's translation: Waley's ideas of the Daodejing being part of the "Yoga-Quietism" tradition that Waley himself tried to invent, and Waley's idea of opposing Daoism to Legalism. Qian firmly rejected that the ideas in the Daodejing were the same as some Western ideas. Neither did he accept that the ideas of the Daodejing were under the influence of either Western culture or Indian religious philosophy. Instead, Qian explained that the so-called "Yoga-Quietism" did not derive from China. Therefore, in his view, Waley's approach was fundamentally problematic. Qian's view eventually convinced Empson, who initially opposed Qian's stance. Qian and Empson's letters and Qian's English translation of the Daodejing, though never published, indicate the value of Qian's ideas and the meaning of their intellectual interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Nobel Prize, while canonizing contemporary literary works, also establishes a set of standards for literary criticism, thus creating obstacles for properly evaluating prize-winners and their works. Through an analysis of the phenomenon of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Committee's evaluation of Rabindranath Tagore, and its world literature criticism terms, the paper concludes that there are evidences to prove the inequality and pseudo-universality in world literature. World literature at the present time is a "one but unequal" system determined by global market where the main evaluation criteria are primarily based on western standards. Therefore, scholars of world literature should be wary of the inequality and "pseudo-universality" behind the standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of Shakespeare to China was through the Chinese translation of Mary and Charles Lamb's adaptation of Shakespeare's plays, Tales from Shakespeare. The Western missionaries' Chinese translations of the Lambs' adaptation have rarely been studied. Isaac Mason and his assistant Ha Zhidao's 1918 translation of the Lambs' book, entitled Haiguo Quyu (Interesting Tales from Overseas Countries), is one of the earliest Chinese versions translated by Christian missionaries. Although Mason was a Christian missionary and his translation was published by The Christian Literature Society for China, Mason adopted an indirect way to propagate Christian thoughts and rewrote some parts that are related to Christian belief. The rewriting is manifested in several aspects, including the use of four-character titles with Confucian ethical tendencies, rewriting paragraphs with hidden Christian ideas and highlighting themes closely related to Christian ethics, such as mercy, forgiveness and justice. While unique in its time, such a strategy of using the Chinese translation of Shakespeare for indirect missionary work had an impact on subsequent missionary translations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]