A Cultural History Of The Appellation

"Seres" is an early appellation which the ancient westerners called the far east,generally speaking,Seres referred to China. Research on Seres had long been, many scholars at home and abroad had focused on textual research of Seres.Such type of research had made a lot of useful academic achievements, but shortcomings was obvious,the traditional textual research need to be urgently broken through. Since the 80's of the 20th century,with the emergence of new cultural history, we had new research ideas.The text is based on the understanding of new cultural history, trying to make a new interpretation to Seres from perspective of new cultural history. By means of analysing the surface meaning of Seres revealed the hidden symbolic meaning. The cultural symbolism of Seres was a kind of "other" image which was constructed according to the needs of the westerners.Seres term came from the original material of the exchange between the oriental and the occidental-silk,when the westerners contacted the ethereal and gaudiness silk fabrics, they surprised and gave it a noble title. Since there was such a gorgeous fabric, then there was also the nation who producted such goods, while there was a place in the far east where Seres people lived,it was called Serica.Seres in the west classical literature had three basic meanings:the specific name of silk fabrics, the title of the exotic race and the name of distant country.Seres intensively emerged in stage between the late Roman Republic and the late Roman Empire.Subjecting to the changes of history,besides the basic meaning of Seres,it contained strongly cultural symbolic meaning. Roman Empire was expanding rapidly between the 1st century BC and the 2nd century AD,and the Empire was formating. During this period the symbolic image that Seres presented was bound to include the specific social environmental factors.As foreign race,the image of the conquered naturally presented in various left classical texts, it was actual that the Roman Empire complex naturally expressed in the text. From the late 2nd century AD,Roman empire began to change, the mighty empire was falling, contradictions hidden in Roman society was gradually displayed,disordered political situation, declined economic situation, decay social morality, Roman empire began to decline from the apex of history. The change of social environment of Rome also affected the Roman's collective imagination on Seres, the image of Seres changed from the image of the conquered to the kingdom of heaven. When Roman empire fell into crisis, people who lived in frustrated and disappointed socity,they imagined a soul homeland in their mind's eye.The formation and transformation of the Seres image was not accidental, it was actual that social reality of Roman reflected in the concrete text.After the fall of the Roman Empire, Christianity expanded and unified Europe. At the same time, a new religion-Islam rose in the Middle east. The spread of Islam brought Europe to continued military pressures, westerners kept their eye on the Islamic body, Seres also returned to its original meaning, symbolism gradually disappeared.The Mongols unified the Eurasian Continent in the thirteenth century,after the westersers reached the far east, they found a new nation,called Cathay,Seres was replaced by Cathay, but the misunderstanding on Seres was not eliminated. After the great geographical discoveries, along with the constant arrival of westerners, the mystic veil of the east Asian continent were gradually lifted, the westerner's misunderstanding on Seres was also eventually eliminated.Seres was a typical "other" image, It was that people living in the Roman empire who based on needs of the social reality constructed "other" image, which necessarily involved people's subjective will at the moment. The image of Seres had been not static, accompanied the change of specific social environment, Seres went through the evolution from a basic meaning to symbolic meaning to the basic meaning,the image of Seres experienced great changes, the image of Seres subjected to concrete social environment. Therefore, the research on Seres not focused on itself, but focused on the social background of Seres.