Study On Image Of China In The Travels Of Sir John Mandeville In Medieval Europe

The image of China (Cathy) in The Travels of Sir John Mandeville spreads widely in medieval Europe . The book which involves languages of French, English, Latin, German, Dutch, Danish, is extant in some three hundred manuscripts . The image of China (Cathy) in the book is not only the main works of Mandeville himself, but the material that other Europeans fantasize China. This image is both the product of overall imagination of China in the Western society and the foreign country's image made by Mandeville personally through some books experience. This image is restrained by the cultural environment in the European society , and by the reader's vision which shows the thinking of European writers that their culture is inferior to China's at that time .Therefore many European writers frantically yearned for Chinese culture and theUtopia-like culture appeared. This article mainly studies the image of China with the aid of theories and methods of Imagologie of comparative literature, and inquires the foundation, the characteristic, the value as well as the influence of the image. Mandeville discourses on China(the other) is actually the discourse of himself (self) and shows his own desire . The image of China created in The Travels of Sir John Mandeville plays a significant role between China and the West communication history and the history of world civilization.