In this magisterial study, Norman J. Girardot focuses on James Legge (1815-1897), one of the most important nineteenth-century figures in the cultural exchange between China and the West. A translator-transformer of Chinese texts, Legge was a pioneering cross-cultural pilgrim within missionary circles in China and within the academic world of Oxford University. By tracing Legge’s career and his close association with Max Müller (1823-1900), Girardot elegantly brings a biographically embodied approach to the intellectual history of two important aspects of the emergent ‘human sciences’ at the end of the nineteenth century: sinology and comparative religions.
Girardot weaves a captivating narrative that illuminates the era in which Legge lived as well as the surroundings in which he worked. His encyclopedic knowledge of pertinent figures, documents, peculiar ideologies, and even the personal quirks of principal and minor players brings the world of imperial China and Victorian England very much to life. At the same time, Girardot gets at the roots of much of the twentieth-century discourse about the strange religious or nonreligious otherness of China.
Tabela de Conteúdo
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note to the Reader on Transcription and Romanization
Introduction: The Strange Saga of Missionary Tradition, Sinological Orientalism, and the Comparative Science of Religions in the Nineteenth Century
Prologue: Missionary Hyphenations West and East, 1815–1869
1. Pilgrim Legge and the Journey to the West, 1870–1874
2. Professor Legge at Oxford University, 1875–1876
Appendix to Chapter 2: Caricatures of Max Müller and James Legge at Oxford
3. Heretic Legge: Relating Confucianism and Christianity, 1877–1878
4. Decipherer Legge: Finding the Sacred in the Chinese Classics, 1879–1880
5. Comparativist Legge: Describing and Comparing the Religions of China, 1880–1882
6. Translator Legge: Closing the Confucian Canon, 1882–1885
7. Ancestor Legge: Translating Buddhism and Daoism, 1886–1892
8. Teacher Legge: Upholding the Whole Duty of Man, 1893–1897
Conclusion: Darker Labyrinths: Transforming Missionary Tradition, Sinological Orientalism, and the Comparative Science of Religions after the Turn of the Century
Appendix A. Max Müller’s Motto for The Sacred Books of the East
Appendix B. James Legge’s Oxford Lectures and Courses, 1876–1897
Appendix C. Principal Publications of James Legge and Max Müller
Appendix D. Genealogy of the Legge Family
Notes
Bibliographical Note
Index
Sobre o autor
Norman J. Girardot is University Distinguished Professor in the Religious Studies Department at Lehigh University. His previous books include Myth and Meaning in Early Taoism (California, 1983).
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