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<p>As a country without the influence of a predominant religious institution, China provided a model of secular state and good governance for European intellectuals during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. John Webb (1611–1672), a disgruntled English architect, wrote a curious essay on the Chinese language as the Adamic language created by God in the Garden of Eden, and this should be understood in the specific context of the seventeenth-century pursuit of the perfect language with strong political implications. Without personal experience of China or any knowledge of the Chinese language, Webb’s peculiar argument reflects even better the idea of China in Restoration England, and by revisiting Webb’s essay on the seventeenth-century background, we may realize how positive the image of China was at that time, how it was completely reversed and erased during the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries in the age of colonialism and imperialism, and more significantly, how important it is to rethink the history of Chinese-Western encounters that is so crucial, so relevant, and so important for our world today.</p>

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China in the political imaginary of restoration England: revisiting John Webb’s fantasy about the Chinese language

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年10月22日

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  • Longxi Zhang

摘要

As a country without the influence of a predominant religious institution, China provided a model of secular state and good governance for European intellectuals during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. John Webb (1611–1672), a disgruntled English architect, wrote a curious essay on the Chinese language as the Adamic language created by God in the Garden of Eden, and this should be understood in the specific context of the seventeenth-century pursuit of the perfect language with strong political implications. Without personal experience of China or any knowledge of the Chinese language, Webb’s peculiar argument reflects even better the idea of China in Restoration England, and by revisiting Webb’s essay on the seventeenth-century background, we may realize how positive the image of China was at that time, how it was completely reversed and erased during the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries in the age of colonialism and imperialism, and more significantly, how important it is to rethink the history of Chinese-Western encounters that is so crucial, so relevant, and so important for our world today.