REFLECTIONS ON ROBERT MORRISON’S LIFE IN MACAO AND LITERARY WORKS : TOWARDS A CONTEXTUALIZED APPROACH馬禮遜的澳門生活及文學作品的反思：基於語景方法
This article proposes a rereading of the role of Robert Morrison (1782–1834) in the intellectual history between the West and China, shifting the focus from biographical consecration to a contextualized approach to his work in Macao and the literary production associated with his apostolate. It is a...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
January 2008
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40025/3673 |
| Summary: | This article proposes a rereading of the role of Robert Morrison (1782–1834) in the intellectual history between the West and China, shifting the focus from biographical consecration to a contextualized approach to his work in Macao and the literary production associated with his apostolate. It is argued that, although Morrison was decisive in constructing an Anglophone corpus on Chinese language and culture, his work must be understood as part of a collective and transmediated effort, dependent on local mediators—Chinese teachers, scholars, and collaborators—as well as on technical-literary continuities between Catholic and Protestant missions.
Methodologically, the author articulates historiographical analysis with a “linguistic world” perspective (語景), examining strategies for learning and teaching Chinese, networks of assistance, and bibliographic appropriations. Among the main lines of evidence are: (1) the comparison between Catholic manuscripts and models and the Chinese biblical translation attributed to Morrison/Milne (1823); (2) the verification of Morrison’s use of earlier dictionaries—especially of Catholic missionary origin—in the preparation of dictionaries and grammars of the period. It is concluded that the historiography on Morrison gains density when his legacy is reassessed in light of local sources and intercultural processes of knowledge circulation, often obscured by the apologetic and ethnocentric writing of the European missions themselves. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |