THE ROAD TO CATHAY. EAST-WEST CONTACTS IN MARCO POLO'S TIME

Asiatische Studien - Etudes Asiatiques 74.3 (2020): 485-512

When Marco Polo left China, he passed through Hangzhou (Quinsai) and then travelled approximately southwestwards into what is today Fujian province, to the cities of Fuzhou and Quanzhou (Zaiton). There are still a number of disagreements regarding his route, however, which are discussed here. Consideration is also given to Marco’s use of “Facfur” to designate the last Emperor of the Song dynasty, and more generally to the issue of the use of Persian language in Yuan China. It is suggested that there is no clear evidence that Marco Polo learned Persian. An error regarding consumption of pepper in China during the thirteenth century is corrected. More evidence of the importation of very substantial quantities of pepper into China during the Song and Yuan periods is adduced. Identifications of all the places which Marco mentions in this section of his book are suggested, with the support of evidence.

The Journal of Asian Studies, 2007

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 1998

, 1994). Similarly, the delay in the West's absorption of the new information from the 'sophisticated' East is compared with the easy assimilation of the material on the relatively 'uncivilized' Canary islanders: J. K. Hyde, 'Real and imaginary journeys in the later Middle Ages', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, LXV, 1982, 138-40. 4 John Critchley, Marco Polo's book (Aldershot, 1992), xiv; also the 'Epilogue' (pp. 178-9). My debt to Critchley's book will be apparent to anyone who has read it. 5 Frances Wood, Did Marco Polo go to China? (London, 1995): see especially her ' Conclusions' (pp. 140-51).

Marco Polo Research: Past, Presence, Future, 2024

This collective volume on Marco Polo's (1254-1324) travels attempts to integrate the fragmented research landscape by bringing together individual disciplines which usually work separately, like philology, comparative literature, text and reception history, Romance linguistics, as well as geography, anthropology, the history of religion, science, military, economics, etc. It is thus one of but a few works that go beyond singular aspects of Marco Polo's journey and his observations and thus shows that Polo's Description of the World is much more than just a travelogue.

SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 2016

In the 2014 trailer for Netflix's Marco Polo, the words "worlds will collide" flash across the screen. 1 These words interrupt successive images of barbaric executions, sensationalized kung fu, passionate love affairs, and barren landscapes that centrally feature Marco Polo. Netflix elevates Polo from mere observer to active participant, thereby insinuating that Polo's celebrated sojourn in Asia was the catalyst for those interimperial encounters in which "worlds … collide." Rather than concentrating on Kublai Khan's thirteenth-century formation of his multicultural empire, Netflix casts a solitary European merchant as the powerful instigator of global change. This retelling of Polo's travels predictably transforms the original medieval travelogue, which John Larner describes as void of the very excitement that Netflix promises: "[A]nyone who approaches the work looking for a tale of heroic exploration is going to be badly disappointed. Nothing is more striking here than Marco's silence about the difficulties and dangers he must have faced or about the character of the journeys he made." 2 Nevertheless, Netflix's modifications are also highly conventional. As Gang Zhou notes, The Travels of Marco Polo has been subject to extensive revision and manipulation since its initial composition around 1298, so much so that "[o]ne begins to wonder if there is something in the nature of Marco Polo's book that both invites and encourages such ongoing emendation." 3 515 Jennifer L. Hargrave received her Ph.D. in English from Rice University in 2016. Her dissertation, "The Romantic Reinvention of Imperial China, 1759-1857," examines how Romantic literature shaped nineteenth-century interimperial exchanges between Britain and China.

r P l nd th r n f Br t h n l J nn f r L. H r r v L t d n n l h L t r t r 00 00, V l 6, N b r , r 20 6, pp. ( rt l P bl h d b J hn H p n n v r t Pr D : F r dd t n l nf r t n b t th rt l Access provided by University of Toronto Library (17 Dec 2016 02:46 GMT) http : d . r 0. l.20 6.002

Oxford: Peter Lang, 2023

Marco Polo Research: Past, Present, Future, 2024

This collective volume on Marco Polo's (1254-1324) travels attempts to integrate the fragmented research landscape by bringing together individual disciplines which usually work separately, like philology, comparative literature, text and reception history, Romance linguistics, as well as geography, anthropology, the history of religion, science, military, economics, etc. It is thus one of but a few works that go beyond singular aspects of Marco Polo's journey and his observations and thus shows that Polo's Description of the World is much more than just a travelogue.

I analyze the toponyms for places in China which derive directly or indirectly from Chinese originals, via one or more non-Chinese originals. By analyzing certain features, I conclude that they are not consistent, but the majority of them seem to be derived from Yuan-era Chinese via Mongolian. I conclude with an appendix that gives solutions to several hitherto not adequately solved toponyms, such as Caiciu and the related stories, *Cuncian (or Cuncon), and Vuguen. This paper was delivered at a conference in September, 2015, in Yangzhou. A Chinese translation will be published in the conference volume.