一点遗憾

18世纪中英文化交流，很早就引发中国学者的兴趣。钱锺书、范存忠、陈受颐诸位先生都用英文发表相关的文章，范存忠还出过中文专著。夏瑞春（Adrian Hsia）曾将上述学者的文章汇编出版。此书后的参考书目只列出了陈受颐（Shou-Yi，Ch'en）的一篇文章“Thomas Percy and His Chinese Studies”，而未提及钱锺书和范存忠的著作。不知博达伟老师是未曾搜集到这些文章，还是觉得跟个案关系不密切而未列入参考书目？此书中考察的四位人物个案（William Chambers，William Hogarth，Horace Walpole，Thomas Percy），钱锺书在“China in the English Literature of the Eighteenth Century”一文中均有讨论。例如，钱先生认为钱伯斯（Chambers）对于中国园林的论述多有夸张，其实是借此为由头来发挥自己的观点，打击与之竞争的建筑师。［‘His picture of Chinese gardens is on the whole imaginary；Chambers seems to have considered Chinese gardening a peg to hang his own ideas on，as well as a stick to beat his confrères with’．（Qian 158-159）．］中国学者的研究，似乎仍然未能得到国际学界的足够知晓和重视，让人不免感到遗憾。期盼博达伟在以后的研究中能对钱先生的某些论述进行一些回应。有兴趣的读者，也可进一步参考以下两本书籍——

Qian，Zhongshu，A Collection of Qian Zhongshu's English Essays，Beijing:Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press，2005．

Hsia，Adrian．Ed．The Vision of China in the English Literature of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries，Hong Kong:The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press，1998．(https://www.daowen.com)

【注释】

[1]‘As a matter of fact，the eighteenth-century English attitude towards China as revealed in literature is the reverse of that as revealed in life．Paradoxically enough，sinophilism seems to have waned in English literature as it waxed in English life．［．．．］The English literature of the eighteenth century is full of unfavourable criticism of Chinese culture in general and the prevailing fashion of chinoiserie in particular．It seems to be a corrective rather than a reflection of the social milieu in which it is produced．Indeed，the enthusiasm for Chinese culture appears to have reached in its highest pitch in the English literature of the seventeenth century and the eighteen century witnessed its gradual decline among intelligentsia and men of letters．’（Qian 142）．

[2]许明龙《欧洲十八世纪中国热》“前言”。徐明龙在书中进一步阐述道：“一般地说，俗层次对中国的兴趣偏重物态文化，对中国文化的认识不但停留在比较肤浅的表面，甚至有某些误差，……俗层次的‘中国热’虽然表明了当时欧洲人对中国的仰慕和钦羡，但并未给欧洲留下多少深刻的印记，充其量只留下了一些如今成为珍贵古董的家具和工艺品。”