China and the West

Milton, John. Paradise lost : a poem written in ten books. (London : Peter Parker, 1667).
Milton erwähnt China drei mal :
Book 3
"On Hills where Flocks are fed, flies toward the Springs
Of GANGES or HYDASPES, INDIAN streams;
But in his way lights on the barren plaines
Of SERICANA, where CHINESES drive
With Sails and Wind thir cany Waggons light."
Quellen : Gonzalez de Menoza, Juan. The historie of the great and mightie kingdome of China, and the situation thereof : togither with the great riches, huge citties, politike gouernement, and rare inuentions in the same [ID D1627]. Heylyn, Peter. Cosmographie [ID D26314].
Walter S.H. Lim : 'Serenica' draws attention to the Gobi Desert over which the Chinese werde reputed to have traveled in sail-powered wagons.
Book 10
"His Eye might there command wherever stood
City of old or modern Fame, the Seat
Of mightiest Empire, from the destind Walls
Of CAMBALU [Beijing], seat of CATHAIAN CAN."
Walter S.H. Lim : Khanbalik or Cambula, earlier made familiar to the European reader by Marco Polo, refers to the Mongol capital established by Kublai Khan in the aera of what is present day Beijing. This capital city in China functiones for Milton as one of the controlling symbolic centers of oriental authority together with 'Samarkand'.
Book 10
"As when two Polar Winds blowing adverse
Upon the CRONIAN Sea, together drive
Mountains of Ice, that stop th' imagin'd way
Beyond PETSORA Eastward, to the rich
CATHAIAN Coast."
Walter S.H. Lim : Milton makes reference to China, but relates it to the dark context of Sin and Death's journey across chaos to gain possession of Satan's recently colonized Eden. Sin and Death's voyaging to the terrestrial world after the Fall is imaged with reference to the severe challenges of distant ocean travel. Milton makes reference to the major icy obstacles of the Northwest passage which, if discovered, would open up a direct sea route to Cathay, Japan, and India.

Walter S.H. Lim : At first glance, China and India may strike the reader as incidental geopolitical sites captures in Paradise lost only in passing as the epic poet unfolds the satanic journeying from hell to Eden. On closer consideration, however, one finds that Milton's China and India possess complex cultural significations : associations with the dream of economic possibilities : anxieties relating to early modern European expansionist ambitions in Asia ; questioning of the place of 'absolutist' theological convictions in a culturally pluralistic world. Even as Milton finds himself grappling with the implications of holy nationhood in the face of the English people's recalcitrant repudiation of God's plans for the establishment of a free England, he finds he must take into account the significance of foreign societies and cultures when interpreting England's political condition at the present time. Milton's interest in China's and India's cultural otherness owes much to what the fact of their difference can spell for the very ideals he has long envisioned for England as God's christian commonwealth. Even as Milton alludes to China and India to flesh out the terms of his theological understanding and political vision, he finds himself pressured at some level to grapple not so much with what are sorely lacking in these sites of cultural difference as with what some of the strengths and virtues (economic, political, etc.) visible there may reveal about England's particular cultural and political experience.