“Robert Southey and the Romantic Failure of China” (Publication, 2011)

Robert Southey and China : general
Quellen
Abel, Clarke. Narrative of a journey in the interior of China [ID D1048].
Barrow, John. Travels in China [ID D1900].
Ceremonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde. Jean Frédéric Bernard, Antoine-Augustin Bruzen de La Martinière [et al.] [ID D26303].
Green, John ; Astley, Thomas. A new general collection of voyages and travels [ID D31047].
Hau kiou choaan ; or, the pleasing history ed. by Thomas Percy [ID D11073].
Staunton, George Thomas. Ta Tsing Leu Lee [ID D31050].
Staunton, George Leonard. An authentic account of an embassy [ID D1892].
Jesuiten-Berichte, u.a. Antoine Gaubil, Gemelli Careri, Jean-Baptise Du Halde.

Peter Kitson : Southey's tentative engagement with the literature of China, through Percy's edition of Hau kio choaan, might be regarded as métonymie of the Romantic-period response to the Qing empire of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was fascinated by the Chinese empire and he absorbed much of Percy's translation, yet his interest in and knowledge of China was not itself translated into a work of the Romantic imagination.

Letter from Robert Southey to John Rickman, Oct. 1808.
Southey uses Percy's Hu kio choaan in a discussion of the practice of polygamy by non-European peoples. He argued that polygamy was in some way responsible for the perceived stagnation of 18th century China.