Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West

by Akbari, Suzanne Conklin; Iannucci, Amilcare; Tulk, John (CON)

• ISBN13: 9780802099280
• ISBN10: 0802099289
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Toronto Pr

Summary

Few figures from history evoke such vivid Orientalist associations as Marco Polo, the Venetian merchant, explorer, and writer whose accounts of the ‘Far East’ sparked literary and cultural imaginations. The essays in Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West challenge what many scholars perceived to be an opposition of ‘East’ and ‘West’ in Polo’s writings. These writers argue that Marco Polo’s experiences along the Silk Road should instead be considered a fertile interaction of cultural exchange.The volume begins with detailed studies of Marco Polo’s narrative in its many medieval forms (including French, Italian, and Latin versions). They place the text in its material and generic contexts, and situate Marco Polo’s account within the conventions of travel literature and manuscript illumination. Other essays consider the appropriation of Marco Polo’s narrative in adaptations, translation, and cinematic art. The concluding section presents historiographic and poetic accounts of the place of Marco Polo in the context of a global world literature.By considering the production and reception of The Travels, this collection lays the groundwork for new histories of world literature written from the perspective of cultural, economic, and linguistic exchange, rather than conquest and conflict.

Author Biography

SUZANNE CONKLIN AKBARI is an associate professor in the Department of English and the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto.

Table of Contents

Introduction: East, West, and In-between	p. 3
Marco Polo and the Experience of Wonder
Text, Image, and Contradiction in the Devisement dou monde	p. 23
Marco Polo's Le Devisement dou monde and the Tributary East	p. 60
Marco Polo's Devisement dou monde as a Narcissistic Trauma	p. 87
Currents and Currency in Marco Polo's Devisement dou monde and The Book of John Mandeville	p. 110
The Reception of Marco Polo: Medieval and Modern
Plucking Hairs from the Great Cham's Beard: Marco Polo, Jan de Langhe, and Sir John Mandeville	p. 133
The World Translated: Marco Polo's Le Devisement dou monde, The Book of Sir John Mandeville, and Their Medieval Audiences	p. 156
Calvina's Rewriting of Marco Polo: From the 1960 Screenplay to Invisible Cities	p. 182
From Alterity to Holism: Cinematic Depictions of Marco Polo and His Travels	p. 201
Cross-Cultural Currents
The Perils of Dichotomous Thinking: A Case of Ebb and Flow Rather Than East and West	p. 247
Marco Polo: Meditations on Intangible Economy and Vernacular Imagination	p. 262
Marco Polo, Chinese Cultural Identity, and an Alternative Model of East-West Encounter	p. 280
Bibliography	p. 297
Contributors	p. 325
Index	p. 329
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