Le Brésil dans les récits de voyages en Chine (xviie-début xixe siècle) : Analogies, connexions, commensurabilité

Abstract

Analogy is a privileged process for establishing a relationship of commensurability between distant worlds. Be them missionaries, merchants or members of embassies, many authors used this tool in the accounts of their travels when describing the lands through which they travelled or the people they met. We wish to explore the comparisons and the links established between Brazil and China through the authors of books on China published during the early modern period. Why evoke Brazil in a text on China? What similarities are established, and how are they interpreted? We will see that the riches of nature are at the heart of these connections between Brazil and China.

Keywords

• travel
• China
• analogy
• nature
• Brazil