“Wonderful Nonsense”: Confucianism in the British Romantic Period

The first complete English versions of Confucian texts appeared between 1809 and 1814 in separate endeavors by Joshua Marshman and Robert Morrison. In 1814, the London Quarterly Review assessed Marshman’s translations as “nonsense.” In 1816, the same journal declared that the achievements of the Anglophone missionaries who translated Chinese were “wonderful.” Modern and contemporary commentators have recognized that the translations were primitive. Nonetheless the works stimulated interest in Romantic Britain. This article argues that the missionary versions of Confucian philosophy are significant within several political contexts of British Romanticism. The translations arose amid the diplomatic complications of British Asia. Marshman and Morrison produced their Confucian texts in attempts to appease local administration that suspected their religious activities might cause unrest. Yet the translations also stimulated enough interest to secure funds for the missionaries’ religious efforts. In Britain, responses to Confucianism occurred in three prominent debates: the rivalry between Catholicism and Protestantism; China as an emerging site of Anglo-French rivalry; and liberal commentary on principles of leadership with allusion to Britain’s ruler, the Prince Regent. The missionary translations have been neglected as poor Confucianism but are significant within the political contexts of the Romantic period and the problematic concept of Sinology.