From wilderness to wonderland: Bridging anthropocentrism and ecocentrism in the translation of The Swiss Family Robinson during late Qing China

Jinxin Qi
Sun Yat-sen University

This article examines the 1905 Chinese translation of The Swiss Family Robinson through an ecocritical lens and explores how ecological themes are adapted and reinterpreted within a non-Western cultural context. The study draws on traditional Chinese literary and philosophical concepts such as 山水 shanshui ‘mountain and water’, 风景 fengjing ‘wind-light’, and 无为 wuwei ‘non-action’ to expound the relationship between humans and nature in translation. By comparing the translation with the original text, this study finds that while the original text presents a utilitarian view of nature, the Chinese version accentuates the aesthetics of the island, elevates it to a utopian space, and emphasizes moral obligations toward nonhuman life. Despite its strong ecocentrism, the translation also reveals a predilection for anthropocentrism and positions human beings as superior to animals. The coexistence of both ecocentrism and anthropocentrism suggests that they are not mutually exclusive. The article also contextualizes these shifts within the tumultuous socio-political landscape of the late Qing dynasty and argues that the translation responds to the broader social milieu of the time. By situating ecological consciousness within the practice of translation, this study forges a link between ecocriticism and Translation Studies. It further demonstrates that ecological awareness existed in historical contexts where it had not yet emerged as a dominant framework, which reveals its embeddedness in cross-cultural exchanges.

Publication history

Date received: 22 December 2024

Date accepted: 23 December 2025

Published online: 13 January 2026

Table of contents

Ecocriticism, which emerged in the 1990s, examines the relationship between literature and the physical environment. It focuses on how nature is represented in cultural artifacts, such as language and literature, and on the interdependence of the natural world and human culture (Glotfelty and Fromm 1996, xviii–xix). Traditionally, literature has been analyzed through a human-centered lens, or anthropocentrism, focusing on human experiences, emotions, and societies. However, ecocriticism, as Lynch (2008, 13) argues, seeks to move beyond this focus and adopts an ecocentric approach. This approach emphasizes that humans are part of a larger ecological system and highlights the importance of considering the nonhuman world and the ways in which human and nonhuman entities are interdependent. Consequently, the rise of ecocriticism has challenged the “stubborn anthropocentric mode of thinking” (Wang 2009, 298).

Full-text access is restricted to subscribers. Log in to obtain additional credentials. For subscription information see Subscription & Price. Direct PDF access to this article can be purchased through our e-platform.

References

Aksoy, Nüzhet B.
2020 “Insights into a New Paradigm in Translation: Eco-Translation and Its Reflections.” Babel 66 (1): 29–45. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Badell, Helena, and Joan J. Roca
2024 “Hymn to Demeter Translated: Views on Earth, Land, and Life.” In Dasca and Cerarols (2024, 121–140). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berkowitz, Alan J.
1992 “The Moral Hero: A Pattern of Reclusion in Traditional China.” Monumenta Serica 40 (1): 1–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berleant, Arnold
2018 “Thoreau’s Poetics of Nature.” In Ecocritical Aesthetics: Language, Beauty, and the Environment, edited by Peter Quigley and Scott Slovic, 41–50. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cao, Lijuan
2011 “Translation Ecology.” Perspectives 19 (1): 89–92. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carlson, Allen
2011 “Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature and Environmentalism.” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements 69: 137–155. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cheng, Hong
2006 “Communication Across Space and Time: Contemporary American Nature Writers and the Ancient Chinese Poet Han-Shan.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 13 (1): 135–145. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cheng, Xiangzhan
2013 “On the Four Keystones of Ecological Aesthetic Appreciation.” In East Asian Ecocriticism: A Critical Reader, edited by Simon Estok and Wŏn-jung Kim, 213–228. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2016 “Ecosophy and Ecoaesthetics: A Chinese Perspective.” In Handbook of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology, edited by Hubert Zapf, 481–493. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Timothy
2011 The Cambridge Introduction to Literature and the Environment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coisson, Josefina, and Guillermo Badenes
2015 “Ecotranslation: A Journey into the Wild through the Road Less Travelled.” European Scientific Journal (Special Edition): 356–368.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cronin, Michael
2003 Translation and Globalization. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2017 Eco-Translation: Translation and Ecology in the Age of the Anthropocene. Abingdon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dasca, Maria, and Rosa Cerarols
eds. 2024 Translation Studies and Ecology: Mapping the Possibilities of a New Emerging Field. Abingdon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dols, Gabriel, and Caterina Calafat
2024 “ ‘Faut pas oublier que vous êtes sel’: Food and the Political Ecology of Translation in/of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy.” In Dasca and Cerarols (2024, 3–20). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Filipova, Lenka
2022 Ecocriticism and the Sense of Place. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garrard, Greg
2004 Ecocriticism. Abingdon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Geng, Chuanming
2010 “Old State and New Mission: A Survey of Utopian Literature During the Late Qing Dynasty and the Early Period of the Republic of China.” Frontiers of Literary Studies in China 4 (3): 402–424. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gentzler, Edwin
2016 Translation And Rewriting in the Age of Post-Translation Studies. Abingdon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Glotfelty, Cheryll, and Harold Fromm
eds. 1996 The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology. Athens: University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Godolphin, Mary
1869 The Swiss Family Robinson. London: George Routledge and Sons.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1905 小仙源 [orig. The Swiss Family Robinson ]. Translated by 商务印书馆编译所 [Department of Compilation and Translation, Commercial Press]. Beijing: The Commercial Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gomides, Camilo
2006 “Putting a New Definition of Ecocriticism to the Test: The Case of ‘The Burning Season’, a Film (Mal) Adaptation.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (2006): 13–23. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Han-shan
2000 寒山诗注 [Annotated poems of Hanshan]. Annotated by Xiang Chu. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huxley, Thomas Henry
1898 天演论 [orig. Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays ]. Translated by Yan Fu. Hubei: Shenshi Jizhai.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hepburn, Ronald
1966 “Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty.” In British Analytical Philosophy, edited by Bernard Williams and Alan Montefiore, 285–310. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hill, Michael Gibbs
2013 Lin Shu, Inc.: Translation and the Making of Modern Chinese Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hu, Gengshen
2003 “Translation as Adaption and Selection.” Perspectives 11 (4): 283–291. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ip, Manying
1985 From Qing Reformer to Twentieth-Century Publisher: The Life and Times of Zhang Yuanji 1867–1959. Beijing: The Commercial Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Iribarren, Teresa
2024 “Displaced Ecofeminisms: Between Stigma, Domestication and Transformational Potential: Considerations from Translations into Catalan.” In Dasca and Cerarols (2024, 77–97).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaida, Naoko, and Kosuke Kaida
2016 “Facilitating Pro-Environmental Behavior: The Role of Pessimism and Anthropocentric Environmental Values.” Social Indicators Research 126: 1243–1260. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kwan, Uganda Sze Pui
2013 “Rejuvenating China: The Translation of Sir Henry Rider Haggard’s Juvenile Literature by Lin Shu in Late Imperial China.” Translation Studies 6 (1): 33–47. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lai, Karyn Lynne
2014 “Conceptual Foundations for Environmental Ethics: A Daoist Perspective.” In Environmental Philosophy in Asian Traditions of Thought, edited by Baird Callicott and James McRae, 173–195. Albany: SUNY Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laozi
2011 道德经注 [Annotated Daode jing]. Annotated by Wang Bi. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lefevere, André
2016 Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. Abingdon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liu, Kuan-yen
2020a “Late-Qing Translation (1840–1911) and the Political Activism of Chinese Evolutionism.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism, edited by Rebecca Gould and Kayvan Tahmasebian, 439–460. Abingdon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2020b “Yan Fu’s Xunzian-Confucian Translation of Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics.” In Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism: Evolutionary Theories in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and East Asian Cultural Contexts, edited by Mackenzie Brown, 257–286. Cham: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liu, Lydia He
1995 Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity — China, 1900–1937. Redwood: Stanford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lynch, Tom
2008 Xerophilia: Ecocritical Explorations in Southwestern Literature. Texas: Texas Tech University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matthews, Patricia
2002 “Scientific Knowledge and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60 (1): 37–48. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moratto, Riccardo, Nicoletta Pesaro, and Di-kai Chao
eds. 2022 Ecocriticism and Chinese Literature: Imagined Landscapes and Real Lived Spaces. Abingdon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Naess, Arne, and David Rothenberg
1989 Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nayar, Pramod K.
2010 Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory: From Structuralism to Ecocriticism. Delhi: Pearson.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nelson, Eric S.
2020 Daoism and Environmental Philosophy: Nourishing Life. Abingdon: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Norton, Bryan G.
1984 “Environmental Ethics and Weak Anthropocentrism.” Environmental Ethics 6 (2): 131–148. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Owen, Stephen
1992 Readings in Chinese Literary Thought. Cambridge: Harvard Univ Asia Center.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Redling, Erik
2020 “Cultural Ecology and Literary Translation.” In Handbook of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology, edited by Hubert Zapf, 605–617. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reed, Christopher A.
2004 Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876–1937. Vancouver: UBC Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scott, Clive
2015 “Translating the Nineteenth Century: A Poetics of Eco-Translation.” Dix-Neuf 19 (3): 285–302. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smith, Michelle, and Kristine Moruzi
2024 “The Child Reader: Children’s Literary Culture in the Nineteenth Century.” In Literary Cultures and Nineteenth-Century Childhoods, edited by Kristine Moruzi and Michelle Smith, 53–67. Cham: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tangney, Shaunanne
2018 “Know Beauty, Know Justice: Why Beauty Matters in the Classroom.” In Ecocritical Aesthetics: Language, Beauty, and the Environment, edited by Peter Quigley and Scott Slovic, 143–156. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tao, Yuanming
1979 桃花源记 [The record of the peach blossom spring.] In 陶渊明集[Collected works of Tao Yuanming], annotated by Lu Qinli, 165–168. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tekalp, Selen
2021 “Ecocriticism and Translation: A Descriptive Study on Elif Shafak’s Bit Palas.” Çeviribilim ve Uygulamaları Dergisi [Journal of translation studies and applications] 2021 (30): 151–164. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thaye, Robert L.
2003 LifePlace: Bioregional Thought and Practice. Oakland: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thompson, Suzanne C. Gagnon, and Michelle A. Barton
1994 “Ecocentric and Anthropocentric Attitudes toward the Environment.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 14 (2): 149–157. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Valero-Garcés, Carmen
2011 “Ecocriticism and Translation.” Odisea: Revista De Estudios Ingleses [Odyssey: Journal of English studies] 12: 257–272.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wang, Ning
2009 “Toward a Literary Environmental Ethics: A Reflection on Eco-Criticism.” Neohelicon 36 (2): 289–298. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Xu, Jianzhong
2009 翻译生态学 [Translation and ecology.] Beijing: Three Gorges Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
You, Chengcheng
2024 “Re-Engendering the Genre: Critical Anthropomorphism in the Eco-Translation of Chinese Wild Animal Stories.” In Dasca and Cerarols (2024, 163–181). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Longxi
2016 “Tao Qian, the Idea of Garden as Home, and the Utopian Vision.” International Communication of Chinese Culture 3: 365–375. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Yuanji
1902 “答友人问学堂事书 [A letter in response to a friend’s inquiry on educational matters].” 教育世界 [Education world] 20: 1.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhao, Meiou, and Jiyong Geng
2024 “What Can Translation Do for the Endangered Earth? An Overview of Ecocritical Translation Studies.” TRAMES: A Journal of the Humanities & Social Sciences 28 (1): 37–51. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhou, Wenjuan, and Guowen Huang
2017 “Chinese Ecological Discourse: a Confucian–Daoist Inquiry.” Journal of Multicultural Discourses 12 (3): 264–281. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
 
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue