▶ Your Answer :
It is controversial whether Marco Polo had traveled China or not. The speaker disagree that Marco Polo had never been to China and makes points against reading’s claim.
First of all, the professor rebuts the reading claim that Marco Polo’s each account differ its detail. He says that there is adequate reason why account and its details are different. As for first account, it was written in French by a roman novelist in prison. In addition, second account was firstly written in Italian and translated into Latin and back into Italian due to lose of original script.
Secondly, the lecturer contradicts the reading’s assertion that Marco Polo did not mention many things about China. He asserts that Marco Polo stayed at Northern part of China, so he did not watch people drinking tea. Furthermore, he entered China from the west, so he did not see the Greet Wall due to incompletion of the Great Wall.
Lastly, the speaker refutes the author’s claim that Marco Polo’s name was not documented in any history in China. He maintains that Marco Polo simply did not need to study Chinese, because Kublai Khan provided the translator to him. The reason why Marco Polo’s name was not found in Chinese history was he used different name or wasn’t necessary for him to indicate his name.
In conclusion, the professor claims that Marco Polo ventured China, while the author maintains that he was not. |