This thesis seeks to trace the representations of male homosexuality in Taiwanese society since the 1970s, with a specific focus on the legacies and representations of Pai Hsien-yung’s novel Niezi (Crystal Boys, published in 1983), widely regarded as the first full-length novel themed on homosexuality in Taiwan’s literary history. Set in 1970s Taiwan during the Martial Law period, the novel’s portrayal of the underground homosexual community and male prostitution culture based in Taipei’s New Park (now 228 Park) did not capture critical attention or gain commercial success when published, owing to the then conservative social atmosphere. Nonetheless, after the lifting of Martial Law, as Taiwan became a democratised nation with mature elective democracy and participation in globalised cultural circuits, Niezi became canonised and politicised as the iconic text for a sequence of social activism regarding homosexual human rights in academia and related cultural activities in the 1990s and 2000s. Even today, Niezi is still considered the most debatable representative homosexual literary text in Taiwan’s homosexual community. While Niezi’s iconic status has stood the test of time over the past three decades, the changing interpretations of the text offer a great resource through which to examine the representations of male homosexuality in Taiwan during this period. Taiwanese society transformed from an authoritarian regime in the 1970s and 1980s, to quasi-democracy in the early 1990s, then full elective democracy in the mid-1990s, and now Taiwan has fully joined the globalised circuits of the capitalist economy, with free markets, cross-cultural communication and rapid flows of information. This social transformation brought about changing interpretations of Niezi, in which male homosexuality was no longer a social taboo, and activist cultural critics started to demand equal rights for homosexuals inspired by Euro-American theoretical discourse and social reform. The social transformation also saw two visual adaptations of the novel through the forms of film and television, which I shall examine in this thesis. I will also demonstrate not just how male homosexuality has been represented in different social contexts, but also what has contributed to the endurance of Niezi’s legacies in the past three decades. In addition, while there was a great amount of homosexual literature produced after the lifting of Martial Law owing to social liberalisation, the thesis will also consider Niezi’s continuing iconic status.

Shen Congwen [沈从文] (1902 – 1988), the famous Chinese writer most active from the late 1920s to the end of the 1940s, took particular interest in music throughout his literary career. From Shen’s earliest works, folksongs feature in his regional stories about West Hunan, his home region. These songs not only provide the stories with a special local colour, but also indicate Shen’s strong connection with Western anthropology and psychology. From the mid-1930s, Shen developed a passion for Western classical music. He stated on several occasions that he wished he could use the method of musical composition in his writing, even though he never attempted to learn to compose. This thesis will investigate Shen’s insistence on the assumption that the method of musical composition – especially the use of ‘harmony’ – would make literary works more beautiful and infinite. Shen’s discussion of Western classical music also points to the connection between music and abstraction. In Shen’s later career, he seems to be consistently pursuing the beauty of abstraction. At the same time, he writes about ‘soundless music’, which goes beyond concrete music such as folksongs or Western classical music. In the analysis of Shen’s ideas on music, one question remains: what are the possible sources of these ideas? Shen started writing after May Fourth Movement, a movement that massively involved learning from the West. His career thrived while socialising with a group of Chinese writers whose works bear evident marks of Western literature, and some of whom were also the translators of many Western works. Furthermore, Shen’s ideas on music appear to reflect those of Western literature, especially modern literature. This thesis will consider possible influences on Shen, starting with an examination of what Shen might have read or known about Western literary ideas. Finally, according to the evidence uncovered in my research, this thesis will propose a comparative study between possible Western sources of influence and Shen’s ideas on music, focusing on the influence of Western anthropology, psychology, Goethe (1749 – 1832), French Symbolism, Nietzsche (1844 – 1900), and Joyce (1882 – 1941).

This thesis makes an inquiry into the literary translation and creation in the early twentieth-century China, particularly between the years 1900 and 1925. I combine the theoretical approaches of both translation studies and intertextuality studies to form the overall methodological framework that informs the discussions in the thesis. Although the modern transformation of Chinese literature has long been discussed and debated in various scholarly works, which often attribute the transformation to foreign influences and reconstruction of indigenous literary tradition, a theoretical language is urgently required to articulate the exact process of literary adaptation and appropriation. Rather than taking the concept of “influence” at face value, I probe the intricate process of influence by examining the way Chinese writers and translators creatively translated and intertextualized foreign literary works to construct new literary texts. The two modalities of literary production – translation and intertextuality – call for the approaches of translation studies and intertextuality studies, and only when both approaches are taken into account can a fuller understanding of the literary scene in the early years of twentieth-century China be obtained. I apply my methodology to the study of the transformation of emotional expressions which are most frequently found in love fiction. By combining translation and intertextuality, some Chinese writer-translators such as Bao Tianxiao and Zhou Shoujuan creatively translated foreign fiction, conveying emotions different from those intended by the original texts while at the same time introducing new modes of emotional expression to Chinese literature. Others, such as Su Manshu and Yu Dafu, borrowed foreign literary texts to construct their own literary creations, appropriating the emotions conveyed by the foreign texts. As a result of the vigorous adaptation and appropriation of Chinese writer-translators, new modes of emotional expression emerged in modern Chinese literature.

This thesis aims to shed new light on the Chinese character xia 侠 and the literature and history of the Republican Era (1912-1949) that revolves around it. Xia refers to either a concept (identifiable with kindness, altruism, righteousness, etc.) or to a person who practices this concept. Ever since its arrival in Chinese texts in the sixth century BC, it has created controversy for some and sympathy for others. In Modern China, xia became the central aspect of a literary genre that reached its zenith in production and consumption in the Republican Era, i.e. wuxia fiction 武侠小说, which can be translated as “using martial arts (wu 武) to obtain xia”. The concept of xia was an integral part of presumably the most widespread literary genre of the time, but why were Republican-era readers so interested in it? Why did they relate to xia and what do the themes of these novels say about the chaotic Republican Era? To answer these questions, this thesis presents a case study of a wuxia pentalogy written by Wang Dulu at the end of the Republican Era and attempts to identify the topics and aspects most reflective of that historical period, showing that, despite the heavy criticism of intellectuals of that time, these “easy” popular novels contain innovative and modern aspects and can become today of great historical importance. The thesis starts with two literature reviews. The first determines that the term xia has not received enough scholarly attention, calling for a reassessment. The second literature review focuses on Republican Era wuxia fiction, showing how there is a gap in scholarship on this period. This is followed by a discussion of the methodology used for the analysis of the case study on Wang Dulu’s Crane-Iron Series written in Qingdao (1938-1944), presented in the final three chapters of the thesis. Chapter one analyses the origins of the term xia in texts from the Warring States Period (475-221 BC) and Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), presenting new interpretations for a more comprehensive understanding of the term. Chapter two gives a historical overview of xia¬-related literature and addresses the historical reasons for the changes that xia underwent throughout Chinese history. Chapter three includes a historiography of the Republican Era in combination with the life of the author Wang Dulu and identifies the aspects of the author’s life that will become important in the textual analysis in the chapters to follow. Chapter four focuses on xia in the Crane-Iron Series. After having collected the terms and identified the semantic spheres that include the Chinese character xia, the chapter demonstrates how the story of one of the series’ protagonist can be seen as an personification of Republican-era China, proving the historical dimension and value of these novels. Chapter five analyses yi 义 (righteousness) and represents the virtuous aspect of xia, concluding that, according to Wang Dulu, for the concept of xia, virtue is more important than being trained in martial arts (wu). Chapter six focuses on the literary figure of the baobiao 保镖 (protector) and is seen as the commercialisation of martial arts not necessarily linked to xia, showing how entrepreneurship and violence were characteristics of the time.