This thesis studies representations of queer, male-bodied characters in Vietnamese literature published between 2000 and 2013, taking as its first source the earliest Vietnamese novel that explicitly discusses homosexuality and examining a selection of later texts that deals with queer issues. The author catalogues the Vietnamese queer identities presented in these sources. Using popular identities and the definitions presented in the primary texts, this research presents, analyses and contrasts detailed definitions and common presentations of identities based around homoerotic inclination and gender transgression. On the basis that literature is an example of cultural discourse, this thesis reveals contemporary Vietnamese understandings of and attitudes towards these identities in contemporary Vietnamese society. Following on existing queer studies on other South East Asian contexts, this research is one of the first studies to focus on specifically Vietnamese understandings of these issues. The findings are situated within other regional queer theory.

A recent major work on Thai-English poetry translation is The Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen (2010/2012), the only complete translation into any language of the Thai-language epic poem Sepha rueang Khun Chang Khun Phaen (KCKP). Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit, the translators, mainly render their translation of the epic verse into prose. Their translation is an English version of the standard accounts as edited by Prince Damrong Rajanubhap in 1917–1918 with a slight revision in 1925 and older manuscripts, notably the Wat Ko edition. Baker and Pasuk’s intervention manifests itself at textual level for they restored a great number of passages excised by Damrong. The reinstated segments include censored female sexuality, monk clowning and the less violent account of the creation of Goldchild (กุมารทอง). In the standard edition, Damrong did not allow Siamese women to be sexually expressive and Buddhist monks to be clowns in the national literature he helped shape. The violent account of the Goldchild creation Damrong chose for his standard edition vilifies the leading male character, Khun Phaen. To identify approaches to translating a Thai epic poem into English, twenty-four segments rendered into verse passages, twenty key culturally specific items (CSIs) and four paratextual elements, which also represent the text as a whole, are analysed. This interdisciplinary study takes into account the socio-cultural contexts and aesthetic norms prevalent in the periods in which the source texts were written. The sociological approach in which the method of interview is employed is also adopted in this study. The translated text, paratext and responses from the interviews are analysed to identify translation strategies and procedures and whether the translators conformed to the ‘textual system’ of their time so that their translation of an unrecognised national literature would be admitted to the fellowship of world literature.

Parallelism is a fundamental yet overlooked organizational device in the composition of Lao literature. This device is used in the creation of style, developing in complexity and sublety from the spoken language, prose, to poetic literature. In literature composed in the poetic form of Kau:n A:n, the plot on every level is organized in an intricate and symmetrical layering of parallel pairs. Narrative is built from a pattern which can be referred to as AAB, which consists of two initial sections, parallel in meaning and frequently similar in grammatical structure, followed by a third and final section which provides a conclusion. AAB patterns, which can be of any length, have traditionally been used by Lao (and other Tai) poets to narrate a progression of ideas, time, or events. Typically within a Lao story there are numerous layers of overlapping patterns. There is a consistent symmetry in the placement of smaller patterns inside of larger ones. The AAB pattern provides a model from which the evolution of a Lao story can be interpreted. A comparative study reveals that when a story is copied, the text evolves through the systematic grafting of new AAB patterns onto older patterns, the enlargement of existing patterns, and the strengthening of existing parallels between statements. It appears that the continual recopying of Lao literature is responsible for the incredible intricacy of its parallel layers. This thesis, in its initial chapter, also provides a general description of Lao literature, including the topics; a) the history of ancient Lao scripts and literature, b) the relationship between the literature and the Buddhist religion, c) sources of the literature in other societies, d) literary works in the Nitsay, Ha:y and Kau:n A:n literary forms; the different roles they play and the circumstances of their composition, transcription, performance, and preservation, e) the relationship between the literatures of Lanna and Laos, f) the major plot types, g) the use of formula and themes, h) the role of creativity in composition and transcription, and i) a history of the study of parallelism and a consideration of the role that parallelism plays in traditional Lao literary narrative. The inventory in the appendix provides a list of 142 works of Lao literature, describing the literary forms in which they are written, their length, extent of distribution, published equivalents, and possible relationship with works in other societies.

The subject of this study is the drama Sang Thong. Chapter I serves as a general introduction in which the aims of the study are presented and the large number of Sang Thong specimens are reduced to a corpus of seven representative texts. Chapter II compares and contrasts the narrative, poetic diction and conventional topics as they appear in each of these texts, and it is demonstrated that although there are narrative and poetic similarities, each specimen is in a different manuscript tradition. A method of analysis is then proposed by which the "mode of composition," or a characterization of the way in which a text is written, can be obtained. The method is evolved in Chapters III-V by comparing what is termed the "structure," "versification" and "reading" of the two members of the corpus whose modes of composition are most dissimilar. One of these texts is attributed to Rama II. It is then argued that certain quantitative and qualitative traits which are found to be possessed by the Rama II text reflect a "prepared" type of composition, while those possessed by the other text reflect an "improvised" type of composition. In Chapter VI, the modes of composition of the remaining Sang Thong specimens are identified and compared to those of the two example texts. Other dramatic works are also examined to determine if there are indications of a Rama II-type of dramatic composition and if there is any correlation between the age of a text and the traits which are said to reflect the ''improvised". In the final chapter of Volume I, it is argued that an association may exist between ''improvised" and ''prepared" texts and oral and literary types of composition respectively. General remarks are then made concerning Rama II's ''popular" drama. Volume I, Part 2 contains the material from which the modes of composition of the corpus texts are derived. In Volume II, a complete translation of the Sang Thong text ascribed to Rama II and his court poets is presented.

This thesis moves from a study of poetic theory to poetic practice and examines the interaction between Western and Vietnamese poetry of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in relation to specific issues, forms and individual poets. As a Vietnamese student studying in England, I have found at least two main areas of interest and concern: one is the impact of Western poetry on Vietnamese poetry, and the other is the acknowledgement by some Western poets that they have been profoundly influenced by Eastern writing. With my native awareness of Eastern ideologies in poetry, I also examine non-Western literary traditions and avant-garde approaches in the light of these parallels. To the best of my knowledge, no previous research has ever been conducted in this area. In Chapter 1, Western theories and the practice of Imagism are considered. These are crucial areas in terms of offering a new approach to East-West borrowing, understanding and misunderstanding. Chapter 2 compares Imagist poetry with Haiku, a Japanese traditional form, and proposes a way of understanding Pound’s Imagist poems according to Zen and Eastern culture. Chapters 3 and 4 indicate parallel Western and Eastern innovations in literature and society in Vietnam from the 1930s onwards. I find that there have been different ‘wars’ in modern Vietnamese poetry as Vietnamese poets have struggled with ‘writing a poem’ and ‘being a poet’. Those ‘wars’ are between ancient Chinese poetry and Vietnamese script poetry; between Eastern ideologies of morality and beauty and Western concepts of freedom in poetry; between traditional Vietnamese poetry and Thơ mới (‘New Poetry Movement’) in Vietnam, which was influenced by French Symbolism; and the resistance of Vietnamese ‘poetic rules’ to the shocks that Dada, conceptual arts and American Experimental poetry brought to Vietnam. Chapter 5 studies Gertrude Stein’s writing as a suggested innovative technique for Vietnamese poets. Chapter 6 compares and contrasts Mina Loy with a visual artist, René Magritte; here, surrealist concepts of subjects and objects are considered alongside feminist poetry in Vietnam as suggestions for breaking through the mediaeval ideologies and prejudice of modern Vietnamese poetry.

This thesis is a first attempt to make an extended study of the life and work of a single Thai novelist. Chapter I supplies the need for a statement about the contemporary setting in which the author worked and about the development of the novel. Although Dokmaisot is an outstanding figure in modern Thai literature, she remains somewhat apart from her contemporaries and material on which contrasts can be based is required. The starting point is taken as 1900. This is convenient because at this time literary magazines printing original work heralding the emergence of the novel were beginning to appear. An account of Dokmaisot's life is then given. She was the first Thai female professional novelist and it is important to relate her personal life and that of her family to the development of her work. Chapters III to VIII contain a treatment, descriptive and critical, of thirteen novels. In general a progression through time is followed but this has been departed from in some instances in the interests of showing the novelist's development more clearly. Dokmaisot's last and unfinished novel is given separate treatment in Chapter IX. It represents a departure in motive, attitude, and tone from her previous writing even though some characters, appearing in an earlier work, are used again. A political motive and criticism directed against the Thai Government, especially in its social policies, appear overtly for the first time. Chapter X takes the world of Dokmaisot which has emerged through fourteen novels involving at least two hundred characters and summarizes its attitudes in sections which deal with religious, social, and external influences such as that of the West. The thesis concludes with an appendix in which the twenty-two other works of Dokmaisot, including four poems and a play, are briefly considered. A second appendix is a list of life ceremonies referred to in the novels. Appendix three contains comment on Thai terms for "novel".

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The main purpose of this study is to examine a popular Thai genre of the novel, romance fiction, with a focus on the modes of subjectivity and discourses of femininity and masculinity to be found in Thai romance novels between the 1940s and 1990s. The thesis also seeks to locate the various socio-cultural contexts of Thai society, which influence the constitution of Thai gender relations and the transformation of gender norms. Additionally, it attempts to address the issue of the usefulness of Western theories of gender and romance, which are widely regarded in Thailand as tools of Westernization and new forms of colonialism. This study suggests that Thai gender relations are complicated, since there are several disparate aspects that influence the constitution of male and female subjectivity. Western influence is one of these aspects that help define femininity and masculinity, while domestic beliefs also play a salient role as palimpsests that are not easily erased. Thus, the representation of various modes of gendered subjectivity in romance fiction concurrently indicates both changes in and the reproduction of discourses that define an „essence‟ of gender identity that accords with traditional Thai cultural beliefs including the deep-rooted idea that the primary purpose of writing is didactic.