Writing the love of boys : origins of Bishōnen culture in modernist Japanese literature

Despite its centuries-long tradition of literary and artistic depictions of love between men, around the fin de siècle Japanese culture began to portray same-sex desire as immoral. __Writing the Love of Boys__ looks at the response to this mindset during the critical era of cultural ferment between the two world wars as a number of Japanese writers challenged the idea of love and desire between men as pathological. Jeffrey Angles focuses on key writers, examining how they experimented with new language, genres, and ideas to find fresh ways to represent love and desire between men. He traces the personal and literary relationships between contemporaries such as the poet Murayama Kaita, the mystery writers Edogawa Ranpo and Hamao Shiro, the anthropologist Iwata Jun’ichi, and the avant-garde innovator Inagaki Taruho. __Writing the Love of Boys__ shows how these authors interjected the subject of male–male desire into discussions of modern art, aesthetics, and perversity. It also explores the impact of their efforts on contemporary Japanese culture, including the development of the tropes of male homoeroticism that recur so often in Japanese girls’ manga about bishonen love. Angles (Japanese literature, Western Michigan U.) explores the origins of the bishonen ("beautiful adolescent men") genre of Japanese literature, deconstructing the works of three influential early 20th century authors in order to demonstrate the varied and complex cultural attitudes towards male same-sex relations which mingled and coalesced in their respective works, creating the underpinnings of a new, modern literature. He examines the works of poet Murayama Kaita, detective novelist Edogawa Ranpo, and avant garde writer Inagaki Taruho, describing their respective representations of schoolboy love, aestheticism, psychology, and the grotesque; as well as the ways in which their work sought to connect to traditions of male-male love across cultural, historical, and national divides. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Blow The Blood-stained Bugle : Murayama Kaita And The Language Of Personal Sensation -- Treading The Edges Of The Known World : Homoerotic Fantasies In Murayama Kaita's Prose -- The Appeal Of The Strange : Same-sex Desire In Edogawa Ranpo's Mystery Fiction -- (re)discovering Same-sex Love : Ranpo And The Creation Of Queer History -- Uninscribing The Adolescent Body : Aesthetic Resistance In Taruho's Writing -- Conclusion : Postwar Legacies. Jeffrey Angles. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Despite its centuries-long tradition of literary and artistic depictions of love between men, around the fin de siècle Japanese culture began to portray same-sex desire as immoral. This book looks at the response to this mindset during the critical era of cultural ferment between the two world wars as a number of Japanese writers challenged the idea of love and desire between men as pathological A pioneering look at same-sex desire in Japanese modernist writing.