Writing the Love of Boys

During the twenty-five years between the beginning of the Taishō period in 1912 and the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, the spread of medical psychology and sexological discourse helped contribute to the development of new ideas about masculinity and gender in Japan. Popular literature represented one forum in which people explored, promoted, and qualified these new ideas. The manifestations of male-male desire that one finds in the literature of the period, however, do not just passively reflect changes in contemporary ideology. Literary developments also helped shape the idioms that writers used to describe the subject. This dissertation examines the representations of male-male desire in the bestselling works of two authors active during this window of change: the poet, writer, and painter Murayama Kaita (1896-1919) and the mystery author Edogawa Ranpo (1894-1965). Through critical analysis and original translations of their works, this dissertation shows that their depictions of desire between men were shaped not only by changing ideas about gender relations but also the artistic movements and genres with which both authors were associated. By combining elements of gender studies and literary history, this dissertation examines the thematic interests, genre-related assumptions, and social expectations that molded their treatments of the subject.