Writing the love of boys: Representations of male-male desire in the literature of Murayama Kaita and Edogawa Ranpo

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.; Chapter One examines the florid representations of boyish desire in Kaita's poetry and diaries from the early 1910s. These writings reflect Kaita's pseudo-symbolist notion of the poet as a visionary who drew upon manifestations of beauty to create art. Chapter Two examines the relationship between decadent sentiment, male beauty, and Kaita's own artistic aspirations in "Bishonen Saraino no kubi" ("The Bust of the Beautiful Young Saraino"), a story about a dream-like competition with Leonardo da Vinci for the love of one of Leonardo's disciples. This chapter also examines the connections between pre-modernity, decadence, and male-male desire in Kaita's story "Tetsu no doji" ("Children of Iron") and the play "Shuten doji" ("The Sake-Drinking Youth"). Chapter Three examines "Satsujin gyoja" ("The Murdering Ascetic") and "Akuma no shita" ("The Diabolical Tongue"), two mystery-adventure stories from 1915. Both describe antisocial outlaws who act upon their desire for other men; however, the texts describe the characters' desires as displaced by the logical order of modern civilization.; Chapter Four examines Ranpo's essays on representations of male-male desire in Kaita's work, which he saw as embodying an innocent and especially poignant form of boyish affection. These essays, along with Ranpo's autobiographical essays about his crushes on other schoolboys during his youth, implicitly attempt to disassociate the love of boys from the moralistic and pathologizing rhetoric of sexology. As Chapter Five shows, some of Ranpo's early fiction, including "Ningen isu" ("The Human Chair," 1925), Issun-boshi (The Dwarf, 1926--1927), Ryoki no hate (The Fruits of Curiosity-Hunting, 1930), shows an ambivalent attitude toward male homoeroticism. Chapter Six examines Ranpo's essays from the 1930s on same-sex desire in the writing of other authors, including Edward Carpenter, John Addington Symonds, and Walt Whitman. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...