Transforming Homosexual Subtexts: Sinicized Male-male Desire

Chapter Three

Transforming Homosexual Subtexts: Sinicized Male-male Desire

Underlying homosexual subtexts in The Picture of Dorian Gray go through dramatic transformation in Wan Dahong’s Du Liankui, and these changes are yet to be discovered. As mentioned in the second chapter of this thesis, Wilde deliberately builds his homosexually suggestive story on a heterosexual model only to subvert from within, and then within this mock heterosexual framework he integrates multiple homosexual hints that metonymically relate to “gross indecency” in the Victorian England. Some of these homosexual representations under camouflage are modified, omitted, and even metamorphosed in Du Liankui. On top of these changes, many added passages can be observed in the target text. Chan Tak-hung and Du Shinshin have both identified succinctly a diminution in homosexual desire in Du Liankui, but they neither elaborate on Wang’s treatment of Wilde’s homosexual subtexts, nor identify Wang’s strategy for homoerotic representation.

This chapter aims to delve into the much unexplored arena of Wang’s homosexual poetics in his translation by analyzing his representation of the original Wildean homosexual subtexts.

As recontextualization marks Wang’s translation, I propose that his treatment of Wilde’s homosexual desire is subjugated to this major translating scheme. Chan’s interpretation of the concept of intertextuality helps trace this possibility of Wang’s homoerotic poetics. The theory itself originally proposes that a text cannot exist as a hermetic or self-sufficient whole, and so does not function as a closed system.

Given that the writer is a reader of texts before becoming a creator of texts, the work of art of is “inevitably shot through with references, quotations, and influences of every kind.”

These “other textual structures” could include cultural and ideological norms—which entails the importance of reconstructing the cultural codes realized in texts.

Chan applies the concept of intertextuality to translation study and points out that the source text inevitably figures as an intertext for its translation, but in an adaptive, recontextualized translation like Du Liankui, further intertexts from the target culture are invoked, causing intertextual processes to proliferate.

In other words, The Picture of Dorian Gray is not simply Sinicized textually in Du Liankui,

1 Chan Leo Tak-hung, “The Poetics of Recontextualization: Intertextuality in a Chinese Adaptive Translation of The Picture of Dorian Gray” Comparative Literature Studies 41, no. 4 (2004): 477. Also see Du Shinshin, “The Pictures of Dorian Gray: A Cultural Analysis of Six Chinese Translations in Taiwan” (MA Thesis, National Taiwan Normal University, 2005), 64. They both observe that homoeroticism is toned down in Wang’s translation.

2 Julia Kristeva, Semiotiké: Recherches pour une sémanalyse (Paris: Seuil, 1969), 146.

3 Judith Still and Michael Worton, “Introduction” to their eds., Intertextuality: Theories and Practices (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1990), 1.

4 John Frow, “Intertextuality and Ontology,” in Judith Still and Michael Worton, eds., Intertextuality:

Theories and Practice (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1990), 45-6.

5 Chan, “The Poetics of Recontextualization,”477.

because its content too becomes immersed in a web of Chinese cultural intertextual echoes. Wilde’s homoeroticism in the original novel is indeed disrupted by forces unleashed by Wang’s adaptive translation: A later section of this chapter will demonstrate how Wang’s translation utilizes traditional Chinese male-male desire as a representational devise. I would illustrate first how the translation departs from original homosexual subtexts/desire, and then trace the resurfacing of these target-cultural codes in Du Liankui to discuss Wang’s own homoerotic representation.

1. From Manifestation to Diminution: Digression from Homosexual Subtexts Numerous evidences show that Wang’s translation of homosexual desire is quite disparate from Wilde’s homosexual subtexts. One eminent question for the interest of this study is if Wang has not transplanted Wildean erotic expressions into the target text, what he would utilize to fill up the resulting gaps. But first it is important to have a general understanding of how homosexual subtexts are dug out, laid bare and discarded. As in what follows my study will compare quite a number of passages from the original novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray and the translated text, Du Liankui, I would utilize Wang’s Sinicized character names whenever necessary to discuss his modification in the translation to avoid confusion with the source text. The following list succinctly juxtaposes corresponding naming in the source and target text:

Original naming: Sinicized naming: Roles in the novel:

Dorian Gray Du Liankui 杜連魁 protagonist Lord Henry Wotton Wu Teng 吳騰 aristocrat Basil Hollward Bei Xi 貝席 painter

Sibyl Vane Xue Bifang 薛碧芳 singer (originally actress) Jame Vane Xue Jimei 薛吉眉 sailor; Sibyl’s (Bifang) brother Mrs. Leaf Li Ma 李媽 housekeeper of Dorian The Duchess Lady Ma 馬夫人 married woman that flirts with Dorian

Campbell Gan Boer 甘柏爾 friend of Dorian’s

Hetty Chunmei 春妹 country girl Dorian seduces -- Yuxiang 玉香 prostitute, added character

-- Yulan 玉蘭 country girl, added character

1.1 “Aggressive-passive” Homoerotic Voice

Technically speaking, the translator of Du Liankui preserves male-male desire in The

Picture of Dorian Gray—though not necessarily in the same way. Multiple passages

attest that male-male eroticism ostensibly is retained in the translation, especially in

the early part of the book. Du points out, Lord Henry and Basil’s adoration of Dorian clearly trespasses the acceptable boundary for male friendship, but the translator does not shy away from such erotic confession.

In Wang’s translation, the painter’s first encounter with Du Liankui expresses overt male-male desire as in the original novel.

「我一轉身便看見杜連魁，那是我們初次見面。當我們對望時，我心裡起了 一種無名的恐慌，我知道我遇見了一個具有強大魅力的美男子。只要我一放 鬆自己，他便會支配我整個天性，控制我整個心靈，甚至影響我的工作，我 的藝術。你知道我的個性一向獨立自主，從不受任何外來的影響。但是自從

我認識他以後—我真不知如何向你解說。」

(“As I turned around I saw Du Liankui for the very first time. As we looked at each other, I felt an unknown panic, knowing that I had met an overwhelmingly charming handsome man. If I let go of myself, he would dominate my whole self, my mind, work and art. You know I have always enjoyed independent life without any external influence. But ever since I met him—I do not quite know how to explain this to you.”)

But a closer look would reveal that even this seemingly faithful rendering is in essence a delusion of Wilde’s homosexual poetics. In fact, the translator’s literal portrayal of the painter’s affection surpasses that in the original book.

In the previous example, the part in bold emphasizes the nature of such attraction: Du Liankui’s desirable physical beauty, but the original text simply reads “personality that is so fascinating,” thus showing how Wang would explicitly verbalize where Wilde tries to reserve. In the scene where Wu Teng (Lord Henry) inquires about the name of the young man “with extraordinary personal beauty,” the translation once again shows such lack of obliqueness, as Bei Xi (Basil) says,「我就是不想將我所喜 歡的人的名字告訴何人。洩漏他的名字就像把他分給了別人似的，也許這是因為 我的占有慾和嫉妒心太強的緣故。」.

(“I just don’t want to tell the name of someone I like to other people. To reveal his name is like to share him with others, perhaps because I am too possessive and jealous”). As the original text simple says

“When I like people immensely I never tell their names to anyone. It’s like surrendering part of them,” the translation’s added explanatory part in italics seems all the more straightforward with homoeroticism that Wilde seeks to at once hide and heighten.

Later, as the love triangle among the male trio develops, the translation blatantly

6 Du, “The Pictures of Dorian Gray,” 65.

7 Wang, Du Liankui,15 (emphasis mine).

8 Du, “The Pictures of Dorian Gray,” 64.

9 Wang, Du Liankui, 12 (emphasis mine).

articulates Beixi and Wu Teng’s rivalry for Du Liankui. See the following juxtaposed examples:

[Basil] drove off by himself, as had been arranged, and watched the flashing lights of the little broughman in front of him. A strange sense of loss came over him. He felt that Dorian Gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the past. Life had come between them.

[貝席]面色憂沉，獨自上了車，跟在吳騰的「德姆勒」後面。他隱隱望見前 面兩人並頭交談，心裡忽然若有所失，他覺得杜連魁不會再對他像以往一樣

親密了，吳騰已經插入他們兩人之間。

([Bei Xi] with a melancholy look got into his car alone and drove following Wu Teng’s Daimler car. He seemed to spot his two friends’ intimate chatting and felt rather empty. He had a feeling that Du Liankui would not be close to him as in the past, as Wu Teng had gotten between them.)

This example once again shows how the translation is comfortable with overt verbalization of the love triangle among the three men. While the original text says

“Life had come between them,” the translation directly pinpoints the cause of the distance between Du Liankui and Bei Xi: Wu Teng. This explicitness about male-male relations is taken so much for granted that where Wilde hesitates to verbalize, Wang states it all in simplified textual declaration, as if the subject of homoeroticism does not encounter a censorial audience. This differentiates from the original novel’s deliberate evasion and obliqueness about affirmative and specific reference to male homoeroticism. From the very beginning it is undisputed that Wang’s homoerotic poetics digresses from Wilde’s homosexual subtexts: the former maintains an open, overt attitude, while the latter stresses the art of indirect subtlety.

Such difference between Wilde and Wang’s depiction predetermines the following development of homosexual motif. Wang’s overt recognition of male homoerotic relations paradoxically does not produce as much intensity of this desire.

Although the translator of Du Liankui does not intend to overlook homosexuality, his abrupt bluntness belittles rather than bespeaks male-male desire. Forgoing the original novel’s painstaking effort to camouflage and express male-male love, the translator treats this desire with alarmingly shocking forthrightness, and by rejecting opposition within and outside the original text, the controversy over and thereby intensity of homoeroticism is greatly diminished. By circumventing a homophobic audience, the

10 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 87 (my italics).

11 Wang, Du Liankui, 91 (my emphasis).

translator’s overt recognition implies his reluctance to dwell on detailed portrayal of and hint at such desire, and consequently his matter-of-fact stance suggests a refusal to allow homoeroticism to develop into the centerpiece, which anticipates less intense homosexual desire. Wang’s initial stance that consists of straightforward verbal affirmation drastically differentiates from Wilde’s homosexual expression and predicts a following move that further pulls away from the homosexual desire/subtexts in the original novel.

Given the fundamentally very different stance mentioned above, Wang’s homoerotic representation indeed continues to drift away from Wilde’s homosexual expressions. How Wang insists on simplification or even omission of physical depiction of and interaction among male characters is one aspect that attests such digression. What Wilde could not do is to name the male-male desire, but he achieves his goal even more successfully through ambiguous means. For one thing, physical interaction sometimes serves as an indicator of male-male affection. After Lord Henry and Dorian meet each other for the first time,

“You are glad you have met me, Mr. Gray,” said Lord Henry, looking at him.

“Yes, I am glad now. I wonder shall I always be glad?”

“Always! That is a dreadful word. . . . It is a meaningless word, too. The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that caprice lasts a little longer.”

As they entered the studio, Dorian put his hand upon Lord Henry’s arm. “In that case, let our friendship be a caprice,” he murmured, flushing at his own boldness . . . .

In the translation such physical intimate gestures as “putting his hand upon Lord Henry’s arm” are deleted and replaced by something less suggestive of intimacy.

吳騰說： 「連魁，我很高興認識你，希望我們能做朋友，你呢？」

「我也很高興。」他答道， 「希望我們永遠是朋友。」

「永遠！多駭人的字眼！…何況這兩個字毫無意義，終身的愛情和短時 的迷戀唯一的差別是，迷戀比較耐久一點。」

他們走進畫室，拿起桌上水晶杯裏的威士忌，微笑地對飲，杜連魁向吳

騰舉杯輕聲說： 「既然如此，那我們的友誼就算是一種迷戀吧！」話一出口，

他又為自己的大膽而臉紅。

12 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 28.

13 Wang, Du Liankui, 32-3 (emphasis mine).

(Wu Teng said, “Liankui, I am very pleased to meet you. I hope we could be friends, what do you think?”

“I am pleased too,” he answered. “I hope we could be friends forever.”

“Forever! What a dreadful word . . . besides this word means nothing; the difference between love for a lifetime and a short caprice is that the latter lasts a little longer.”

After they walked into the studio, they raised crystal glasses of whiskey to drink to each other with a smile. Du Liankui toasted to Wu Teng, “In that case, let our friendship be a caprice!” Once he said these words, he blushed at his own boldness.)

Here the translation deletes an erotically charged physical act and opts for a gesture of drinking a toast to each other, a neutral and common manly interaction that decreases the intensity of male homoeroticism. The deliberate properness of male-male interaction also tones down the older man’s verbal seduction. Lord Henry’s daring and seductive remark—You are glad you have met me—is changed into a proper and polite verbal request for friendship in the translation. Despite the explicit recognition of homosexual relation, deleting physical interaction between male lovers dilutes sexual innuendo, which shows Wang’s gradually widening distance from the original novel.

Not only physical interaction between men becomes less intimate, but also bodily descriptions of male characters disappear. The original focus on male body in the novel, which entails the writer’s intended male homoeroticism, fades away in Du Liankui. A case in point is the difference between Lord Henry/Wu Teng. Lord Henry is often portrayed showing off his long white pointed fingers, and his seductive musical voice.

[Lord Henry’s] romantic olive-coloured face and worn expression interested [Dorian]. There was something in his low, languid voice that was absolutely fascinating. His cool, white, flower-like hands, even, had a curious charm. They moved, as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a language of their own.

These details vanish and end in only one succinct sentence in the translation: 吳騰對 他有股強烈的吸引力.

(Wu Teng really attracts him.) It is obvious that the translation strives to save up the elaborate depiction of physical attractiveness of this male character. This certainly decreases the homosexual innuendos, as the translation

14 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 25.

15 Wang, Du Liankui, 30.

skips how in the original novel Dorian is fascinated by and attracted to his steady mentor—certainly not only because of his eloquence but also his physical merit.

Another immediate effect is that it shifts the focus to something other than male body.

This reluctance to show male body in the text will be addressed again later in this chapter. With the translation’s contradictory obtrusiveness about the existence of male-male desire and reluctance to dwell on its physical details—thus refusing to mark such desire’s otherness and peculiarity—the male homoeroticism as a motif, subject, turns out to be less visible. Meanwhile deleting male physical interaction and details of male body—de facto rejecting the visibility of homosexual desire—also works to diminish the intensity of homosexual desire. Wang’s translation thus not only distances itself from Wilde’s expressions but also gradually breaks away from homosexual desire.

1.2 Receding Homoeroticism

Although at first explicitly articulated, Wang’s homoerotic representation can be observed gradually receding away from the spotlight as the story unfolds. One event serves as a general transition point: when the protagonist meets his first female lover.

That is, before Du Liankui meets Xue Bifang, he and his male companions under Wang’s permission express their mutual desire unambiguously. After the advent of the first girlfriend, the former male-male desire surrounding Du Liankui and other male characters start to disappear. It is after the appearance of Xue Bifang that Wang introduces more dramatic modifications to muffle homoerotic desire. One of his moves to pull away from the author’s male-male desire is changing the connotation of the homosexually connected issue of class liaisons. That is, how Wilde and Wang address the question of class liaisons reveals the discrepancy of their representations of male-male desire. This could be observed in an episode preciously after the protagonist encounters his first heterosexual love. When Du Liankui declares his engagement to Xue Bifang, his male suitors’ reaction shifts from jealousy and disappointment to shock about class liaisons. See the following comparison of source and target text:

“She lives with her mother, a faded woman who played Lady Capulet in a sort of magenta dressing-wrapper on the first night, and looks as if she had seen better days.” . . .

“The Jew wanted to tell me her history, but I said it did not interest me.”

“You were quite right. There is always something infinitely mean about other people’s tragedies.”

“Sibyl is the only thing I care about. What is it to me where she came

from? . . . ”

「……聽說她母親以前是小有名氣的演員，她父親早已去世，她現在跟 母親和一個哥哥同住在歌廳附近。」

「她的家世不很好。」吳騰又下了評語。

「我愛的是她的才藝。她的出身對我毫無關係……」

(“. . . I heard that her mother used to be a somewhat famous actress. Her father passed away long ago. Now she lives with her mother and brother near the dance-hall.

“She does not have a very good family background,” Wu Teng commented again.

“I love her talents. Her background does not matter to me . . . .”)

While originally Lord Henry agrees with Dorian’s decision not to dig out Sibyl’s past, the translation emphasizes on the older man’s dissatisfaction of his pupil not finding the right match. The concept of seeing someone of matched social and financial status all of a sudden conveniently becomes an excuse for Wu Teng’s fretting over Du Liankui’s infatuation with a woman.

Another example can illustrate this twist on the issue of class liaison. Lord Henry has a long interior monologue, after Dorian leaves for the theater to attend Sibyl’s play.

. . . The separation of spirit from matter was a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter was a mystery too.

[Lord Henry] began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a science that each little spring of life would be revealed to us. As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves, and rarely understood others . . .

精神和肉體的分離與融合，是一個不容理解的奧秘。

杜連魁的狂戀也不容理解，至少他戀愛的對象令人費解。我們總是誤解

自己，也不常了解別人。……

(“ The separation and fusion of spirit and body is an incomprehensible mystery.”

“Du Liankui’s infatuation is equally incomprehensible, or at least his choice of object of desire is perplexing. We tend to misunderstand ourselves and often understand nothing about others . . . .”)

16 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 60-1 (italics mine).

17 Wang, Du Liankui, 63 (my emphasis).

18 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 64.

19 Wang, Du Liankui, 66; my emphasis.

Here the translator inserts the emphasized sentence, and once again reminds the reader of Sibyl’s unacceptable and inappropriate socioeconomic background. This new and different emphasis contrasts interestingly with that in the original novel where class liaisons serve for different purposes. As Chapter Two points out, cross-class relations represented in The Picture of Dorian Gray shadow vaguely the concept of upper class men seeking working class boys in several famous homosexual scandals. Furthermore, Dorian’s cross-class relation with Sibyl also subverts the traditional heterosexuality. If anything, class liaisons challenge the heterosexual expectation and hint at homosexual desire. In Du Liankui, however, cross-class relation turns into a way to mask or tone down jealousy derived from male-male desire. The painter’s shock reinforces this twist all the more, as the following excerpts show:

“Dorian is engaged to be married,” said Lord Henry, watching him as he spoke.

Hallward started, and then frowned. “Dorian engaged to be married!” he cried. “Impossible!”

“It is perfectly true.”

“To whom?”

“To some little actress or other.”

“I can’t believe it. Dorian is far too sensible.”

……吳騰坐下不久，貝席便隨著侍者進來，問主人道： 「連魁還沒有來？」

「他就來，你曉不曉得他訂婚了？」吳騰笑笑請他坐下。

貝席似乎不信，蹙眉問道：「連魁訂婚了？他怎麼沒有告訴我？」

「他也沒有告訴我，他是用信通知我的。」

「你那天知道的？」

「今天早上。」

「他跟那位小姐訂了婚？」貝席好奇地望著他朋友。

「跟一個什麼歌廳裡演唱的女孩子。」

「我不信，連魁不會這麼傻！」貝席不悅地說。

(. . . Shortly after Wu Teng sat down, Bei Xi walked in with the waiter, asking the host, “Is Liankui here yet?”

“He will here soon. Do you know that he just got engaged?” Wu Teng smiled and invited him to take a seat.

20 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 79 (my italics).

21 Wang, Du Liankui, 83-4 (my emphasis).

Bei Xi frowned in disbelief and asked, “Liankui is engaged? But he did not tell me anything at all.”

“He did not tell me either; actually he informed me via a letter.”

“When did you find out about this?”

“Just this morning.”

“What lady did he get engaged to?” Be Xi asked curiously.

“A girl that sings in some club.”

“I don’t believe it! Liankui is not that stupid!” Be Xi was upset.)

In this episode, the original dialogue is seemingly faithfully translated. Yet a closer look help reveal that the two passages stress different issues. In the source text, Basil is mostly shocked by the fact that his desired Dorian is going to marry someone else, which directly denotes his future impossible access to his object of desire. His physical reaction is telling evidence—verbs such as “started” “frowned” and “cried”

succinctly depict his dismay and denial. Also, if punctuation not being just taken for granted, Basil’s tone of voice, revealed by multiple exclamation marks, entails greater shock about the news of Dorian’s engagement than the knowledge of Sibyl’s social class—his response to her socioeconomic identity appears calm and flat. The translation on the contrary describes Bei Xi’s first reaction as doubt, and his subsequent questions suggest mainly his surprise of not being informed beforehand; it is only after he knows Du Liankui’s fiancé comes from low working class that he is described as upset and caught off guard. Although both the source text and translation show Western and oriental expectation of marrying the right match, the latter enhances this idea and transforms it into a way to temper male-male desire.

This general development of toning down male-male desire is also evidenced by one of Wang’s modifications: Lord Henry’s pedagogical mindset is sharply diminished in the translation. One way Lord Henry masks his desire for Dorian is to disembody such desire and derive his pleasure from the exercise of influence.

He remains a detached spectator that enjoys witnessing the consequence of his influence on Dorian. Turning carnal yearning into pedagogical ambition, Lord Henry carries out his homosexual desire via self-sublimation, which serves to both camouflage and betray his prohibited affection. In other words, pedagogy is indispensable to the homoerotic poetics in the original novel. The target text in question conversely depletes the story of pedagogical overtone after the early part of the novel—as the story goes on, homosexually motivated pedagogy also disappears out of view. For example, after knowing Dorian’s engagement, Lord Henry starts reflecting on this event, a passage heavily tinted with his pleasure in influencing and observing Dorian.

22 Nunokawa, “Homosexual Desire,” 315. See Chapter Two, 20, 21.

The translation streamlines this interior monologue into a short paragraph, with a slightly changed emphasis.

He was conscious—and the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into his brown agate eyes—that it was through certain words of his, musical words said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray’s soul had turned to this white girl and bowed in worship before her. To a large extent the lad was his own creation. He had made him premature . . .

……雖然他很得意杜連魁因為受了他的影響，而在追求新感受！人生最

大的感受─戀愛。他的靈魂已飛向那女孩的身邊，去愛她，崇拜她。

(. . . Although he was quite pleased that it was under his influence that Du Liankui now pursued new experiences, with the most powerful experience as romantic love, his soul had now flown to the girl to love and worship her.)

The source text does not simply summarize the quoted passage as it appears at first sight. If we pay attention to its tone of voice—雖然他很得意杜連魁因為受了他的 影響……他的靈魂已飛向那女孩的身邊，去愛她，崇拜她 (Although it was under his influence . . ., his soul had flown to the girl to love and worship her; the use of the conjunction, “although,” implies Wu Teng’s far stronger dissatisfaction about the following part of his sentence)—it becomes obvious that Wu Teng does not so much emphasize the pleasure of influencing Du Liankui as simply lament the loss of the lad’s undivided attention. Lord Henry’s pedagogical mindset is thereby significantly played down.

This trend continues. The yellow book that has influenced Lord Henry as a young man and then takes over his pedagogical task of mentoring Dorian is largely omitted in the translation.

Chapter Two has pointed out the significance of the yellow book, which contains homosexual incidents in the first place and also represents the continuous influence of Lord Henry, a replacement necessary for his self dispersal in this erotically suggested teaching. With the homoerotic connotation of pedagogy toned down, virtual omission of the yellow book marks an even more distinct difference between the source and target text. In a way the yellow book does not solely implies pedagogical influence. As Lord Henry first introduces Dorian into the world of male-male desire, his teaching metonymically represents homosexual

23 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 62-3 (my italics).

24 Wang, Du Liankui, 66 (my emphasis).

25 The yellow book is mentioned by Lord Henry and Dorian for multiple times; in the translation its existence and significance is reduced to one single irrelevantly brief reference at the end of the story.

Du Liankui, 222.

ideologies. Once Lord Henry is made to retreat in order to circumvent overt homosexual expression, the book continues to influence Dorian: it in actuality stands for the homosexual desire. “For years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence of this book. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he never sought to free himself from it.”

Practically deleting the yellow book, the translation threatens to eliminate erotic pedagogy, and by doing so gradually pulls away from the source text’s homoerotic poetics.

The anonymous crowd that worships Dorian after the two male admirers retreat from the story, as explained in Chapter Two, vanishes into thin air in Du Liankui.

Wang’s modification of the episode of Dorian’s hiding his picture exemplifies the disappearing universal worship of Dorian. Originally, when Dorian decides to hide the picture, Mr. Hubbard comes to help him carry the picture:

As a rule, [Mr. Hubbard] never left his shop. He waited for people to come to him. But he always made an exception in favour of Dorian Gray. There was something about Dorian Gray that charmed everybody. It was a pleasure even to see him.

Mr. Hubbard’s amicable attitude conveys the prevalent worship of Dorian. Even Mr.

Hubbard’s assistant, a young man, expresses overt worship of Dorian’s charm: “[The assistant] glanced back at Dorian with a look of shy wonder in his rough, uncomely face. He had never seen anyone so marvelous.”

The translation, however, omits these suggestive details and thus the sense of a crowd adoring Dorian evaporates. This arrangement connects with the general trend in the translation: homoerotic desire become less intense, less thematically prioritized, and as the object of this desire accordingly withdraws from the spotlight, the crowd of worshipers disappear too.

So far we have seen how male-male desire has gone through transformation in Du Liankui. Wang’s translation from the very start insists on a very different stance when it comes to homosexual desire. He simply verbalizes such desire in the text. The resulting implication is his sparing the whole set of complicated gay methodology that Wilde utilizes to avoid provoking his audience. This starting perspective ensures less visibility of homosexual desire and thus the intensity of such desire, and moreover it predicts Wang’s deviation from Wilde’s homosexual subtexts. In other words, since abrupt acceptance of homosexuality implies no assumed opposition, there is hence no need to find ways to simultaneously cloak and articulate male-male desire. This alone would predict a less intense homosexual politics in the translation. Although the

26 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 137.

27 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 130.

28 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 133.

translation textually pinpoints moment when the triangle relations develops, ripens and erupts, it refuses to provide lucid physical details that suggest intimacy. Namely, men’s mutual interaction is appropriated to abide by acceptable behavioral code. Even their verbal exchanges are tailored to demonstrate properness. Physical details about male characters’ bodies and gestures are omitted. The attempt to tone down homosexual desire is taken to the next level after the first female lover of Du Liankui enters the story, as Wilde’s homosexual subtexts are explicitly modified or removed: a twist in the episode of class liaison eliminates male-male desire; Lord Henry’s pedagogical mindset is diminished; the sense of a crowd that admires and worships Dorian is deleted. Wang’s homoerotic representation appears to initiate from open recognition and gesture toward repression of homosexual desire along with the intrusion of heterosexual relation, which simultaneously concurs with his digression from Wilde’s homosexual subtexts.

2. The Working of Traditional Chinese Male-male Desire

The previous analysis of Wang’s translation unearths an undisputed departure from the original gay subtexts behind the seemingly faithful rendering. If Wilde’s homosexual subtexts are diminished, what is the residual homoerotic desire manifest in Wang’s translation? Certain characteristics of Wang’s homoerotic portrayal could serve as telling hints, leading toward what might govern Wang’s translation. First, this representational method enables the translator’s propensity to obliterate the intrusion of homophobia, as Wang blatantly verbalizes the existence of male-male desire.

Second, whatever freedom from homophobic concern this depicting devise provides, it also dictates or requires a gradual diminution in homosexual desire. These two features, when placed within the scope of Wang’s translating strategy, gesture toward male-male desire in the target culture. My argument is that like Wang’s translating strategy, recontextualization, his representation of male-male desire also echoes the traditional Chinese homoeroticism. My following textual analysis of Wang’s homoerotic representation will showcase the dominance of Chinese male-male desire.

2.1 Chinese Male-Male Desire Emerging: Subject/Object Pattern

Before I delve into Wang’s homoerotic depiction, it is necessary to address the form of Chinese male homoeroticism.

Modern Taiwan society is deeply influence by

29 To refer to Chinese male-male desire as homosexuality would be anachronism. Tze-lan D. Sang discusses the awareness of and respect for historicity. The term, homosexual, is an identity construct that has its specific history and cultural context. Similarly, gay, queer, lesbian invoke the history of such identity formations and the subculture in connotation. However, she admits that, historicity can only be respected with limits, as a long list of historically specific terms would render relevant analysis unreadable. Tze-lan D. Sang, The Emgerging Lesbian: Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 30-34. For the sake of functional readability, I avoid

Western homophobia, but—perhaps to great surprise of many modern readers—ancient Chinese male-male desire was a sexual practice not stigmatized as nowadays. Scholars that have addressed sexual life in Chinese culture contribute to the knowledge about ancient Chinese male-male desire, such as Liu Dalin in his Xing de lishi 性的歷史, and Kang Zhenkuo with her study, Aspects of Sexuality and Literature in Ancient China 重審風月鑑：性與中國古典文學.

Bret Hinsch in particular completes a comprehensive study on Chinese male homosexuality in his Passions of the Cut Sleeve: the Male Homosexual Tradition in China. These scholars provide ample evidence of the general tolerance of male homosexuality.

One straightforward example would be the societal attitude toward the oldest recorded form of male-male desire, court favoritism. Kang Zhengguo points out that criticisms of these favorites centered on their potential threat to the emperor’s integrity and political management. Much ancient writing usually juxtaposed the danger of nanse 男色 and nuise 女色 to politics.

Thus if there was any objection to male favorites, it was because favoritism contributed to the speedy fall of a dynasty, namely its political opportunism’s pernicious effects.

Both male favorites and concubines traded sex for political, social and economical power. David Johnson even singles out this route as the only way for “the plebeian upstart to rise to high status.”

In this way, male-male desire was evidently not viewed as a perverse practice. Another obvious example is marital union of two men in ancient Chinese homoeroticism, with the older man

utilizing excessive historic terminologies, therefore there are times when I would use modern identity constructs such as homosexual, gay to refer to male-male desire in pre-modern China. However, in general, desire within men in imperial China is termed “Chinese male homoeroticism”, nanse, Chinese male same-sex desire to minimize confusion in this present study.

30 Liu Dalin 劉達臨, Xing de lishi 性的歷史 (Taipei: Taiwan Shangwu, 2001), 510-530. Kang Zhangguo 康正果, Aspects of Sexuality and Literature in Ancient China 重審風月鑑：性與中國古典 文學(Taipei: Rye Field, 1996), 109-149. Also see Crompton, Homosexuality and Civilization, 215-229, and Song Geng, The Fragile Scholar: Power and Masculinity in Chinese Culture (Aberdeen: Hong Kong UP, 2004), 126-140. Pan Guangdan 潘光旦, “Zhongguo wenxian zhong de xingbian tai ziliao 中 國文獻中的性變態資料” in Fan Xiong, Zhongguo gudai fangzhong wenhua tanmi (Taipei: Shin Chan She, 1996), 375-408. Wang Shunu 王書奴, Changji shi 娼妓史 (Taipei: Daibiao zuo, 2006), 50-53, 67-72, 232-236, 310-318.

31 See Bret Hinsch’s Passions of the Cut Sleeve: the Male Homosexual Tradition in China (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1990). Homosexuality here only addresses sexual desire within men in pre-modern Chine. As for the female-female desire, although there is not significant amount of written records available for analysis, Tze-lan D. Sang points out with existent literature that female-female desire could be seen fitting into polygamy, but such desire between women are often treated as laughable, unauthentic form of love or desire, and easy to manage. Also, unlike men who only need to carry on the family descent line, under the marriage imperative female-female desire meets more denial and repression. Sang, The Emerging Lesbian, 52-65, 91-93.

32 Kang, Aspects of Sexuality, 112. Also see Liu, Xing de lishi, 510-511.

33 Hinsch, Cut Sleeve, 59.

34 David George Johnson, “The Medieval Chinese Oligarchy: A study of the Great Families in Their Social Political, and Institutional Setting” (Ph. D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1970), 92, quoted in Hinsch, Cut Sleeve, 62.

named qixiong 契兄 and the younger qidi 契弟.

The fact that these male-male marriages could co-exist with heterosexual marriages illustrates a predominant lack of hardcore hostility to male homoeroticism.

Formally, Chinese male-male desire is generally structured according to a subject/object and masculine/feminine pattern, or trans-generational, class-structured, and trans-genderal homosexuality.

In the form of trans-generational male homosexuality, it is usually an older man paired with a boy. Class-structure male-male desire describes a financially and socially powerful man with a poor and socially inferior man, court favoritism for example. Because the older man is usually socially superior and financially more powerful, these two types of male-male desire often were interrelated to each other, resulting in a general subject/object pattern based on age and socioeconomic status. This subject/object pattern came to be genderized and thus intermingled with masculine/feminine role differentiation which very much resembles husband/wife union in that one partner adopts the female role in “her” dress, behavior, mentality and identity.

When addressing the Self/Other theories of Jacques Lacan, Edwards points out the feminine-Other as the object of masculine-Self sexual desires.

This sexualized desire of the feminine by the masculine has decisive influence and power over any interaction between masculine and the feminine—the only conceivable contact with the feminine is through the sexual gratification of masculine desire—which could be utilized to interpret male-male relations as well.

With this Self/Other theory reread the other way around, for the masculine Self to seek sexual pleasure from a male, he needs to “othernize” and feminize him first.

These three kinds of male-male desire in a nutshell often turned out to correspond to each other, resulting in a rather predictable and consistent set of patterns of male-male relations: dominant/submissive, old/young and masculine/feminine demarcation within two men. The former role of these relations constitutes a desiring subject while the latter is viewed and views himself as an object of desire. Such intermingling also points out a common paradigm among these homoerotic forms: they share a same fundamental concept. Confucian understanding of human relationships emphasizes a pairing of dominant and submissive—the ultimate set of one-sided relations like father/ son, emperor/minister, older/younger brother, husband/wife—in turn Chinese

35 Liu, Xing de lishi, 523-524.

36 Hinsch, Cut Sleeve, 11-13. Hinsch points out that the fourth social expression, egalitarian paradigm, is not common in the Chinese tradition, but can be found in Red Chamber Dream. I will discuss this later. For typologies of “trans-generational,” “class-structured,” “trans-genderal” and “egalitarian,” see David Greenberg, The Construction of Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 25.

37 This form of male-male desire was actualized in male-male marriage between qixiong and qidi; the younger, passive partner goes through womanly experiences in Chinese narratives. See Kang, Aspects of Sexuality, 128-148.

38 Louise P. Edwards, Men and Women in Qing China: Gender in the Red Chamber Dream (Honolulu:

University of Hawai‘i Press, 2001), 40.

male-male desire also follows such a principle to organize erotic relationship and experience between men.

These parameters of defining male-male desire were so deep-rooted that a man’s love for another outside of these boundaries was virtually unimaginable for ancient Chinese homoeroticism. Also, this remaining within the scope of orthodox philosophy in the society seems to explain the lack of acrimony and prejudice against the practice of male homoeroticism.

Wang’s translation clearly shows a lack of homophobia in that the translator does not evade overt recognition of the existence of male-male desire. It marks a different attitude and disparate strategy from homosexual subtexts in the original novel. As a preliminary evidence, this explicitness gestures toward Chinese male homoeroticism, which as a way of representation affords (the propensity of) lack of homophobia.

Namely with ancient male homoeroticism as his representational mode, Wang has no trouble verbalizing, recognizing the fact of male-male desire, because there is no presupposition of hostility and phobia. This shows again that right at the very beginning Wang makes it clear that he is utilizing a different way to understand and represent homosexual desire. Following the initial flagrant declaration, the rest of Wang’s depiction of homosexual desire continues to be governed by his chosen representational device, even though at first sight it appears to be faithful rendering.

Modified male behaviors are the foremost element that reveals such working.

2.1.1 Transforming Male Effeminacy

Male behaviors go through modifications in Du Liankui. In The Picture of Dorian Gray the male characters betray feminine behaviors, and male effeminacy itself as explained in Chapter Two, cloak and express male-male desire. The translation seems to faithfully transcribe such subversion of gender behaviors: in the early part of the novel, Dorian’s effeminate demeanor threatens to defy his identity as a man. Not unlike Dorian in the source text, Du Liankui in the translation blushes like a shy little girl, and bursts into crying with unmanly tearful eyes, as the following excerpts show:

杜連魁轉過身來，一臉固執、撒嬌的神氣。他一見到吳騰，便雙頰發紅，又

窘又害臊地站起來向貝席說， 「對不起，我不知道有客人在。」

(Dorian turned around, with a stubborn and playful look. When he saw Wu Teng, he blushed. He stood up, shy and embarrassed, to apologize to Bei Xi, “Pardon

39 Confucian emphasis on dominant/submissive human relationship based on age and social status bears a strikingly similarity to trans-generational and class-structured male-male desire. Meanwhile, comparing emperor/minister to husband/wife relation, as Song points out, entails a politicization of gender discourse which defines a socially inferior man as a woman in front of his male superiors. For example, male ministers often spoke in a feminine voice, when they addressed the emperor. Song Geng,

“Jasper-like Face and Rosy Lips: An Intertextual Reading of the Effeminate Male Body in Pre-Modern Chinese Romances,” Tamkang Review 33, no.1 (Autumn 2002): 95 and his The Fragile Scholar, 15.

40 Wang, Du Liankui, 23.

me. I did not know you have a guest.”)

吳騰走出畫室，見杜連魁正把臉湊近一枝雪白的茉莉花，像喝美酒似的

深深吸著花的香味。

(Wu Teng walked out of the studio, seeing that Du Liankui was sniffing the flagrance from snow-white jasmine, as if he was drinking wine.)

「我嫉妒一切美而不衰的東西，我嫉妒你為我畫的這幅像，因為它能保 持我會失去的美……」他說著，眼眶盛滿了熱淚。他把貝席的手推開，倒在

沙發上，將臉埋在手裏……

(“I am jealous of anything whose beauty never fades. I am jealous of this painting of myself you just completed, because it will forever retain the beauty I will lose . . . ,” he said with his eyes full of tears. He then pushed away Bei Xi’s hands, threw himself on the sofa, and covered his face with hands . . . . )

In these examples listed above, Wang preserves the original novel’s characterizations of Dorian’s feminine shyness, womanly behavior and excessive sentimentality. The translation appears to leave intact this unconventional male behavior which works to cloak homosexual desire.

Yet, in spite of Du Liankui’s well-preserved femininity in the translation, one of his male counterparts who also displays effeminacy behaves otherwise. Wu Teng in Du Liankui ceases demonstrating feminine deportment or effeminate behaviors;

instead, multiple evidences suggest an endeavor to mark his manliness. Let us see a few examples of Lord Henry’s femininity in The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Lord Henry smiled, and, leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from the grass, and examined it. . . . “Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty,”

said Lord Henry, pulling the daisy to bits with his long, nervous fingers . . . plucking another daisy.

[Lord Henry’s] cool, white, flower-like hands, even, had a curious charm.

. . . Lord Henry [dipped] his white fingers into a red bowl filled with rose-water.

41 Ibid., 29-30.

42 Ibid., 60.

43 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 10-12.

44 Ibid., 25.

45 Ibid., 224.

In the first quoted example, Lord Henry repeats the act of plucking and fingering with flowers, while conversing with Basil. In the second passage, his hands are compared to flowers. The last quoted excerpt shows Lord Henry’s use of rose-water to clean and perfume his fingers. Such depictions endow a touch of femininity to Lord Henry. The translator of Du Liankui tones town such effeminate implications, as Wu Teng only momentarily picks a flower to smell the scent once. Feminine-suggestive details about this character, such as “flower-like hands” and “white fingers,” invariably vanish in the translation. Other examples suggest Wang tries to present a much more masculine character. See the following excerpts:

From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum . . . .

一輛馬力強大的「德姆勒」轎車穩靜地由敦化南路駛入仁愛路。銀色的 車身在陽光下閃耀著，令人目眩。車內坐著一位青年紳士吳騰，一面駕駛一 面抽著菸，神態瀟灑。行到一幢高大的住宅前，他把車煞住，輕輕地按了一

聲喇叭，然後將菸蒂放在菸灰盒內。

(A powerful Daimler car quietly drove from Dunhua South Road to Renai Road. The silver car shined dazzlingly in the sun light. Inside the car sat a young gentleman Wu Teng, who drove and smoked at the same time, with a manly dashing aura all around him. When he drove to a magnificent mansion, he brought the car to a halt, gave a light honk, and put out the cigarette stud on the ash tray.)

These two passages show how Wu Teng enters the story with a more macho image.

While Lord Henry in the original novel is rendered sedentary, lying on a divan, Wu Teng is given more action-packed depiction in the translation, driving a masculine car—with great horsepower. Diction exposes such difference too. The original passage is filled with ennui and insipidity, which differentiates greatly from its translated counterpart, whose diction exhibits virility and vigor. Words in the

46 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 5.

47 Wang, Du Liankui, 9 (emphasis mine).

48 This beginning scene of the translation also reminds that in one of Bai Xianyong’s short story

“Liangfu yin 梁父吟” which starts as 一個深冬的午後，臺北近郊天母翁寓的門口，一輛舊式的黑 色官家小轎車停了下來，出門打開，裏面走出來兩個人。前面是位七旬上下的老者，緊跟其後，

是位五十左右的中年人。In portraying this masculine character, Wang seems to bring in intertexts from his contemporary writer, Bai. Bai Xianyong, Taipei ren 臺北人 (Taipei: Chenzhong, 1974), 101.

translation such as 馬力強大,高大 give forth macho implications. The way smoking is portrayed also separates the two. This character in the novel tranquilly enjoys cigarettes in a flower-scented studio, but in Du Liankui, his demeanor emanates manliness and briskness—一面駕駛一面抽著菸，神態瀟灑.

That Du Liankui’s femininity is preserved, but Wu Teng’s is not reveals a determining parameter for male effeminacy. In the original novel, Wilde utilizes male effeminacy as one of his homosexual subtexts. The male effeminacy is itself a hint of homosexual desire and does not depend on one’s relation with the other man. Wang preserves but bases male feminine behaviors on certain criteria. Or more correctly, Wang enacts the feminization of passive men rather than preserve Wilde’s homosexual subtexts. What marks the difference between Du Liankui and Wu Teng is their role in a male erotic relation: the former is a younger, submissive object of desire, while the latter is an older, dominant male suitor. In the intermingling of dominant/submissive, old/young and masculine/feminine structures of male-male desire, the young, submissive male is practically always expected to adopt the feminine role, and Du Liankui’s femininity reflects such Chinese homoerotic presuppositions. This re-representation of male effeminacy further evinces Wang’s dependence on ancient Chinese male-male desire.

Du Liankui’s effeminacy does not remain the same till the end as in the original novel. His changing effeminacy/masculinity further illustrates the working of Chinese male-male desire. Indeed the protagonist fully retains his effeminacy only in the early part of the translation. Evidences show that Du Liankui gradually becomes a more masculine character, and his behavior shifts from persistently overt to conditional femininity. When Du Liankui just enters the world of male-male desire under his male friends’ guidance, he acts effeminate as in the original novel. However, once Du Liankui is positioned within a heterosexual relationship, his effeminacy alters. More manly depictions replace details about his femininity. After the night Sibyl’s flawed acting disappoints Dorian, the latter wakes up to go through letters. Compare the following two excerpts respectively taken from Du Liankui and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

[杜連魁]走進書房，拿起信來逐封地拆看……有一個大信封，裏面是汽 車代理商寄來的目錄。他翻開看到一輛英國的「馬賽拉帝」跑車的圖片，感 到濃厚的興趣。雖然他的「費拉利」非常名貴，他仍想再買一輛更新的跑車。

49

([Du Liankui] walked into his study room and went over letters . . . . There was a big envelop, inside which was a car dealer catalog. He opened it up and

49 Wang, Du Liankui, 103 (emphasis mine).

was greatly intrigued when he spotted a picture of a British Masaladi sports car.

Although his Ferrari was already a luxury, he still wanted to purchase a newer sports car.)

[Dorian] . . . turned over his letters . . . . There was a rather heavy bill, for a chased silver Louis-Quinze toilet set, that he had not yet had the courage to send on to his guardians . . . .

Both the translation and original novel stress the protagonist’s vanity and his desire for luxuries, but in terms of gender behavior they differentiate from each other. Du Liankui desires something that typically associates with men: fast sports cars. His interest in manly cars is substantive enough to solicit a catalog from vehicle companies. That Du Liankui wants to own expensive cars adds some masculinity to his characterization. On the contrary, in the original novel, Dorian covets “a chased silver Louis-Quinze toilet set,” a set of articles used in grooming such as a mirror, brush and comb. The toilet set implies the desire to enhance physical appearance, thus suggesting a feminine decorative nature in Dorian’s interest. The source text emphasizes Dorian’s need to remain the object of desire by maintaining his good looks, but the translation stresses Du Liankui’s masculine hobby.

Other examples also provide evidence for Du Liankui’s vanishing femininity.

One of them is the episode of hiding the portrait. In the original novel, the framed painting is too heavy for Dorian to carry to the schoolroom upstairs, and thus he requests help from the frame-maker Mr. Hubbard and his young assistant. It shows Dorian’s excessive gentlemanly refinement, and more importantly, his inability to complete physical labor suggests femininity. At the same time Mr. Hubbard’s flattering help resembles a chivalrous favor for the female. Wang omits the manual labor provided by Mr. Hubbard, and enables Du Liankui to carry the painting single-handedly, depleting the effeminate connotation and thereby reinforcing his physical manliness.

Although Du Liankui’s masculinity grows evident, he still resumes to feminine behaviors when placed within male-male relations. For example, when Du Liankui is with male friends, the translator tones down but still retains his effeminate crying. The first of the following passages is at the beginning part of the novel when Du Liankui cries for jealousy of his portrait with the presence of his male companionship, before he begins to show masculinity. The next two passages show that after Du Liankui gradually rids his feminine behaviors, he would resume to womanly sentimentality with actual weeping, when placed in a male-male erotic context. Du Liankui cries

50 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 101-2 (my italics).

while he sits with Wu Teng and Bei Xi in a singing performance of Xue Bifang; also Du Liankui’s sentimental weeping is preserved in the presence of Gan Boer/

Campbell, allegedly his former male lover. These examples of Du Liankui’s womanly crying show that in the condition of male partners’ presence his effeminacy is retained despite the trend in the translation that intends to cast virility over the protagonist.

他說著，眼眶盛滿了熱淚。他把貝席的手推開……杜連魁擡起頭來，面色蒼

白，眼淚汪汪地看著[貝席]。

(. . . he said with his eyes full of tears. He then pushed away Bei Xi’s hands . . . .Du Liankui looked up with his pale face and tearful eyes at [Bei Xi].)

「你們請便，我不要人陪。」他的聲音微抖，眼睛濕潤。他取出一塊白 紗手帕暗暗地擦了一下眼。

「那我們先走了。」吳騰溫和地說。貝席望了杜連魁一眼，勉強地隨著

他朋友走出歌廳。

(“You could just leave. I don’t need any company.” His voice was quavering, eyes tearful. He took out a white handkerchief to wipe his tears.

“All right we will leave first,” Wu Teng responed gently. Bei Xi looked at Du Liankui and reluctantly followed his friend walking out of the dance-hall.)

甘柏爾轉過身來，走到窗前，忽然看見杜連魁的眼眶裏充滿了淚水。

(Gan Boer turned around and walked to the window; suddenly he spotted Du Liankui’s eyes full of tears.)

The resumption of Du Liankui’s effeminacy in the context of male-male relations reinforces how Wang’s rendering is based on Chinese male homoeroticism. This return to femininization stands out in particular, as the translation shows a trend of recasting the protagonist as an increasingly masculine, manly character. Such abrupt and overt feminization of a man when situated in a male-male erotic context—especially when this male character is positioned as a submissive object of desire—illustrates that male-male relations in the translated text can not escape from such a norm of viewing the passive partner as the feminine, further bespeaking the working of Chinese male homoeroticism in Wang’s homoerotic representation.

2.1.2 Reinforcing Sinicized Homoerotic Role Pattern

The analysis of male effeminacy has shown the resurfacing of Chinese male-male

51 Wang, Du Liankui, 36.

52 Ibid., 96.

53 Ibid., 172.

desire as a replacement or substitute for Wildean gay expression. The diminishing femininity of Dorian in turn mirrors the dominant/submissive pattern in Du Liankui.

As Dorian’s age and social status and dominance (his fatal influence to young men signifies his later dominant mentor role) increase, he in the original novel could still act effeminate: Wilde sees no incongruity in this split between erotic role and gender behavior. In the translation, this disparity eventually creates unsustainable contradiction: although Du Liankui grows old, experienced and dominant in male-male relations, his unchanged effeminacy continues marking him as the submissive, passive role in Chinese male-male relations. Du Liankui’s femininity has to be curbed in order to solve this unacceptable “fault.” Behind the diminishing femininity of the protagonist is an emphasis on pattern of Wang’s depicting method.

Fundamentally, Wang’s reliance on Chinese male-male desire suggests the very existence of the original homosexual desire is preserved because it closely resembles what Wang bases on for homoerotic representation. In Wilde’s novel, Dorian is desired and admired by his two elder friends, Lord Henry and Basil. The scene where Basil is depicting Dorian’s physical body and Lord Henry is lecturing the lad on paradoxical philosophies—Basil is manipulating Dorian’s perception of his body, while Lord Henry is enslaving Dorian’s mind—epitomizes this male trio’s position in their erotic relations: Dorian, the younger, passive, submissive, dominated; Lord Henry and Basil, the older, active, dominant. Campbell, albeit younger than Dorian, expresses the motivation of his involvement with Dorian, “it was . . . that indefinable attraction that Dorian seemed to be able to exercise whenever he wished.” “To [Campbell], as to many others, Dorian Gray was the type of everything that is wonferdul and fascinating in life.”

In this example, Campbell is shown to be a desiring subject, while Dorian is a desired object.

Had not the original male-male relations looked similar to Chinese homoeroticism, it is hard to say whether it would be retained in the translation. The current fact undoubtedly reinforces Wang’s utilization of Chinese male-male desire, as all preserved male-male relations do not trespass outside of Wang’s preferred representational basis. Namely, with the unequal positions as premise and rationale, the erotic dynamics among the male trio are accepted and thus preserved by the translator.

It helps to observe Wang’s response when male-male desire directly conflicts with his representational method. If adherence to the conventional insistence on passive/active sexual roles dependent on the disparity of social status and age could

54 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 177.

55 The translation accentuates this point further: 何況杜連魁具有誘人的吸引力，能迷住所有和他交 往的人……他也認為杜連魁是男人中最美妙，最迷人的典型 (Besides Dorian possessed charming charisma and can attract everyone that befriended with him . . . [Campbell] also thought that Du Liankui was the most beautiful and charming type of man). Wang, Du Liankui, 166.

enable survival of male-male desire in the translation, deviations from such norms could also lead to denial and thus textual omission. The scene in the original novel where the framemaker and his young assistant help Dorian carry his heavily framed portrait of himself to the schoolroom reveals the framemaker’s chivalrous admiration for Dorian, and of course the young assistant’s covetously gazing at Dorian’s charismatic beauty. These two characters, one of lower social status, the other of both inferior social status and younger age, are not supposed to desire a socially superior or elder man in accordance with Chinese homosexual assumptions, because the older, socially superior man tends to be the desiring subject, instead of the desired. This scene of the two characters lusting after Dorian conflicts with Wang’s representational framework and is completely omitted and replaced by the version wherein Du Liankui simply carries his portrait upstairs alone.

An ultimate epitome of how Wilde’s homosexual subtexts is replaced by Wang’s Chinese homoeroticism is the transition from an exemplar homoerotic intertext of the Western culture to that rooted in the target culture: from Greek male-male love to Chinese novel Red Chamber Dream 紅樓夢. Greek male-male love has served as a potent cultural signifier for homosexuality in Wilde’s novel. In Chapter Two I have identified how this Greek rhetoric is utilized to openly hint at the secret homosexual desire. This Greek trope is largely removed from Wang’s translation, and new allusions to Red Chamber Dream can be observed.

The beginning of Du Liankui seems to transcribe Greek evocations faithfully. For example, Basil and Lord Henry’s deployment of Greek rhetoric is shown verbatim in the target text,「他卻已不知不覺地為我下了一個新的藝術定義。這定義包含了浪 漫主義的熱情和古希臘時代精神的完美」.

(“He has unknowingly set up a new definition of art, which includes the passion of Romanticism and perfection of spirit in ancient Greek era). 「回到古 希 臘 時 代 肉 體 與 精 神 和 諧 的 理 想 生 活 中 」.

(“Returning to ancient Greek ideal life of the union of body and mind). However, when direct Greek allusions are employed to describe characters or emotion metaphorically, they tend to be omitted. Lord Henry first inquires about the subject in Basil’s painting: “[This] young Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus . . . .”

Here good-looking youths from Greek mythology are omitted in Du Liankui.

Also, when Lord Henry contemplates on Dorian, he evokes Greek worship of male beauty: “Grace was his, and the white purity of boyhood, and beauty such as old Greek marbles kept for us.”

56 Wang, Du Liankui, 17 (emphasis mine).

57 Wang, Du Liankui, 27 (emphasis mine).

58 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 7.

59 Narcissus appears later in the translation, seemingly only because this allusion has a clear moral that Wang can utilize. I will address this later in Chapter Four.

60 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 41.

Again, this reference to “Greek marbles” is nowhere to be found in Du Liankui.

Dorian’s self-talk, “Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be strong, and fleet, and joyous” is likewise deleted.

Wu Teng’s interior monologue is deprived of the overt allusion to Plato and this philosopher’s writing on male-male love in the translation,

“Was it not Plato, that artist in thought, who had first analysed it? . . . But in our country it was so strange. . . .”

This leaving out direct Greek allusions reaches the pinnacle, when Bei Xi’s face-to-face confession to Du Liankui omits every keyword related Hellenic evocation: “I had drawn you as Paris in dainty armour, and Adonis with huntsman’s cloak and polished boar spear. . . . You had leant over the still pool of some Greek woodland . . . .”

Wang erases “Paris,” “Adonis,” and “Greek woodland” completely.

The tangible concept and imagery of Greek male-male love, paiderastia, is either toned down or omitted. It is clear that Lord Henry’s pedagogical mindset is tamed in Du Liankui. The symbolic continuing of his influence, the yellow book, is also virtually effaced. Since Lord Henry’s pedagogy echoes the ancient Greek male homoeroticism, pederasty, this modification results in the attenuation of Greek rhetoric. As the term derives from the combination of pais (Greek for “boy”) with erastēs (Greek for “lover”),

it directly denotes the erotic desire of adult men for adolescent boys’ beauty, although in Plato and Xenephone’s opinion, such love is chaste and sexless. Suggestive keywords concerning such worship of the beauty of a boy recur throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray, such as “boyhood,” and “boy,”

which are invariably neutralized as childhood, child, a young person or being young in the translation. See the following examples:

「連魁，你正是青春年華。」

( “Liankui, you are in the prime of youth”)

“You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood”.

他有幼童的純潔。

(He had the purity of children.)

“the white purity of boyhood”

61 Ibid., 114-5.

62 Ibid., 42.

63 Ibid., 123.

64 Wikipedia, s.v. “Pederasty in Ancient Greece,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty_in_ancient _Greece (accessed December 15, 2006).

65 Wang, Du Liankui, 27(my emphasis).

66 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 23 (italics mine).

67 Wang, Du Liankui, 47 (my emphasis).

68 Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 41(my italics).