British Queer Dramas and Modern Japanese Culture

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The purposes of this project are : (1) to establish new definitions of homosexual dramas in general, (2)to reconsider British homosexual dramas through these renewed definitions and theoretical insights, and (3) to investigate cultural interactions between British Homosexual Dramas and Japanese Modern Culture whose Meiji Period witnessed enthusiastic transportation of European, especially British, cultural products, among which British modern dramas were, as is now assumed, hugely influential to making of the modern Japanese theatrical culture. The starting point is the Bard. Shakespearean dramas, the recent studies have revealed, are totally and undoubtedly queer. His queerness apparently influenced the later dramatists Bardolatory contributed to the making of Shakespeare as a national poet and in this process his queerness were transmitted in politically unconscious ways. To explore this kind of cultural transmission needs drastic renewal of definitions of homosexual and queer dramas and recent queer theories and gender studies are quite helpful to reconsideration of the hitherto accepted definitions as well as to creation of that insightful concept which, I hope, will shed some sharp light to the queer quality of Shakespeare and his successors. Japanese Modern Dramas are cultural products of the enthusiastic imports of Shakespeare, 18th and 19th Dramas. Cultural differences functioned unexpectedly productive ways queer elements implicit in the original British Dramas were foregrounded in Japanese translated versions in contrast, heterosexism as well as compulsory heterosexuality in British Modern Dramas became weakened and less conspicuous in their Japanese versions. These unexpected results seem to have exercised great influence to Japanese literary cultures in modern times.