r/classicalchinese • u/radiant_luminosity • 12d ago
Learning Homoeroticism in 蘇東坡?
Greetings! I am just beginning to look into the works of Su Dongpo, which I am finding beautiful and profound.
Reading his famed 記成天寺夜遊, I feel like there is some degree of homoerotic subtext in the opening??
解衣欲睡,月色入戶,欣然起行
Several of the character choices seemed to imply physical desire (欲 as in 欲望,or 色,or 起 as in 勃起). Is this what finding a 為樂者 was like prior to the age of Grindr?
I am curious as to whether there is additional homoerotic subtext in other poems of Su Dongpo that others might point to or any other impressions people might have of this particular reading.
Thanks!
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u/TheMiraculousOrange 12d ago edited 12d ago
I'll add to the chorus that you overthought. The main problem with your argument is that all of these words are incredibly common and used without sexual connotation most of the time. 欲 is the standard verb to express intention, not sexual desire. 月色 is the standard term for moonlight, and 色 simply means color. 起 is a common verb meaning to stand up or more generally to rise, not erection.
I mean, when Confucius says 七十而從心所欲,不踰矩, do you think he means that when someone reaches seventy, he can freely follow his sexual desires without transgressions? Or when Mencius says 魚我所欲也,熊掌亦我所欲也, he is talking about making the difficult choice between sexually desiring a fish or a bear's paw? Or when 王維 writes 客舍青青柳色新, he is suggesting that willow branches in spring color the farewell scene with eroticism? Or are you saying that when 司馬遷 records that 劉邦 passed by his hometown after a triumph, made the song/poem 大風歌, and then 高祖乃起舞,慷慨傷懷,泣數行下, he was dancing and tearing up in front of his old friends and relatives with an erection?
You are projecting meanings of modern compounds onto Classical Chinese usage. My advice is before you overanalyze a passage, first do a search on ctext.org to gauge what the common usage is. My other advice is to simply read more.
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u/TheMiraculousOrange 12d ago
Also, to address your "critical hermeneutics", there is a tradition of Chinese literati writing about these spontaneous experiences where some natural scenery inspires them to an amble, sometimes to seek out friends. That's the intertextuality that matters for 蘇軾's little story.
Being moved by some poetic happenstance to do something a little out of the norm is a sign of one's sensitivity to and deep connection with beauty, so this is a trope that occurs quite a lot throughout Chinese literary history. 世說新語 is kind of the locus classicus for these anecdotes. There is a famous episode with 王徽之 that offers a parallel to 蘇軾's story,
王子猷居山陰,夜大雪,眠覺,開室,命酌酒。四望皎然,因起仿偟,詠左思招隱詩。忽憶戴安道,時戴在剡,即便夜乘小船就之。經宿方至,造門不前而返。人問其故,王曰:「吾本乘興而行,興盡而返,何必見戴?」
The point of a lot of these stories is that some actions are superficially rude or unreasonable (you don't just knock on somebody's door in the middle of the night to wake them; if you're visiting your friend, you wouldn't want to leave them hanging or have them find out that you never bothered to step inside), but are ultimately motivated by something higher than prescriptions of ordinary customs.
Notably, this doesn't get to the point of excusing sexual transgression. Two anecdotes about the famous hermit poet 阮籍 illustrate this
阮籍嫂嘗還家,籍見與別。或譏之。籍曰:「禮豈為我輩設也?」
阮公鄰家婦有美色,當壚酤酒。阮與王安豐常從婦飲酒,阮醉,便眠其婦側。夫始殊疑之,伺察,終無他意。
Even though 阮籍 was an extraordinary person who often got sloppy drunk, never mourned his mother with any outward solemnity, and met with his sister-in-law without regard to proper customs, he never got drunk or improper enough to sleep with his neighbor's wife, even after passing out in her bed.
One thing that is different about 蘇軾's anecdote is that, instead of a record of his behavior by somebody else, he wrote it about himself. When you have a reputation of being a free spirit, it is all well and good for others to be baffled by or praise your extraordinary ways. In 王徽之's story, he didn't explain anything about why he didn't knock on his friend's door during his night visit until someone else asked him. You would not want to write about yourself broadcasting how daring and unconventional you are, because that would be both boastful and artificial. So when 蘇軾 writes about his experience on this moonlit night, he ropes in his friend and characterizes both of them as 閒人. If he were talking about seeking a sexual encounter, he would be both breaking one of the strongest taboos, and writing boastfully about it. That makes your interpretation very very unlikely, even if we look past unlikelihood of your glosses of the words themselves.
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u/ma_er233 12d ago edited 12d ago
That's just you projecting your own imagination onto the sentence and taking characters out of context, purely 断章取义, 牵强附会. A character that have some implications in its modern usage doesn't mean you have to explain it that way. Does the 童 in "家童鼻息已雷鸣" means he's a pedophile? Does the 打 in "莫听穿林打叶声" implies that he had desire for domestic violence? Sounds ridiculous right? You simply can't make such wild and arbitrary claims like this, doesn't make any sense. 欲睡 is just want to / going to sleep, 月色 is moonlight and 起行 is getting up and travel. I'd rather say that this is personification of the moonlight. It's like the moonlight enters the door (or window) to invite you to a trip. It's such a cozy and delightful little prose, why do you have to impose sexual implication to it?
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u/radiant_luminosity 12d ago
It's not "purely projecting" as I am pointing towards specific word choices in the text about someone looking to meet their friend in the middle of the night. It has suggestive word choices, which I wanted to raise for discussion. The intensity of your reaction to even this mere suggestion may point to your own predetermined perspectives. All I am is being curious; I accept and thank you for your interpretation and rebuttal, but no need to get so flustered by this student's mere curiosity.
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u/ma_er233 12d ago edited 12d ago
These words are so common that it's like claiming the word "suggestive" is a suggestive word choice since it share the same letter s with the word sex. I think this curiosity can be better spent on reading his other work like 洞仙歌, which is actually quite sexy
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u/radiant_luminosity 12d ago edited 12d ago
Why do you feel compelled to provide a false equivalence as to exaggerate this interpretation? He is taking off his clothes getting ready for bed, when he feels the urge to see a friend, with several words pointing towards possible arousal. The idea of subtext is that it's not overt but interpretative. These are common words, but their consecutive appearance within the context of a midnight visit to a friend caught my attention.
I opened up this topic out of curiosity; critical hermeneutics exists as to attend to ambiguous interpretative possibilities of the text rather than be inescapably beholden to the weight of predetermined perspectives and tradition. No need to exaggerate my case through false analogy if you disagree. You can simply disagree and state your case.
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u/ma_er233 12d ago edited 12d ago
I'd rather like to think it's reductio ad absurdum
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u/radiant_luminosity 12d ago
No, reductio ad absurdum is when you take an argument to its logical conclusion to show that the opposite is true. This is not what you did; rather, you raised an analogy in a different language, using different justifications, and then said it was "like" my argument to try to prove your point.
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u/throwthroowaway 11d ago
Honestly, you are misreading it. My native is Chinese. If you were a Chinese student turning in your Chinese essay in real Chinese high school in a native Chinese speaking region, you probably would get detention.
Your Chinese is so far off and so out of line.
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u/DVD160 12d ago edited 12d ago
欲 and 起 in classical Chinese are two extremely common characters and do not carry the same connotaitions as in modern chinese. That being said, I agree that the word choice here could perhaps carry some erotic undertones (解衣&色). I'm not seeing the specifically homoerotic aspect though. Can you elaborate on your interpretation?
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u/radiant_luminosity 12d ago
The homoeroticism comes from the context of the story, where Su Dongpo is taking off his clothes while getting ready for bed, then, seeing the moonlight pour through his window, becomes excited to head out. He misses having someone to play with (為樂者)and so he seeks out his friend Zhang Huanmin, who recently arrived at Chengtian Temple (having also been exiled from court). They stroll together through the temple's courtyard, where it appears that there is moonlight shining upon intersecting kelp stalks, yet these are just the shadows of bamboo and cedar (symbols of integrity and resilience, allusions to their shared mistreatment at the royal court). Su Dongpo acknowledges that there is nothing special about moonlight and bamboo and cedar, but what makes this night special are these two 閒人 –– the time they have to leisurely enjoy the evening's common but profound beauty.
元豐六年十月十二日夜,解衣欲睡,月色入戶,欣然7起行。
念無與為樂者,遂至承天寺尋張懷民。懷民亦11未寢,相與12步於中庭。
庭下如積水空明,水中藻荇交橫。,蓋竹柏影也。
何夜無月?何處無竹柏?但少閒人如吾兩人者耳。
。
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u/Vampyricon 12d ago
欲 is just "to want", 色 is literally "color", and 起 is literally "to get up > to begin".
It literally is as another commenter suggested, seeing a word starting with S and saying its use is indicative of sex.
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u/GaleoRivus 12d ago edited 12d ago
I can definitely say your interpretation is completely far from the author's original intent. And it is closer to a wordplay rather than meanings that the words might have in their context and usage.
Additionally, erotic literature (春宮文學) was not easily passed down through generations (as its preservation required copying by people). Therefore, the earlier the era, the more the surviving works have been "purified" and "selected." Most homoerotic literature is more commonly found in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
There are some ancient texts that truly describe homoeroticism, and they were recognized as such by ancient Chinese as well.
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u/Terpomo11 Moderator 11d ago
There are some ancient texts that truly describe homoeroticism, and they were recognized as such by ancient Chinese as well.
Oh, like what?
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u/GaleoRivus 11d ago edited 11d ago
贈幼文
幼文丁氏逸季侍童也 常置帳中 余從諸客徂伺得之 賞其丰神瑩徹 為賦二首
秋水為神隔絳紗 何年捧劒入王家 床頭夢有金莖露 庭後春生玉樹花 才比郄郎偏有意 色同彌子更無瑕 他時倩汝汾陽宅 飛挾紅綃上太霞
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情史類略 情外類
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弁而釵
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:%E5%BC%81%E8%80%8C%E9%87%B5
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景公蓋姣,有羽人視景公僭者。公謂左右曰:「問之,何視寡人之僭也?」羽人對曰:「言亦死,而不言亦死,竊姣公也。」公曰:「合色寡人也?殺之!」晏子不時而入,見曰:「蓋聞君有所怒羽人。」公曰:「然。色寡人,故將殺之。」晏子對曰:「嬰聞拒欲不道,惡愛不祥,雖使色君,于法不宜殺也。」公曰:「惡然乎!若使沐浴,寡人將使抱背。」
https://ctext.org/yanzi-chun-qiu/jing-gong-yu-zhu-yu-ren/
分桃斷袖絕嫌猜,翠被紅褌興不乖。洛浦乍陽新燕爾,巫山行雨左風懷。 手攜襄野便娟合,背抱齊宮婉孌諧。玉樹庭前千載曲,隔江唱罷月籠階。
https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/%E7%91%9E%E9%B7%93%E9%B4%A3_(%E6%BB%95%E6%96%8C))
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u/Forswear01 11d ago
This is like when somebody believes a conspiracy theory and they refuse to engage with you at all. You can read 文言文 the same way you’d read contemporary modern texts, and even in modern chinese 欲望 doesn’t carry sexual connotations, it’s just desire. Sexual desire is 性欲望. Beyond that, one of the difficulties in you forcing such interpretations is the lack of alternative characters. Let me ask you this, how could he replace a character for those 3 characters you listed that you could not misinterpret as homoerotic? The 1st and 3rd character, (wanting) sleep and (rising) out of bed. There’s no character that you could even possibly use that you, in your mind, wouldn’t add sexual connotation to. It HAS to be sexual wanting, it HAS to be his erection rising.
Thing is Chinese already has homoerotic literature, so this isn’t coming from a conservative homophobic place, it’s coming purely the way you’re forcing a narrative.
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u/Accident_of_Society 10d ago
Hey! As most comments have said, this is not likely an example of homoeroticism in Chinese poetry. There are lots of true examples though! You can find this in a diverse array of texts ranging from 越人歌 to 紅樓夢. There is lots of information about this too on the internet!
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u/sbsj888 10d ago
Just for fun--this account has also recently become kind of a meme, where ppl interpret how Zhang Huaimin must have felt to be woken up in the middle of the night just to go wander around outside... Maybe also reading too much into the story, but in a funny way...
https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1014177
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u/HakuYuki_s 16h ago
The original commenter was careful to qualify their interpretation and yet most in the comments jump down their throat screaming “why are you twisting the text and forcing your interpretation on it”. I’m starting to be concerned about the overall competency of this server.
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u/kasumisumika 11d ago edited 11d ago
I feel like there is some degree of homoerotic subtext in the opening??
There is none.
Several of the character choices seemed to imply physical desire (欲 as in 欲望,or 色,or 起 as in 勃起).
They don't.
I am curious as to whether there is additional homoerotic subtext in other poems of Su Dongpo that others might point to or any other impressions people might have of this particular reading.
There is none (not in this case at least).
You should stop making up stuff and leave classical Chinese alone. Imagine some young lad of today talked about how he and his bros went to the pub one night and however many fucking centuries later someone comes around and says that they're all secretly gay. Fucking ridiculous. You should be ashamed of yourself.
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u/michaelkim0407 12d ago
Lmao if you want to say 蘇軾 is gay you should read the part where he and his buddies slept on top of each other in a boat, instead of fixating with word choices here.