Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

Bengali has an ancient history and rich literature and is one of the most vibrant contemporary literatures of India. The city has many film studios and films on the ancient epic *Ramayana have been made there. Calcutta houses the National Library of India and has been a publishing centre for three hundred years (editions limited to Indian distribution may be published in India simultaneously with overseas editions of the same work). The Calcutta Writer's Workshop published *Vikram Seth's first book of poems which included a gay poem.

The same word is used for "he" and "she" in Bengali which make love poems difficult to interpret as to whether homosexual or heterosexual in intent. *Allegorical gay interpretations of the early— apparently heterosexual—poet *Jayadeva are possible. The *Vaisnava movement relating to Indian *mysticism produced mystical homoerotic works from ca. 1450 (see *Caitanya, *Candidas). Homosexual references have been found in the work of the nineteenth century poet *Isvar Chandragupta. The work of the greatest poet of modern Bengali, as well as the first Asian writer to win the *Nobel Prize, *Rabindranath Tagore, warrants reading for homoeroticism. *Zia Haidar from Bangladesh has written a homoerotic poem about Tagore.

There have been many translations from other Indic languages into Bengali (e.g., The *Mahabharata, *Bhagavad Gita, *Ramayana, *Kabir and *Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra); interaction of Bengali with these languages has been close over a long period of time and the outstanding Bangladeshi poet *Nazrul Islam translated *Omar Khayyam. Since a significant number of people cannot read, there are rich oral traditions of reciting and storytelling: see *Hijras, *Baul songs. There is also much *pornography in Bengali which is a very sophisticated culture.

The poet *Guillem de Bergueda (active 1175) wrote the first known gay poem of note and the first major Catalan writer is the poet *Raymond Llull who wrote philosophical works on love which warrant gay perusal. Another early poet, *Ausias March, is linked with homosexuality in a single document. Major gay poets such as *Whitman and *Shakespeare have been translated. A number of contemporary poets appear in the anthology *Poemes Gaies (1978). On the side of criticism, *Ana M. Gil has made a survey of homosexuality and Catalan literature. Barcelona houses major libraries and is the publishing center. See Arthur Terry, Catalan Literature, 1972.

There are seven main spoken languages in the Chinese group, including Mandarin—or Putonghua, "common everyday speech", as it has been called since 1949—in the north, Shangaiese, spoken in Shanghai, the second largest city of China, situated in the north east, and Cantonese in the south; these languages are, however, fairly close. Poetry that can be interpreted as being homosexual, dates from the *Shih Ching, the Classic of Poetry, from before 479 B.C., where *gender ambiguity is present. This was first recognized by the critic *Zhao Yi in the eighteenth century. *Ch'u Yuan (before 340 B.C.) is the first known poet to refer directly to homosexuality, in his poem Li sao (Remembering Sorrow), a poem which shows the influence of *shamanism.

*Buddhism—which came from India and which never condemned homosexuality—was a major religion in China and is at present undergoing a revival. *Zen Buddhism, which originated in China, is of particular interest as is the *Gozan literature of Japan written in Chinese. No anthologies of homosexual poems as such exist so far but the anthology *Yu-T'ai Hsin-Yung (ca. 545) contained homosexual poems; *Tuan-hsiu-pien (ca. 1650), compiled in the early *Ch'ing period, was the first collection of texts referring to homosexuality in Chinese history. In 1927 a quasi anthology of poems written about a gay *actor, *Hsu Tzu-yun, was published. Homosexuality was long associated with the *theater and poems were written about popular actors. *Singing boys are also very ancient.

*Emperors and all *scholars wrote poetry and all gay emperors, such as the Jianwen Emperor (503–551), need to be considered as well as all gay Chinese males who could write. Calligraphy and *design of books reached great heights of aesthetic perfection in China. *Illustration, which was frequently done by the poet, since calligraphy and Chinese painting were intimately connected, is also relevant. *Allegorical interpretations of poems are common; in such a situation *critics and commentators assume new importance and Chinese has an ancient and brilliant exegetical tradition, one of the oldest in the world.

In the *Han period (206 B.C.–220) several Emperors were gay or *bisexual and in this period *esthetes first emerge. The absolute power of the emperor probably meant that no one would dare contradict him even as a child, thus allowing him free play in his sexuality. The *Orchid Terrace School of poets (ca. 502) was a group of aesthetes who seem gay as do a later group of the same name around *Na-lan Hsing-te (born 1655). The *Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove (active ca. 250), included a pair of homosexual friends, *Ruan Ji and *Xi Kang; the literati friendships in this group set the pattern for all later poets. At this time *Zhang Hanbin (265–420) wrote a fine love poem inspired by an actor. *Hsieh Ling-yun (385–443) seems homosexual and *Fei Chang (active 550) wrote a gay love poem.

*Coded or indirect language is a common feature of Chinese poetry especially from the T'ang: *peach sharing, for instance, and *cut sleeves were common euphemisms for homosexuality; but a large repertoire of indirect references to the erotic existed. The *T'ang period, as already noted, has been long regarded as a major period of Chinese poetry by later writers (3,000 Tang poets are known). T'ang poets strongly influenced poets not only in China but also poets in Korea, Japan and Vietnam, as models of what a poet should be.
The T'ang period. The intense homoeroticism of the four major T'ang poets— *Li Po, *Tu Fu, *Wang Wei and *Meng Hao-jan—was remarked on by Robert Hans *van Gulik, who wrote the first modern survey of Chinese sexuality in a European language. The earliest *manuscript of a homosexual poem, a poem by *Po Hsing-chien, only rediscovered in the twentieth century at *Dunhuang in north-west China (in a huge Buddhist library not yet adequately assessed), dates from this period. The corpus of poems of the T'ang Buddhist monk poet *Han-Shan (pseud.) is also relevant.

In the Sung period (960–1279), also a major period of Chinese culture, there has been little close investigation of homosexuality in the huge corpus of surviving poetry though *Su Shih warrants perusal. Epicureanism was strong in China in all periods and outstanding later poets include the bisexual *epicurean *Yuan Mei (born 1716). *Songs date from the Shih Ching since Chinese poetry was commonly sung or written to song tunes from this work onwards; *singing boys abounded in *pleasure quarters in all major cities (such as *Beijing, the capital from 1644, Nanjing, Shanghai and Canton). Poems written by males from a female point of view (of which there are many, e.g., by *Wang Mo-jo, born 1887) need to be considered. There is also a long tradition of transvestism in boy singers.

China has huge *libraries especially the Peking Library (over 15 million volumes; though western holdings are only a small part) and the Shanghai Library, dating from 1849 and where the main library has over 8 million volumes. Many cities have libraries of more than 2 million volumes. These figures may be inflated since Chinese books consist of chuan—or fascicles—and one book may contain several fascicles which are counted individually as books. These libraries have not been thoroughly assessed for homosexuality, let alone gay poetry; manuscript collections are especially important.

Recent surveys of homosexuality include the *Hong Kong published two volume work published in 1964 by a committee of scholars who called themselves *Wei hsing shih kuan ch'i chu (pseud.) and a literary and historical survey by *Sam Shasha (pseud.) first published in 1984, both in Chinese. A brilliant literary survey published in 1990 by *Brett Hinsch exists in English, subsuming much of the Chinese material in a concise and readable form; *Louis Crompton is known to have worked on a history of homosexuality in China in English. *Karsch-Haack wrote the first survey of Chinese homosexuality in a western language in German in 1906. In China *Kuo Mo-jo has commented on homosexuality in *Du Fu and *Li Bai; recently, *Allen Ginsberg has been translated into Chinese. Beijing now has several gay bars. *Gay liberation is referred to in a recent Chinese edition of Encyclopædia Britannica.