Reforming the Relations of the Sexes: Zhou Zuoren’s Translation and Imitation of William Blake’s Poems about Love and Sexuality

Abstract This article probes into the motivation behind Zhou Zuoren’s (1885-1967) translation and imitation of the English poet William Blake’s (1757-1827) poems about love and sexuality in the May Fourth era. It situates Zhou’s approach to Blake’s poems in the contemporary context of the New Culture Movement and traces the Japanese and English sources that informed Zhou’s reading of Blake. By analyzing Zhou’s selective use of his foreign sources and his calculated translation of Blake’s poems, it argues that Zhou’s appropriation of Blake was driven by his agenda for unfettered sexuality, free love, and women’s emancipation, i.e. the reform of the relations of the sexes in China. This study goes on to investigate Zhou’s reference to and imitation of Blake in the controversy over a young poet’s writing of love poems in 1922. It further contends that Zhou’s concern for sex relations was part and parcel of his vision of modern Chinese poetry, which resonates with his earlier and far-reaching proposal for a literature of humanity that profited from Blake’s theory of the unity of body and soul.