Abstract
Literally meaning “fragrant and bedazzling,” the Chinese word xiangyan refers to the sensual beauty of women and, by extension, eroticism. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, Shanghai's book market saw an explosion of publications with xiangyan in their titles. Zhou Shoujuan's (1895–1968) Xiangyan conghua (Miscellaneous Talks on the Fragrant and Bedazzling, 1914) was well situated in this literary trend. What really sets Zhou's collection off from other similarly titled publications, however, is its global orientation. It makes a perfect case for illustrating how Chinese writers like Zhou took pains to embrace the world of Romanticism beyond China through traditional Chinese sensual and sentimental lyricism. Through an examination of Zhou's selection and discussion of the poems and stories, as well as the paratextual materials included in the collection, this article illustrates how classical Chinese xiangyan poetry was evolving in the global context at the turn of the twentieth century. Although Zhou was not a poet engaging in the genre itself, through critical intervention, he connected Chinese xiangyan poetry to the global discourse of love and romance and rendered the notion of xiangyan a universal cross-cultural concept.
