本文將「羅曼史書寫」，視為動態的過程，包含愛慾、書寫、與歷史三個成分。此文以日治時期小說中的愛慾書寫為研究對象，並將寫作作者分為三類：第一類是日本在台作家西川滿的作品；第二類是台灣新文學作家翁鬧等人；第三類是大眾通俗文學作家徐坤泉與吳漫沙。這三類作家處理愛慾題材各有特色，分別代表現代性肇發初始，私領域的愛慾關係與公領域之問的劃分方式有所不同。在第一類作家作品中，並未直接以愛情為題材，而是在呈現對台灣的歷史想像時，用帝國殖民者的凝視呈現情色化與陰性化的台灣歷史。筆者挪用Emy Kaplan「帝國的羅曼史書寫」(romancing the empire)來詮釋此現象。第二類作家包括翁鬧、巫永福、龍瑛宗、張文環、王和雄，寫出愛慾的憧憬與幻滅，在書寫中標示純私人的寫作與閱讀空問，與賴和所提倡的新文學的社會改革路線大為不同。第三類的大眾通俗書寫，以其『大眾』之姿，呈現出雄辯與演說化的書寫策略，在內容上夾帶大量夾敘夾議的社會革新意識，彷彿預設一群群眾的集結、聚精會神的聆聽辯士演講。第一類作家對台灣歷史懷抱高度興趣，與當代後殖民「以小搏大」的書寫策略形式上類似，而其觀視位置正好相反，以男性位置來凝視女性的形象，以女性置換殖民地：第二類作家標示台灣新文學的美學傾向以及男性作家的悲劇色彩的性覺醒；第三類作家站立於公眾演說的位置，對著想像的閱讀大眾提出新社會應有的道德觀與價值觀。在30~40年代間，三類作家處於同樣的戰爭氛圍裡，不可迥避地以迂迥方式呼應或批判日本軍國主義；本文因此也將探討愛情與慾望的書寫置換成身為皇民的慾望。筆者並提出三類作家的羅曼史書寫所牽涉的歷史：第一類作家是帝國凝視下的鬼魅歷史，已成過去又不斷復返；第二類作家經由感官慾望書寫了自我覺醒的歷程；第三類作家書寫了傳統與現代對比的當代風俗史。第一類作家站在男性角度，保持優雅距離俯視著充滿異國情調的支那女子，最後又將愛慾對象與書寫主體一併取消，遁入虛無。第二類作家以痛苦之姿慾望著遙不可及的女性，在苦戀中萌芽著頹廢與鮮明的自我意識。第三類作家以現代說書人的方式講述男女眾生相，訴說著善惡分明的各種愛情教材，提醒閱讀大眾引以為戒。

This paper looks at 'romancing' as an active and constructive process that involves erotic arousing, narrative and history. I attempt to study the narrative of love and desire in the fiction of the Japanese colonial period. I classify the authors and their works into three categories. The first refers to the Japanese writer Nishikawa Mitsura, who had lived in Taiwan during the colonial period; and the second consists of Taiwanese writers of serious literature such as Wong Nau and others; and the third consists of writers of popular novels, mainly Xu Kun-quan and Wu Man-sha. In the works by Nishikawa Mitsura which deal with the description of Taiwan history and its people, love and desire are not the foci of the fictional representation. However, the writers stand on an imperial position to gaze, with erotic nuances, at the history and people of Taiwan, presenting to the reader a feminine, romantic and erotic imaginary instead of realhistory and people. I therefore borrow the concept of 'romancing the empire' by Emy Kaplan to analyze this phenomenon. With regard to the second category, Taiwanese serious writers, when writing about love and desire, deviate from the norm of colonial literature as cultural awakening and resistance to Japanese rule. Instead, they explore personal sensations and indulge themselves in pensive self-awakening and self-exploration. This tendency marks the appearance of the split between the public sphere and the private sphere, which is one of the major characteristics of modernity. Finally, writers of popular novels focus on the issue of free love and marriage as a token of liberation from traditional restriction and to get into the exciting modern new world. The novels are full of long passages about social reforms. The authors use novels as a way to advocate consciousness of enlightenment and social reform, writing in a manner of hyperboles and oratory as if there were a group of readers congregating to listen to a public speech on the new moral values of free love and free marriage. As these literary works were written in the 1930s and 1940s, I will also explore the ways in which narratives of love and desire were transformed into the desire to be a Japanese imperial subject. By writing about love and longing for something in the receding horizon, all three groups of authors engage themselves with the distinction of the public and the private spheres in their own ways. This paper thus argues for the importance of narrative of love both as the mark of the emergence of modernity and as the point of departure to explore the role and function of literature in early colonial modernity.