Melville’s novel and Brten’s opera are poignant remrs of the bety and relevance of gay history.
Contents:
BILLY BUDD: A GAY IN?
Yterday at Salon, Caleb Cra, thor of the highly praised novel Necsary Errors, talked a b about beg a gay novelist and the effects non-heterosexual subject matter has on the chanc for a novel’s publitn. In rponse to a qutn… * billy budd gay subtext *
You get the imprsn of feelgs unnonted, of characters and suatns expertly, even betifully, glossed over rather than is worth rememberg that “Billy Budd” is a product of the gay closet.
It is an opera posed by a closeted gay man, to a libretto wrten by Forster, a closeted gay man, based on a novella by a man who scholars often suggt was closeted and that revolv around the attractns of men to other men.
BRTEN'S 'BILLY BUDD' HAS THE GAY CLOSET AS ITS SUBTEXT [PDF]
Brten’s ‘Billy Budd’ Has the Gay Closet as Its Subtext - 7/26/14, 10:49 AM July 3, 2012 Secret Dir the Heart of ‘Billy Budd’ By * billy budd gay subtext *
”The Met’s stagg, which the sailor looms behd the bent-over novice durg this passage, highlights the way that the floggg n easily be read as a metaphor for gay sex. Yterday at Salon, Caleb Cra, thor of the highly praised novel Necsary Errors, talked a b about beg a gay novelist and the effects non-heterosexual subject matter has on the chanc for a novel’s publitn. In rponse to a qutn about needg a “gay non” of lerature, Cra said, “The straight non is very gay… I don’t read somebody bee they’re a gay wrer.
” It’s te that seems silly and rctive to sist on settg gay wrers apart om their straight hort (although dog so n help raise awarens that they do, fact, exist), pecially sce there’s enough queer subtext popular lerature already. Rowlg waed nveniently until the publitn of her most recent book to reveal, perhaps too enthiastilly, that Alb Dumbledore was gay. Hton’s classic about rough-and-tumble teenage lquents 1960s Tulsa, and while the book is equently banned nsirg all the vlence, bad language, and unrage smokg and drkg, the homoerotic unrton of those boys’ bromanc have fely evad plenty of rears.