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
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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.
”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.
BRTEN'S 'BILLY BUDD' HAS THE GAY CLOSET AS ITS SUBTEXT [PDF]
* billy budd gay subtext *
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.