In my review of Pl Buhle and Harvey Pekar’s “The Beats”, I referred to Robert Dunn’s say “The Homosexual Society” that appeared Dwight Macdonald’s journal Polics 1944. This semal gay liberatn document certaly serv to be available on the Inter and so I have snned om Dunn’s “A Selected Prose”…
Contents:
- WATCH: MICHAEL CLARKE DUNN'S GAY CONNECTNS
- A VOICE FOR THE PARTY: ERIC DUNN ON BEG THE FIRST OPENLY GAY CONSERVATIVE MP
- ON THIS GAY DAY: POET ROBERT DUNN WAS BORN CALIFORNIA
WATCH: MICHAEL CLARKE DUNN'S GAY CONNECTNS
This paper llects the mentary surroundg Robert Dunn’s 1944 say “The Homosexual Society” to velop an acunt of Dunn’s relatnship to New Narrative, a group of younger, mostly-gay poets. The first half of the say foc directly on Dunn’s posn of the say, his emendatns of 1959, his experienc wh the edor John Crowe Ransom, and Dunn’s portns of terviews wh gay poets throughout the 1970s that brought out new tails about “The Homosexual Society” say. The send half of the say nsirs how New Narrative wrers related to Dunn and his say, cludg a shared tert gossip. Drawg on the totaly of this archive, the say suggts two new them that n be drawn om “The Homosexual Society” for ntemporary rears: the ()mensurabily of race and sexualy and the rejectn of homo-fascism. * duncan homosexual in society *
A mornist through and through, Dunn mak a public announcement of his homosexualy, and at the same time out agast mp, the cult of sexualy and s ntempt for ‘jam, ’ along wh the Beat ntempt for the square, the Jewish ntempt for the goy – favor of a mon humany.
A VOICE FOR THE PARTY: ERIC DUNN ON BEG THE FIRST OPENLY GAY CONSERVATIVE MP
* duncan homosexual in society *
This will clu the open discsn of homosexualy lerature, and Dunn nam Herman Melville and Marcel Prot as exampl of thors who wrote about (their own) homosexualy but ultimately transcend homosexualy as a theme.
ON THIS GAY DAY: POET ROBERT DUNN WAS BORN CALIFORNIA
4 Includg the founrs of New Narrative, later admirers of Dunn were keen to embrace Dunn’s urage wrg the say, even as they ignored or merely set asi the challenge his msage put to the polil efforts of Gay Liberatn and later articulatns of sexual polics. 6Today, pendg on their accs to different versns of the say and related mentary by Dunn, ntemporary rears have the luxury of gag om “The Homosexual Society” a number of overlappg and potentially even ntradictg msag about homosexualy, society, and what might mean to be “” .
The metaphor of the closet do not f Dunn’s purpos here, as the poet tentnally fi revealg himself to be a homosexual favor of admtg his feelgs and his experienc, molg for his rears the third posn he poed, somewhere outsi of a bary of “out” or “, ” “homosexual” or “straight.