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Robert K. Mart, GAY STUDIES AND THE VICTORIAN PERIOD, Newsletter of the Victorian Studi Associatn of Wtern Canada, Vol. 13, No. 1 (SPRING 1987), pp. 69-76 * queer in victorian literature *
Registerg both the pa and shame of a homophobic past and the world-makg energi of polil, cril and athetic activism, the “queer” we know today is ever-more pacly protean, such that has spired anxiety over the term's expansive applibily, and efforts to slow down if not reverse a dilutn of s historilly specific cril power.
The Oxford English Dictnary trac the first e of “queer” as “homosexual” to an 1894 letter which the Marqus of Queensberry—whose famo libel of Osr Wil led to the artist's precipo downfall—ed the phrase “Snob Queer” to scribe then Prime Mister, Lord Rosebery, whom he spected was sordidly implited his elst son's recent and spic ath. Homophobia rms this slur, jt as preference for tradnal femy animat Punch’s mockery of “queer rob. Solidifitn to homosexual slur happened slowly, and the multivalent slippers that creased the term's populary up to and cludg this late-Victorian cultural moment held on at least through the late 1920s.
When fively tied to homosexualy, s populary plummeted—not to rise aga until reclaimed as a polil and theoretil term now ed to scribe an ever-wing arena “cludg dt, dna, certa kds of worms and maybe also time self … ”Footnote 14 This very pacns, however, threatens to dra “queer” of s specificy. Homosexualy.