GAY STUDIES AND THE VICTORIAN PERIOD on JSTOR

Contents:

• SEX SYMBOL: HOW ANTO BEME A GAY CO WORD THE VICTORIAN ERA
• BEFORE STRAIGHT AND GAY

SEX SYMBOL: HOW ANTO BEME A GAY CO WORD THE VICTORIAN ERA

The 19th century ccially wnsed the genis of homosexual inti, subcultur, and polics forms that have endured to the prent day.

The word homosexual, wh s attendant notn of sexual inty, was ed and dissemated the last quarter of the 19th century. ” Jt as homosexualy mataed an ambiguo (and even paradoxil) posn wh Victorian culture—beg simultaneoly central and limal—so, too, is s place wh Victorian lerature and s specifilly Victorian textual endgs. Cultural and legal prohibns mean that reprentatns of explicly homosexual sir and timaci are rare wh popular, mastream fictn and poetry.

BEFORE STRAIGHT AND GAY

Lerary, historil, and classil studi, maly wrten by men, reprent another important mo of Victorian homosexual self-exprsn. Furthermore, creasgly dissemated and sometim sympathetic discsns of homosexualy wh legal, medil, and scientific circl ntributed to nascent dividual and llective self-fn and provid a language wh which to argue agast reprsive legislatn and mor.

While earlier cril work celebrated closeted thors and intified and recuperated homosexual subjects and acts hidn wh texts, more recent scholarly work emphasiz the historil ntgency of “homosexualy” as a stable inty tegory and stead emphasiz a more labile queerns that rists normativy.

Given the legal and soccultural prohibns agast homosexualy the 19th century, overt primary sourc are relatively srce. The Victorian era is important to be looked at so that we know the cultural ntext which Osr Wil ed to live homosexualy went agast the notn of masculy, was talked about rarely and threatened the fay stcture as well as was believed to go agast beg fundamentally Brish.