Aidan Wasley, The "Gay Apprentice": Ashbery, Aun, and a Portra of the Artist as a Young Cric, Contemporary Lerature, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Wter, 2002), pp. 667-708
Contents:
Edward Heath was told poet should be led out over ‘utterly revoltg’ vers about gay sex and Aun’s cisn to be an Amerin cizen * was auden gay *
The sexual act scribed by the poem microspic physlogil tail is "Platonic" only the popular sense that is perfect of s 's sce bee mon nsens that, y, the openly gay wrer did e his skills to whip up an erotic medatn on Afternoon Delight.
He never wrote about his homosexualy except for a few poems which he did not publicly acknowledge, but he was not closeted his life outsi the public sphere. The nuptials were nothg more than a formaly, sce Aun was gay and unted as his real marriage his long relatnship wh the Amerin poet Chter Kallman.
* was auden gay *
For a time he believed that gratifyg his homosexual sir would enable him to outgrow them, but after nearly 10 months Berl, durg which he traveled some Germany and returned twice briefly to England, his new eedom had produced moments of happs but no permanent transformatn. He missed the Berl life, the Cosy Corner (a gay bar he and Isherwood equented), and probably a boy lled Willi wh whom he had apparently begun a new affair.
The first full-length nsiratn of Aun as a homosexual poet, this volume shows that Aun's reer was tied to a procs of gay self-terrogatn unpa... | CUP * was auden gay *
He had rejected promiscuy, yet guilt about his homosexualy ntually drove him search of new lovers. He also observed the journal that the torment of his homosexualy was, for him, one of s attractns; he associated mutual love wh spair. Still, after he had spent ls than a year altogether Berl, Aun's feelg for the dialect and the sexy slang of the gay bars is imprsive; Mr.