Lerature out of the Closet: Brgg Gay and Lbian Texts and Subtexts out High School English on JSTOR

Contents:

• 20 CLASSIC WORKS OF GAY LERATURE
• CLASSIC GAY MALE LERATURE
• 21 CLASSIC WORKS OF GAY LERATURE
• LGBTQIA: GAY FICTN & LERATURE

20 CLASSIC WORKS OF GAY LERATURE

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 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.

Rowlg waed nveniently until the publitn of her most recent book to reveal, perhaps too enthiastilly, that Alb Dumbledore was gay. Hton’s classic about rough-and-tumble teenage lquents 1960s Tulsa, and while the book is equently banned nsirg all the vlence, bad language, and unrage smokg and drkg, the homoerotic unrton of those boys’ bromanc have fely evad plenty of rears. Strangers on a Tra by Patricia HighsmhPatricia Highsmh was no stranger to homosexual overton — her antihero Tom Ripley was, sentially, a gay monster, and she even dipped her toe to the lbian bildungsroman genre — but her thriller Strangers on a Tra was a b more subtle s pictn of one man’s murro obssn wh another.

Danvers, who is so obssed wh her former employer, the tular Rebec Wter, that one n’t help but read a b to the way she gently strok her perfectly kept nightcloth across her Club by Chuck PalahniAs this say pots out, ’s hard to claim that Fight Club has a gay subtext, as there is nothg particularly subtle about s homoeroticism. The symbolism of Tyler splicg scen om hardre porn is a pretty good metaphor for Chuck Palahni trickg the macho lerary dience to lovg a pretty queer of Grass by Walt WhmanNoted homosexual Walt Whman clud several turns of phrase his llectn of poetry voted to the love of the male form, and l like, “O how shall I warble myself for the ad one there I loved?

CLASSIC GAY MALE LERATURE

” om “When Lilacs Last the Dooryard Bloom’d” — his o to the Civil War’s ad, particularly Abraham Lln — is jt the tip of the fey Budd by Herman Melville Let’s jt take a look at this passage om Melville’s novella, via Dana Sliva’s paper “Explorg Homoeroticism Herman Melville’s Novella Billy Budd, Sailor, ” which explas all:Claggart, the master-at-arms, official rattan hand, happened to be passg along…Steppg over [the soup], he was proceedg on his way whout ment, sce the matter was nothg to take notice of unr the circumstanc, when he happened to observe who was that had done the spillg…Psg, he was about to ejaculate somethg hasty at the sailor, but checked himself, and potg down to the streamg soup, playfully tapped him om behd wh his rattan, sayg a low mil voice peculiar to him at tim, ‘Handsomely done, my lad! LawrenceSure, the women of the tle — the unfortunately named Ursula and Gudn Brangwen — are ed love wh the typilly broodg Englishmen, but one nnot possibly ny the homosexual overton the nu wrtlg which Rupert Birk and Gerald Crich gleefully take Great Gatsby by F. "There was an urgency, a novelty to the whole thg, " said the gay thor, who won the Man Booker Prize for The Le of Bety.

SJ Sdu, thor of Marriage of a Thoand Li, lled , "One of the first Anglophone works to challenge the trope of the sad/suicidal gays who die at the end, this book gave a blueprt of what queer fictn uld look like. Forster (A Passage to India, A Room Wh a View, Howards End) wrote the benchmark gay novel Mrice cir 1913, was published posthumoly a lh tale of manners, posn, and sire, the tular character meets and falls for his classmate Clive while at Oxford.

21 CLASSIC WORKS OF GAY LERATURE

The pair embark on a two-year affair until Clive leav Mrice to marry a woman and live out his proscribed life as part of the land gentry, leavg Mrice shambl and seekg to cure his Forster's novel do not end gay tragedy. Alan Hollghurst famoly qutned the future of the gay novel this year, which is strikg sce he's often viewed as helpg make queer books accsible to a mastream dience.

LGBTQIA: GAY FICTN & LERATURE

Hollghurst set his pen on the sexual hypocrisi of homophobic policians, many of whom had their own discretns behd closed doors. The queer g-of-age novel about Jim Willard and his search for love was the first novel om a rpected wrer (Gore Vidal) to speak directly and sympathetilly about the gay experience an era when homosexualy was still very much taboo.

The book is remembered today for this legacy as well as for var them -- Hollywood's glass closet, beg gay the ary, the poisono effects of homophobia on society -- that still reverberate today. The only novel by the great Osr Wil may not be overtly gay, but there's plenty of gay subtext there for the reful rear - about as much gay subtext as a popular thor uld get away wh 's iends Basil Hallward and Lord Henry Wotton exprs tense admiratn for his bety, and passag that show Basil's feelgs for Dorian as more clearly homoerotic were excised by an edor, acrdg to Nicholas Frankel, who eded an edn prentg Wil's origal text the text as origally published has referenc to Dorian's rptn of not only young women but young men: "There was that wretched boy the Guards who mted suici.

Cy of Night, a 1963 novel by John Rechy, is a semal piece of fictn that follows the life of a gay htler New York Cy, Los Angel, New Orleans, and San Francis.