While many books have been wrten about gay wrg, this is an acunt of male gay lerature, across cultur, languag, and om ancient tim to the prent. Workg wh the wist fns of what nstut gay lerature, clus chapters on the signifint perds of cultural history (the Greek and Roman civilizatns, the Middle Ag, the European Renaissance, the Amerin Renaissance and the 20th century), on major wrers (Marlowe, Shakpeare, Prot, Wil) and on mon them (boyhood, mourng, masturbatn). A work of reference as well as a history of a tradn, vers a large field terms of time (om Homer to Edmund Whe), lerary stat (om cultural ins like Virgil and Dante to popular novelists like Clive Barker and Dashiell Hammett), and lotn (om Mishima's Tokyo and Abu Nuwas' Baghdada to David Leavt's New York). The book also als wh reprentatns of male-male love by wrers who were not themselv homosexual or bisexual men. It also addrs gaps, such as the lack of a substantial lerature of the gay holot and the arth of gay wrg post-lonial Ain poetry. In the breadth of s spe, the book nonts trends Anglo-Amerin gay studi, both by sistg on the ternatnalism of homosexual culture and by reassertg a ntuy of homo-erotic tradns between the ancient world and the prent. Furthermore, by clg to foc only on the most obv thors and texts, Woods succeeds both wing the gay non and remdg of the large variety of gay works wh the mastream. What emerg is a gay male lerature that is far om peripheral to the world's major cultural tradns. This work celebrat the plexy of the lerature that gay men wre, read, and offer to the broast market.
Contents:
- A HISTORY OF GAY LERATURE
- A HISTORY OF GAY LERATURE : THE MALE TRADN
- A HISTORY OF GAY LERATURE: THE MALE TRADN
A HISTORY OF GAY LERATURE
This important book is the first full-sle acunt of male gay lerature across cultur, languag, and centuri. A work of reference as well as the fi... * a history of gay literature the male tradition *
Earlier versns of some chapters appeared, at length or agments, var journals - European Gay Review, Journal of Homosexualy, perversns and PN Review — and the followg books: Gabriele Griff’s Difference View, Mark Lilly’s Lbian and Gay Wrg, Robert K.
Brought together one place, s nstuent texts would look somethg like, but be even broar than, the ntents list of Stephen Coote’s Pengu Book of Homosexual Verse, begng the ancient world and progrsg wh great valy — nsirg how wily stigmatised male—male love has been at var pots history — through the Middle Ag and Renaissance, beyond the morn world to the era of the postmorn; om perasty to sodomy, om homosexualy to gayns, om pre-gay queerns to post-gay queerns, and beyond. His verse clus tenr and vibrant love poems addrsed to Clodia Metelli (‘Lbia’), a married woman; enthiastic ephalamia on matrimony; sultg epigrams accg a man lled Gelli of all manner of sexual transgrsns, cludg ct and ck suckg; what we might now (accurately) ll ‘homophobic’ tiras agast men who loved men stead of boys, or agast men who took the ‘wrong’ part oral or anal terurse wh boys; and so on. Perhaps this is not the work of a ‘gay poet’ the ntemporary sense; yet offers the gay rear a broad range of tert, both terms of intifiably shared emotns and as a documentary glimpse of‘our’ sexual history.
A HISTORY OF GAY LERATURE : THE MALE TRADN
A History Of Gay Lerature: The Male Tradn [PDF] [4qcgfudt6q20]. This important book is the first full-sle acunt of male gay lerature across cultur, languag, and centuri. A ... * a history of gay literature the male tradition *
This may jt be a cince; or may monstrate the fluence of classil tn the late neteenth century on men who were begng to fe themselv as belongg to a distct human type, the homosexual; or may jt be an stance of retrospective wish-fulfilment (ll cultural appropriatn) on the part of a gay rear like me. Ined, if one were seekg to erect a memorial at the birthplace of gay lerature, would make sense to se , not on some Assyrian om which the story of Gilgamh and Enkidu first emerged, nor on the banks of the Nile where scriptns speak of the relatnship of Seth and Hos; but one of Oxford ’s relatively unloved Victorian buildgs.
In Homogenic Love (1894), later rporated to The Intermediate Sex, one of Edward Carpenter’s first purpos is to name the ‘homogenic’ lovers om the ancient world, the classil and oriental thors whose work ‘homogenic’ passag n be found, and then a number of key wrers om the morn world: Michelangelo, Shakpeare, Wckelmann, Tennyson and Whman. 12 Notwhstandg such displays of dutiful squeamishns, the fact is that a strongly homo-erotic atmosphere grew up certa parts of the universy at this time, not unfluenced by the fact that until 1884 llege fellows Oxford were not permted to marry. Comparg the two events, Richard Jenkyns remarks: ‘There were no sensible ltle paperbacks then; the Platonic dialogu ntaed almost the only telligent discsn of the subject [of homosexualy] to be found anywhere, and when verts first lighted upon them, the sense of liberatn was overwhelmg’.
Homosexualy is sence a nstct of the (late) neteenth and twentieth centuri; as an sence is jt as distctively a characteristic of mornism as are atonalism mic, Cubism patg, or terr monologue the novel. 16) The existence of homosexualy, not as a circumstantial matter of passg sexual whim, but as a shared ndn and inty, rais the trigug possibily of homosexual culture, or at least of a mory subculture wh sexual inty as s base. At the very least, by sympathetic intifitn wh cultural texts which appeared to be affirmative, homosexual people saw a way to shore up their self-rpect the face of nstant moral attack, and they found materials wh which to jtify themselv not only to each other but also to those who found their very existence, let alone their behavur, unjtifiable.
A HISTORY OF GAY LERATURE: THE MALE TRADN
* a history of gay literature the male tradition *
Moreover, once homosexual people veloped a need for somethg intifiable as their own culture, they looked not only to the future - by producg ‘a lerature of their own’ (to adopt John Stuart Mill’s phrase about women wrers) — but also to the past.
In the late neteenth century and throughout the twentieth, homosexual people have been volved the retrospective creatn of a culture of our own — which is to say, the appropriatn of disparate cultural products and producers, and the elaboratn of a fictn: that of a ntuo ‘male love’ tradn scendg to Victorian London (or Paris, Berl, Vienna or New York) om Periclean Athens and beyond. While may be te that the history of male gay lerature is, large measure, a history of acts of censorship, is often, also, a rerd of self-affirmg male el wh accs to advanced tn and the means of cultural productn.
Matthisen created the ‘Amerin Renaissance’ (Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Walt Whman) — both crics workg om clearly fable subject posns wh bat on sexualy, Leavis the homophobic tellectual tough-guy opposed to nancy atheticism, and Matthisen himself secretly homosexual — so too had earlier figur like John Addgton Symonds and Edward Carpenter started pilg lists orr to create the sense of‘a able past’. Durg this appropriative procs, many different typ of men, boys and cultural texts were, often whout much attentn to historil nuance, cisively relabelled: the Spartan perast, the Japane Samurai warrr, the pre-Columban native Amerin berdache, the sodome burnt at the stake, even the mere sentimental iend — for a long while, ed until very recently, even if they uld not all fortably be lled ‘homosexuals’, they uld be -opted even so to ‘homosexual culture’ as hero s evolvg but monolhic tradn.
All about A History of Gay Lerature: The Male Tradn by Gregory Woods. LibraryThg is a talogg and social workg se for booklovers * a history of gay literature the male tradition *
This tenncy to ignore historil and cultural boundari was rerced by anti-homosexual disurs which associate morn queers wh ancient Sodom or (via Gibbon) wh the mythil nstuency of generat who precipated the cle and fall of the Greek and Roman empir.
Furthermore, sce the late neteenth century they have actually provid homosexual rears wh a broad kd of gay cultural tn which would not have been on offer even the English ‘public’ schools and Oxbridge lleg whose curricula were so heavily based on the GraeRoman classics. Intertgly, the first chapter clus Osr Wil’s urtroom plea on behalf of‘the love that dare not speak s name’, a cisn by wljich the edors clearly tend to lk their ancient material not only wh morn stanc of‘iendship’ but also wh crimalised homosexualy.