Roman Prose and Poetry (Chapter 4) - The Cambridge History of Gay and Lbian Lerature

Contents:

• GAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSEGAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSE
• GAY PROSE BOOKS
• SEPTEMBER 30: POETRY & PROSE WH ROSS GAY AND CURTIS BER

GAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSEGAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSE

Bisexualy has been viewed wh gay studi as distct om homosexualy, and bisexuals have found themselv exclud om gay events and anizatns although a great many “gay ins” om Socrat to Shakpeare to Osr Wil were married and fathered children.

” Further, even the word “homosexual” is ght wh problems: is often believed, rrectly, that origated as a medi-scientific term to classify homosexualy as a disease. The word “homosexual” was, fact, created the late neteenth century as an English equivalent for German Homosexualtät, which first appeared prt 1869 a pamphlet argug agast the Pssian legal that prcribed punishments for men who engaged same-sex relatns.

Neher word is ed a historilly specific sense, so that Walt Whman (1819–1892) is lled “homosexual, ” although all likelihood he never heard the term.

GAY PROSE BOOKS

FouultIn the troductn to the first volume of his Histoire la sexualé (1976; English translatn, History of Sexualy, 1978), Michel Fouult argu that homosexualy is an ventn of the late neteenth century. Before then, he claims, there were homosexual acts and sir, but the neteenth century renceived the as aspects and exprsns of a certa kd of person.

The neteenth-century homosexual beme a personage, a past, a se history, and a childhood, addn to beg a type of life, a life form, and a morphology, wh an discreet anatomy and possibly a myster physlogy. Adoptg his posn, crics have argued, for example, that Walt Whman and Osr Wil (1854–1900) were not, strictly speakg, homosexuals, at least the sense that medil and psychologil tablishments unrstood that “ndn” or “speci” the twentieth century.

SEPTEMBER 30: POETRY & PROSE WH ROSS GAY AND CURTIS BER

Siarly, crics have sisted that is anachronistic to speak of “Greek homosexualy” Plato's Athens; the “speci” uld not exist, they say, whout s “disurse. Whether the dividual is born homosexual or his or her homosexual sir are socially nstcted, is clear that medi-scientific theori of homosexualy as a curable disease were an ventn of the late neteenth and early twentieth centuri. Homosexualy plays by Tennsee Williams is differently unrstood, for example, than is poems by Walt Whman, and the difference is largely rooted medi-scientific nsiratns rather than ethil or polil on.

In Williams, homosexualy is not primarily a moral problem, nor n be rced to certa kds of acts; pervas an dividual's character, often wh tragic nsequenc. Psychoanalysis, the populary of which crted the Uned Stat the 1940s and 1950s, claimed that homosexuals were abnormal but that, wh the guidance of psychiatrists, they uld be “cured.

If the play were wrten now, one might expect Brick to abandon Maggie, but as wrten by Williams, who was homosexual, the oppose happens, and the play ends “happily” when Maggie announc that she is pregnant.

Audienc the 1950s might have been unfortable wh homosexualy, and Williams, whatever his private life, allowed them to leave the theater wh their prejudic tact.

Repeatedly, Williams portrays homosexual life as threatened by vlence, eher om society or om some ner psychologil flaw; his homosexuals are saturated wh guilt and self-loathg. One rells thgs as var as Ernt Hemgway's dismissive attu toward homosexuals his books, the “pansi” played for lghs Hollywood films of the 1920s and 1930s, and Hart Crane's joyo announcement—havg, he believed, fallen love wh a woman—that he was not homosexual after all. Although Amerin lerature the first two-thirds of the twentieth century almost always impli the medi-scientific fn whenever homosexualy enters the text, Whman had his own succsors, om Bliss Carman (1861–1929) and Richard Hovey (1864–1900) to Marsn Hartley (1877–1943) to Langston Hugh (1902–1967) and Gerr Lansg (b.

Hallock vtigat one pecially tense relatnship his bgraphy of Fz-Greene Halleck (1790–1867), The Amerin Byron (2000), whom he views as a homosexual drawn to the younger poet Joseph Rodman Drake (1795–1820). Graham was not beg homophobic the morn sense; was his belief, and largely the belief of the age, that overdulgence sexual behavrs of any kd led to bily and early ath. Graham's importance to popular beliefs about sexualy the neteenth century should warn agast general or facile observatns about siari between attus toward homosexualy our own day and Thore's.

Melville's works are as inic gay nons as Whman's, and there is even a Gay Herman Melville Rear (2002) as well as a scholarly dtry voted to queer-theory readgs of their works.

Sedgwick se Jam as a homosexual who rarely alt openly wh male timacy but whose work foc on “homosocial” (her term) suatns that occur when, for example, two men stggle for the attentn of a woman; emotns are directed by each man more strongly toward his petor than toward their shared object of sire. Billy Budd is a very different matter, for, Sedgwick wr, “every impulse of every person this book that uld at all be lled sire uld be lled homosexual sire, beg directed by men exclively toward men” (p. They announce the arrival of the homosexual as a morn enty, radilly other than whatever was Dickson, Halleck, or Whman varly imaged themselv to be.