Gay Lerature: Poetry and Prose | Oxford Rearch Encyclopedia of Lerature

Contents:

• GAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSEGAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSE
• THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”
• GAY (HOMOSEXUAL) AND GAY (HAPPY)
• WOULD BE A MISTAKE TO E THE WORD "GAY" BS OR AMIL WRGS? [DUPLITE]
• GAY
• GAY (ADJ.)
• A GAY MAN - QUOT AND SCRIPTNS TO SPIRE CREATIVE WRG

GAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSEGAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSE

Advot of queer theory claim that both heterosexualy and homosexualy are socially nstcted and that there is nothg “natural” about any sexual inty.

THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”

The same nclns, however, n be ed to margalize gay wrgs by makg them seem merely one of many lser disurs the plexi of human sexual exprsn. 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.

Another divisive issue has volved the qutn of whether lbians and gay men should be tegorized as part of the same social and polil realy.

GAY (HOMOSEXUAL) AND GAY (HAPPY)

” 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.

WOULD BE A MISTAKE TO E THE WORD "GAY" BS OR AMIL WRGS? [DUPLITE]

In this say, “homosexual” and “gay” are ed terchangeably to refer to both men and women who are sexually drawn to members of their own sex. 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. 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.

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.

GAY

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.

GAY (ADJ.)

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.

A GAY MAN - QUOT AND SCRIPTNS TO SPIRE CREATIVE WRG

In the rare stanc where homosexuals appear movi of that time, they tend to be psychopaths, vampir, or olr people preyg on the nocent young. 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.