David Clark
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199558155
- eISBN:
- 9780191721342
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558155.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature, Anglo-Saxon / Old English Literature
This book argues for the importance of synoptically examining the whole range of same‐sex relations in the Anglo‐Saxon period, revisiting well‐known texts and issues (as well as material often ...
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This book argues for the importance of synoptically examining the whole range of same‐sex relations in the Anglo‐Saxon period, revisiting well‐known texts and issues (as well as material often considered marginal) from a radically different perspective. The introductory chapters first lay out the premises underlying the book and its critical context, then emphasise the need to avoid modern cultural assumptions about both male‐female and male‐male relationships, and underline the paramount place of homosocial bonds in Old English literature. Part II then investigates the construction of and attitudes to same‐sex acts and identities in ethnographic, penitential, and theological texts, ranging widely throughout the Old English corpus and drawing on Classical, Medieval Latin, and Old Norse material. Part III expands the focus to homosocial bonds in Old English literature in order to explore the range of associations for same‐sex intimacy and their representation in literary texts such as Genesis A, Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon, The Dream of the Rood, The Phoenix, and Ælfric's Lives of Saints. During the course of the book's argument, it uncovers several under‐researched issues and suggests fruitful approaches for their investigation. It concludes that, in omitting to ask certain questions of Anglo‐Saxon material, in being too willing to accept the status quo indicated by the extant corpus, in uncritically importing invisible (because normative) heterosexist assumptions in our reading, we risk misrepresenting the diversity and complexity that a more nuanced approach to issues of gender and sexuality suggests may be more genuinely characteristic of the period.Less
This book argues for the importance of synoptically examining the whole range of same‐sex relations in the Anglo‐Saxon period, revisiting well‐known texts and issues (as well as material often considered marginal) from a radically different perspective. The introductory chapters first lay out the premises underlying the book and its critical context, then emphasise the need to avoid modern cultural assumptions about both male‐female and male‐male relationships, and underline the paramount place of homosocial bonds in Old English literature. Part II then investigates the construction of and attitudes to same‐sex acts and identities in ethnographic, penitential, and theological texts, ranging widely throughout the Old English corpus and drawing on Classical, Medieval Latin, and Old Norse material. Part III expands the focus to homosocial bonds in Old English literature in order to explore the range of associations for same‐sex intimacy and their representation in literary texts such as Genesis A, Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon, The Dream of the Rood, The Phoenix, and Ælfric's Lives of Saints. During the course of the book's argument, it uncovers several under‐researched issues and suggests fruitful approaches for their investigation. It concludes that, in omitting to ask certain questions of Anglo‐Saxon material, in being too willing to accept the status quo indicated by the extant corpus, in uncritically importing invisible (because normative) heterosexist assumptions in our reading, we risk misrepresenting the diversity and complexity that a more nuanced approach to issues of gender and sexuality suggests may be more genuinely characteristic of the period.
David Clark
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199558155
- eISBN:
- 9780191721342
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558155.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature, Anglo-Saxon / Old English Literature
The ninth chapter moves into Old English prose literature to study the interaction of different constructions of homosocial desire in Ælfric's Lives of Saints, where same‐sex relations are depicted ...
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The ninth chapter moves into Old English prose literature to study the interaction of different constructions of homosocial desire in Ælfric's Lives of Saints, where same‐sex relations are depicted as simultaneously natural and unnatural. Intense male loyalty inextricably fused with Christian faith is held up as an ideal in the Life of the Forty Soldiers, in contrast to male‐female sexuality which is repudiated. However, there are signs of authorial anxiety over the homosocial intimacy described in the martial saints' lives. A conversion model based on homosocial community in other Lives coexists with the threat of same‐sex desire, and this dynamic is compared to ways in which the eponymous transvestite protagonist of Æfric's Life of Eugenia reflects anxieties about gender and same‐sex intimacy in monastic contexts.Less
The ninth chapter moves into Old English prose literature to study the interaction of different constructions of homosocial desire in Ælfric's Lives of Saints, where same‐sex relations are depicted as simultaneously natural and unnatural. Intense male loyalty inextricably fused with Christian faith is held up as an ideal in the Life of the Forty Soldiers, in contrast to male‐female sexuality which is repudiated. However, there are signs of authorial anxiety over the homosocial intimacy described in the martial saints' lives. A conversion model based on homosocial community in other Lives coexists with the threat of same‐sex desire, and this dynamic is compared to ways in which the eponymous transvestite protagonist of Æfric's Life of Eugenia reflects anxieties about gender and same‐sex intimacy in monastic contexts.
David Clark
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199558155
- eISBN:
- 9780191721342
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558155.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature, Anglo-Saxon / Old English Literature
The first chapter analyses three poems most often considered to be about heterosexual romantic love as a means of destabilizing at the outset assumptions often made about Old English texts. It argues ...
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The first chapter analyses three poems most often considered to be about heterosexual romantic love as a means of destabilizing at the outset assumptions often made about Old English texts. It argues that such interpretations often rest upon heterosexist and anachronistic preconceptions which are invisible because they lay implicit claim to be normative. It also reviews the arguments which claim male narrators for Wulf and Eadwacer and The Wife's Lament and the reception of these critical manoeuvres. It concludes with a call to examine more rigorously our cultural assumptions about the Anglo‐Saxon period and its literature, and by acknowledging the primacy of homosocial desire.Less
The first chapter analyses three poems most often considered to be about heterosexual romantic love as a means of destabilizing at the outset assumptions often made about Old English texts. It argues that such interpretations often rest upon heterosexist and anachronistic preconceptions which are invisible because they lay implicit claim to be normative. It also reviews the arguments which claim male narrators for Wulf and Eadwacer and The Wife's Lament and the reception of these critical manoeuvres. It concludes with a call to examine more rigorously our cultural assumptions about the Anglo‐Saxon period and its literature, and by acknowledging the primacy of homosocial desire.
David Clark
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199558155
- eISBN:
- 9780191721342
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558155.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature, Anglo-Saxon / Old English Literature
The sixth chapter investigates how homosocial bonds are constructed in the Old English poetic version of the biblical book of Genesis, starting with the treatment of the Sodomites in Genesis A and ...
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The sixth chapter investigates how homosocial bonds are constructed in the Old English poetic version of the biblical book of Genesis, starting with the treatment of the Sodomites in Genesis A and the contrast between their relations and the ‘correct’ and praiseworthy homosocial bonds between Abraham and his kinsmen and friends. It argues that, unlike other prose treatments, in Genesis A same‐sex acts are not considered to be the primary sin of Sodom, but that they form part of a network of various forms of unsanctioned sexual desire, presented by the poet as destructive in order to promote by contrast the procreative coupling of Abraham and Sarah, the progenitors of the chosen people.Less
The sixth chapter investigates how homosocial bonds are constructed in the Old English poetic version of the biblical book of Genesis, starting with the treatment of the Sodomites in Genesis A and the contrast between their relations and the ‘correct’ and praiseworthy homosocial bonds between Abraham and his kinsmen and friends. It argues that, unlike other prose treatments, in Genesis A same‐sex acts are not considered to be the primary sin of Sodom, but that they form part of a network of various forms of unsanctioned sexual desire, presented by the poet as destructive in order to promote by contrast the procreative coupling of Abraham and Sarah, the progenitors of the chosen people.
David Clark
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199558155
- eISBN:
- 9780191721342
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558155.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature, Anglo-Saxon / Old English Literature
Chapter 7 focuses on the construction of homosocial bonds, looking first at heroic male relations in Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon. It argues that the Beowulf‐poet here as in other matters remains ...
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Chapter 7 focuses on the construction of homosocial bonds, looking first at heroic male relations in Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon. It argues that the Beowulf‐poet here as in other matters remains ambivalent, but that the Maldon‐poet opposes what he sees as correct homosocial bonds to a cowardice stigmatized by associations with effeminacy and sexual passivity. It then contrasts the radical revaluation of masculinity and heroic passivity in The Dream of the Rood, paving the way for the later chapters' further analyses of vernacular religious texts which re‐envision gender roles and homosocial bonds.Less
Chapter 7 focuses on the construction of homosocial bonds, looking first at heroic male relations in Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon. It argues that the Beowulf‐poet here as in other matters remains ambivalent, but that the Maldon‐poet opposes what he sees as correct homosocial bonds to a cowardice stigmatized by associations with effeminacy and sexual passivity. It then contrasts the radical revaluation of masculinity and heroic passivity in The Dream of the Rood, paving the way for the later chapters' further analyses of vernacular religious texts which re‐envision gender roles and homosocial bonds.
Heather R. White
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469624112
- eISBN:
- 9781469624792
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469624112.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter examines three overlapping endeavors authored and organized by homosexuals during the postwar years. Each of these efforts shows how the project of articulating a homosexual identity ...
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This chapter examines three overlapping endeavors authored and organized by homosexuals during the postwar years. Each of these efforts shows how the project of articulating a homosexual identity contended with twinned narratives of condemnation and self-actualization found in the Protestant therapeutic orthodoxy. The “homophile movement,” the most well-known of the three efforts, is the main focus of this chapter. The authors of this type of literature took up the dominant therapeutic paradigm to turn that quest for authenticity into a project of homosexual self-acceptance. They contended with the intertwined doctrines of sin and sickness from within it, as its homosexual subjects. This collective carved out a social space that recognized and valorized same-sex attraction. The chapter also investigates how Protestantism provided practices of homosocial kinship and a set of narratives and beliefs that gave language to a homosexual identity.Less
This chapter examines three overlapping endeavors authored and organized by homosexuals during the postwar years. Each of these efforts shows how the project of articulating a homosexual identity contended with twinned narratives of condemnation and self-actualization found in the Protestant therapeutic orthodoxy. The “homophile movement,” the most well-known of the three efforts, is the main focus of this chapter. The authors of this type of literature took up the dominant therapeutic paradigm to turn that quest for authenticity into a project of homosexual self-acceptance. They contended with the intertwined doctrines of sin and sickness from within it, as its homosexual subjects. This collective carved out a social space that recognized and valorized same-sex attraction. The chapter also investigates how Protestantism provided practices of homosocial kinship and a set of narratives and beliefs that gave language to a homosexual identity.
Danielle Fuentes Morgan
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780252043390
- eISBN:
- 9780252052279
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252043390.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter examines Jordan Peele’s Get Out, Derrick Bell’s Faces at the Bottom of the Well, and traditional depictions of horror to highlight the limits of comedic satire to articulate Black ...
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This chapter examines Jordan Peele’s Get Out, Derrick Bell’s Faces at the Bottom of the Well, and traditional depictions of horror to highlight the limits of comedic satire to articulate Black experiences in the twenty-first century. These works blur the line between satire and horror to express the trauma—the horror—of Black life in the white gaze. Similarly, Issa Rae’s HBO series, Insecure, offers a way to think about Black centrality outside of the white gaze. These texts and performances reveal the necessity of Black friendships and communities in establishing the space to autonomously express Black identity.Less
This chapter examines Jordan Peele’s Get Out, Derrick Bell’s Faces at the Bottom of the Well, and traditional depictions of horror to highlight the limits of comedic satire to articulate Black experiences in the twenty-first century. These works blur the line between satire and horror to express the trauma—the horror—of Black life in the white gaze. Similarly, Issa Rae’s HBO series, Insecure, offers a way to think about Black centrality outside of the white gaze. These texts and performances reveal the necessity of Black friendships and communities in establishing the space to autonomously express Black identity.
Sergio A. Lussana
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813166940
- eISBN:
- 9780813167848
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813166940.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This is the first book-length study of enslaved men and masculinity in the antebellum South. It examines the close relationships shared among enslaved men and argues that the lives of these men were ...
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This is the first book-length study of enslaved men and masculinity in the antebellum South. It examines the close relationships shared among enslaved men and argues that the lives of these men were intertwined. Across the antebellum South, enslaved men created an all-male subculture, engaging in homosocial recreational pursuits such as drinking, gambling, wrestling, and hunting. Through these activities, they constructed markers of status, identity, and masculinity and forged lasting friendships. The book argues that homosocial company was integral to the gendered identity and self-esteem of enslaved men. The emotional landscape they created together offered them a vital mutual support network through which to resist the horrors of slavery. Through each other, enslaved men created a secret world that defied and subverted the authority of the slaveholder. The author argues that enslaved men, together, refused to be emasculated.Less
This is the first book-length study of enslaved men and masculinity in the antebellum South. It examines the close relationships shared among enslaved men and argues that the lives of these men were intertwined. Across the antebellum South, enslaved men created an all-male subculture, engaging in homosocial recreational pursuits such as drinking, gambling, wrestling, and hunting. Through these activities, they constructed markers of status, identity, and masculinity and forged lasting friendships. The book argues that homosocial company was integral to the gendered identity and self-esteem of enslaved men. The emotional landscape they created together offered them a vital mutual support network through which to resist the horrors of slavery. Through each other, enslaved men created a secret world that defied and subverted the authority of the slaveholder. The author argues that enslaved men, together, refused to be emasculated.
Machiko Ishikawa
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781501751943
- eISBN:
- 9781501751967
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501751943.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This chapter investigates the voice of the sister, Satoko, who has an incestuous relationship with Akiyuki. There is considerable discussion in both Japanese and English scholarship of Akiyuki's ...
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This chapter investigates the voice of the sister, Satoko, who has an incestuous relationship with Akiyuki. There is considerable discussion in both Japanese and English scholarship of Akiyuki's breaking the incest taboo with his half-sister as a substitute for patricide. Although a number of these commentaries reference Satoko, little attention has been given to her vulnerability or her response to the incest. Thus, this chapter profiles Satoko's subjectivity by considering her as a sister whose sexuality is exploited as a strategic weapon in Akiyuki's bitter conflict with his father. This conflict is shown as the son's attempt to bond with the father. Drawing on a study of male “homosociality,” this chapter discusses Satoko's subalternity as an object of dispute in her father and half-brother's homosocial bond. A key element of the chapter is the analysis of Nakagami's interpretation and, in turn, a reinterpretation of “Kyōdai shinjū” (“A brother–sister double suicide”), a folk song featured in the Akiyuki trilogy that implies the playing out of a mythic family tragedy in Kasuga.Less
This chapter investigates the voice of the sister, Satoko, who has an incestuous relationship with Akiyuki. There is considerable discussion in both Japanese and English scholarship of Akiyuki's breaking the incest taboo with his half-sister as a substitute for patricide. Although a number of these commentaries reference Satoko, little attention has been given to her vulnerability or her response to the incest. Thus, this chapter profiles Satoko's subjectivity by considering her as a sister whose sexuality is exploited as a strategic weapon in Akiyuki's bitter conflict with his father. This conflict is shown as the son's attempt to bond with the father. Drawing on a study of male “homosociality,” this chapter discusses Satoko's subalternity as an object of dispute in her father and half-brother's homosocial bond. A key element of the chapter is the analysis of Nakagami's interpretation and, in turn, a reinterpretation of “Kyōdai shinjū” (“A brother–sister double suicide”), a folk song featured in the Akiyuki trilogy that implies the playing out of a mythic family tragedy in Kasuga.
Katsuhiko Suganuma and Siu-lun Wong
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9789888083701
- eISBN:
- 9789882209053
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888083701.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
Chapter 2 analyses the ways in which male writers of perverse magazines attempted to reestablish their masculine pride by transposing their own sense of struggle at being defeated by the powerful ...
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Chapter 2 analyses the ways in which male writers of perverse magazines attempted to reestablish their masculine pride by transposing their own sense of struggle at being defeated by the powerful West, onto other Japanese non-normative sexual customs that had close contact with the West, namely female and male prostitution for the occupation forces. It argues that the discourses concerning those non-normative sexual customs were pivotal to the (re)constitution of Japanese hetero-normative masculine self-esteem in relation to the West. In effect, the chapter attests to the dual nature of the perverse magazines; their twin functions of subverting as well as reaffirming gender and sexual norms in early post-war Japan.Less
Chapter 2 analyses the ways in which male writers of perverse magazines attempted to reestablish their masculine pride by transposing their own sense of struggle at being defeated by the powerful West, onto other Japanese non-normative sexual customs that had close contact with the West, namely female and male prostitution for the occupation forces. It argues that the discourses concerning those non-normative sexual customs were pivotal to the (re)constitution of Japanese hetero-normative masculine self-esteem in relation to the West. In effect, the chapter attests to the dual nature of the perverse magazines; their twin functions of subverting as well as reaffirming gender and sexual norms in early post-war Japan.
EDITH HALL
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199298891
- eISBN:
- 9780191711459
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199298891.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines what can be reconstructed of the female roles in satyr drama, and how its nymphs and shipwrecked princesses were harassed by the ubiquitous chorus of priapic satyrs. It argues ...
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This chapter examines what can be reconstructed of the female roles in satyr drama, and how its nymphs and shipwrecked princesses were harassed by the ubiquitous chorus of priapic satyrs. It argues that too little attention has been paid to the deeply masculine psychological and somatic orientation of satyr drama, which throughout the 5th century and some of the 4th was the compulsory final element in the tragic tetralogies enacted at the City Dionysia. At a deep psychosocial level, the satyr play functioned to affirm a group identity founded in homosocial laughter and the libidinal awareness of its male, citizen audience.Less
This chapter examines what can be reconstructed of the female roles in satyr drama, and how its nymphs and shipwrecked princesses were harassed by the ubiquitous chorus of priapic satyrs. It argues that too little attention has been paid to the deeply masculine psychological and somatic orientation of satyr drama, which throughout the 5th century and some of the 4th was the compulsory final element in the tragic tetralogies enacted at the City Dionysia. At a deep psychosocial level, the satyr play functioned to affirm a group identity founded in homosocial laughter and the libidinal awareness of its male, citizen audience.
Peta Mayer
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620597
- eISBN:
- 9781789629927
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620597.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter establishes connections between Brookner’s novels A Friend from England (1987), A Misalliance (1986), Brief Lives (1990), Undue Influence (1998), Falling Slowly (1999) and Hotel du Lac ...
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This chapter establishes connections between Brookner’s novels A Friend from England (1987), A Misalliance (1986), Brief Lives (1990), Undue Influence (1998), Falling Slowly (1999) and Hotel du Lac (1984); her French Romantic art criticism in The Genius of the Future, Romanticism and its Discontents and Soundings; andthe queer nineteenth-century literary canon of the Romantics, Decadents and aesthetes including Stendhal, Baudelaire, Henry James, Oscar Wilde and Karl-Joris Huysmans. It outlines the strange behaviour of the solitary yet homosocial ‘Brooknerine’ and her female friendships in the domestic fiction, and the mixed responses of Brookner’s early reception from 1980-2010 frequently organised by gender, temporal and heterosexual normativity which tethers behaviour to a unilateral historical context. Alternatively, Brookner’s performative Romanticism is delineated as a queer cross-historical, intertextual, temporal literary practice which combines nineteenth-century and contemporary behaviours, tropes, narrative devices and temporal periods to expand historical context and subject to cross gender and historical temporalities. The book’s queer lesbian, intertextual, cross-historical methodology is illuminated, along with its performing cast of Romantic personae of the military man, analysand, queer, aesthete, dandy, flâneur, degenerate and storyteller.Less
This chapter establishes connections between Brookner’s novels A Friend from England (1987), A Misalliance (1986), Brief Lives (1990), Undue Influence (1998), Falling Slowly (1999) and Hotel du Lac (1984); her French Romantic art criticism in The Genius of the Future, Romanticism and its Discontents and Soundings; andthe queer nineteenth-century literary canon of the Romantics, Decadents and aesthetes including Stendhal, Baudelaire, Henry James, Oscar Wilde and Karl-Joris Huysmans. It outlines the strange behaviour of the solitary yet homosocial ‘Brooknerine’ and her female friendships in the domestic fiction, and the mixed responses of Brookner’s early reception from 1980-2010 frequently organised by gender, temporal and heterosexual normativity which tethers behaviour to a unilateral historical context. Alternatively, Brookner’s performative Romanticism is delineated as a queer cross-historical, intertextual, temporal literary practice which combines nineteenth-century and contemporary behaviours, tropes, narrative devices and temporal periods to expand historical context and subject to cross gender and historical temporalities. The book’s queer lesbian, intertextual, cross-historical methodology is illuminated, along with its performing cast of Romantic personae of the military man, analysand, queer, aesthete, dandy, flâneur, degenerate and storyteller.
Sydney Janet Kaplan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748641482
- eISBN:
- 9780748671595
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748641482.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter situates Murry's first novel, Still Life, within the frameworks of his friendship with D.H. and Frieda Lawrence and his intimate relationship with Katherine Mansfield. It discusses the ...
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This chapter situates Murry's first novel, Still Life, within the frameworks of his friendship with D.H. and Frieda Lawrence and his intimate relationship with Katherine Mansfield. It discusses the impact of Lawrence's ideas about sexuality on Murry's treatment of sex in Still Life, and also takes up the issues of repressed homosexuality and homosocial desire in his friendships with Lawrence, Gordon Campbell, and Gaudier-Brzeska. Mansfield's bisexuality is discussed in relation to Murry's treatment of lesbianism in his novel. The chapter analyses Murry's writing process and his difficulty in following nineteenth-century narrative conventions to write a modernist novel.Less
This chapter situates Murry's first novel, Still Life, within the frameworks of his friendship with D.H. and Frieda Lawrence and his intimate relationship with Katherine Mansfield. It discusses the impact of Lawrence's ideas about sexuality on Murry's treatment of sex in Still Life, and also takes up the issues of repressed homosexuality and homosocial desire in his friendships with Lawrence, Gordon Campbell, and Gaudier-Brzeska. Mansfield's bisexuality is discussed in relation to Murry's treatment of lesbianism in his novel. The chapter analyses Murry's writing process and his difficulty in following nineteenth-century narrative conventions to write a modernist novel.
Sydney Janet Kaplan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748641482
- eISBN:
- 9780748671595
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748641482.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter contains an intertextual reading of Murry's Still Life and Lawrence's Women in Love. It considers the ways that Murry's ambivalent friendship with Lawrence is reflected in Women in Love. ...
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This chapter contains an intertextual reading of Murry's Still Life and Lawrence's Women in Love. It considers the ways that Murry's ambivalent friendship with Lawrence is reflected in Women in Love. Using both the first and final versions of Women in Love, this chapter analyses Lawrence's changing interpretations of the homosocial/homosexual relationship between Gerald Crick and Rupert Birkin and argues that they evoke some of the traumatic incidents that occurred during Murry and Mansfield's visit to the Lawrences in Cornwall in 1916.Less
This chapter contains an intertextual reading of Murry's Still Life and Lawrence's Women in Love. It considers the ways that Murry's ambivalent friendship with Lawrence is reflected in Women in Love. Using both the first and final versions of Women in Love, this chapter analyses Lawrence's changing interpretations of the homosocial/homosexual relationship between Gerald Crick and Rupert Birkin and argues that they evoke some of the traumatic incidents that occurred during Murry and Mansfield's visit to the Lawrences in Cornwall in 1916.
Lisa C. Robertson
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474457880
- eISBN:
- 9781474490818
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474457880.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter examines Rhoda Broughton’s novel Dear Faustina (1879), which engages with the conventions of the New Woman novel for the purpose of commenting on the difficult social position of ...
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This chapter examines Rhoda Broughton’s novel Dear Faustina (1879), which engages with the conventions of the New Woman novel for the purpose of commenting on the difficult social position of independent women. The novel’s representation of two key forms of new housing, women’ residences (or ladies’ chambers) and settlement housing, uncovers the way that these new domestic spaces made legible the relationship between economic and sexual power. While this novel has often been interpreted as a narrative of inversion or exchange between homosocial and heterosexual relationships, this chapter focuses on the ways that the novel is instead characterised by ambivalence in both form and theme.Less
This chapter examines Rhoda Broughton’s novel Dear Faustina (1879), which engages with the conventions of the New Woman novel for the purpose of commenting on the difficult social position of independent women. The novel’s representation of two key forms of new housing, women’ residences (or ladies’ chambers) and settlement housing, uncovers the way that these new domestic spaces made legible the relationship between economic and sexual power. While this novel has often been interpreted as a narrative of inversion or exchange between homosocial and heterosexual relationships, this chapter focuses on the ways that the novel is instead characterised by ambivalence in both form and theme.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804757775
- eISBN:
- 9780804779623
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804757775.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter examines the treatment of the issues of marriage and family succession in Natsume Sōseki's Gubijinsō. It explains that this novel focused on themes rooted in contemporary social ...
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This chapter examines the treatment of the issues of marriage and family succession in Natsume Sōseki's Gubijinsō. It explains that this novel focused on themes rooted in contemporary social morality, particularly the conflict between female desire and patriarchal succession and it also highlighted the fascination of Meiji melodrama for homosocial alliances and heterosexual relations. This chapter contends that the moral exemplar of the novel is brute as can be seen in the final confrontation scene and argues that the ie-seido was not restored through faith but force.Less
This chapter examines the treatment of the issues of marriage and family succession in Natsume Sōseki's Gubijinsō. It explains that this novel focused on themes rooted in contemporary social morality, particularly the conflict between female desire and patriarchal succession and it also highlighted the fascination of Meiji melodrama for homosocial alliances and heterosexual relations. This chapter contends that the moral exemplar of the novel is brute as can be seen in the final confrontation scene and argues that the ie-seido was not restored through faith but force.
Kristi Rowan Humphreys
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496812308
- eISBN:
- 9781496812346
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496812308.003.0013
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
In 1957, two men’s magazines, The Dude: The Magazine Devoted to Pleasure (1956) and The Gent: An Approach to Relaxation (1957), reprinted short stories by William Faulkner: The Dude’s March 1957 ...
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In 1957, two men’s magazines, The Dude: The Magazine Devoted to Pleasure (1956) and The Gent: An Approach to Relaxation (1957), reprinted short stories by William Faulkner: The Dude’s March 1957 issue presented “Carcassonne” and The Gent’s June 1957 issue included “Divorce in Naples”—two stories that are not just any old Faulkner stories when considering issues of masculine identity. Magazine editors made the curious decision to reprint these stories, ripe with overtones of sexual ambivalence, alongside more explicitly heterosexual erotic spreads. This essay contends that the motives behind these choices are twofold. First, these decisions can be viewed as responses to a male postwar desire for homosocial bonding, as men sought to contest the domestication of masculinity even while operating within it. Second, they indicate the possibility that the heterosexual male was not the sole target audience.Less
In 1957, two men’s magazines, The Dude: The Magazine Devoted to Pleasure (1956) and The Gent: An Approach to Relaxation (1957), reprinted short stories by William Faulkner: The Dude’s March 1957 issue presented “Carcassonne” and The Gent’s June 1957 issue included “Divorce in Naples”—two stories that are not just any old Faulkner stories when considering issues of masculine identity. Magazine editors made the curious decision to reprint these stories, ripe with overtones of sexual ambivalence, alongside more explicitly heterosexual erotic spreads. This essay contends that the motives behind these choices are twofold. First, these decisions can be viewed as responses to a male postwar desire for homosocial bonding, as men sought to contest the domestication of masculinity even while operating within it. Second, they indicate the possibility that the heterosexual male was not the sole target audience.
Carissa M. Harris
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781501755293
- eISBN:
- 9781501730412
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501755293.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter highlights the poets at the sixteenth-century Scottish court who use obscene misogyny to foster homosocial community and teach one another codes of masculine sexuality. It details the ...
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This chapter highlights the poets at the sixteenth-century Scottish court who use obscene misogyny to foster homosocial community and teach one another codes of masculine sexuality. It details the discussion of insult poetry, in which men use obscene misogyny to teach one another to refrain from intercourse altogether. These exchanges in the literary insult battles known as “flytings,” dislodge the primacy of copulating with women from models of exemplary masculinity. In the code espoused by Chaucer's faction, not having sex is unmanly, while for the flyters over a century later, intercourse imperils one's masculinity and bodily sovereignty. Ultimately, the chapter reveals how flyters draw on three separate but overlapping misogynist cultural traditions to teach their lessons about sexuality: the internalized misogyny in women's criminal quarrels that accuses women of breaking patriarchal rules governing sexual conduct; the literary misogyny articulated by aged male lyric voices that views women's bodies as devouring men's virility; and the clerical misogyny that encourages men to eschew matrimony by invoking women's inherent lasciviousness and moral depravity.Less
This chapter highlights the poets at the sixteenth-century Scottish court who use obscene misogyny to foster homosocial community and teach one another codes of masculine sexuality. It details the discussion of insult poetry, in which men use obscene misogyny to teach one another to refrain from intercourse altogether. These exchanges in the literary insult battles known as “flytings,” dislodge the primacy of copulating with women from models of exemplary masculinity. In the code espoused by Chaucer's faction, not having sex is unmanly, while for the flyters over a century later, intercourse imperils one's masculinity and bodily sovereignty. Ultimately, the chapter reveals how flyters draw on three separate but overlapping misogynist cultural traditions to teach their lessons about sexuality: the internalized misogyny in women's criminal quarrels that accuses women of breaking patriarchal rules governing sexual conduct; the literary misogyny articulated by aged male lyric voices that views women's bodies as devouring men's virility; and the clerical misogyny that encourages men to eschew matrimony by invoking women's inherent lasciviousness and moral depravity.
Lisa Purse
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748638178
- eISBN:
- 9780748670857
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748638178.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Using Bad Boys II, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Alexander, Spider-Man 3 and 300 as illustrative case studies, this chapter maps out homosexuality's status as both structuring presence and structuring ...
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Using Bad Boys II, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Alexander, Spider-Man 3 and 300 as illustrative case studies, this chapter maps out homosexuality's status as both structuring presence and structuring absence in contemporary action cinema, as well as documenting how action movies speak to this presence/absence. After a brief history of homosexual screen representations, the chapter argues that the imposition or regulation of a straight-gay binary remains readable in contemporary action cinema, and that as a violent, risk-filled homosocial space the action ?lm provides a fertile ground for the anxieties about losing one's proper gender that Judith Butler has described. Representation of and performance of homosexuality, current practices of presenting and policing homosocial space, and patterns of knowing avaowal and disavowal, are historicized and analysed. The chapter explores how homosexuality operates as metaphor in the superhero action cycle, and as an indicator of villainy in films like Gamer, 300 and Watchmen, and also points up the persistent invisibility of female homosexuality in contemporary action cinema.Less
Using Bad Boys II, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Alexander, Spider-Man 3 and 300 as illustrative case studies, this chapter maps out homosexuality's status as both structuring presence and structuring absence in contemporary action cinema, as well as documenting how action movies speak to this presence/absence. After a brief history of homosexual screen representations, the chapter argues that the imposition or regulation of a straight-gay binary remains readable in contemporary action cinema, and that as a violent, risk-filled homosocial space the action ?lm provides a fertile ground for the anxieties about losing one's proper gender that Judith Butler has described. Representation of and performance of homosexuality, current practices of presenting and policing homosocial space, and patterns of knowing avaowal and disavowal, are historicized and analysed. The chapter explores how homosexuality operates as metaphor in the superhero action cycle, and as an indicator of villainy in films like Gamer, 300 and Watchmen, and also points up the persistent invisibility of female homosexuality in contemporary action cinema.
Joseph Farrell
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- March 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198777342
- eISBN:
- 9780191823060
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198777342.003.0009
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Ancient Religions
As a lover, Hermes is generally regarded as comparable to other male divinities. His perceived connection to ithyphallic herms only strengthens this impression. In literature, however, the character ...
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As a lover, Hermes is generally regarded as comparable to other male divinities. His perceived connection to ithyphallic herms only strengthens this impression. In literature, however, the character of Hermes’ erotic activity is different from that of other gods. In general, as might be expected, he relies on stealth rather than force, and he is often content to play a secondary role by facilitating the amorous adventures of other figures. In fact, Hermes can be said in most cases to sublimate his own sexuality in favor of someone else’s, often in a way that bespeaks his own greater interest in homosocial bonding than in sexual conquest. These tendencies are clearly visible in archaic, classical, and Hellenistic representations of Hermes, and they develop in generally consistent and almost predictable ways through classical Roman treatments of Mercury down to quite late texts that become foundational for the medieval reception of classical antiquity.Less
As a lover, Hermes is generally regarded as comparable to other male divinities. His perceived connection to ithyphallic herms only strengthens this impression. In literature, however, the character of Hermes’ erotic activity is different from that of other gods. In general, as might be expected, he relies on stealth rather than force, and he is often content to play a secondary role by facilitating the amorous adventures of other figures. In fact, Hermes can be said in most cases to sublimate his own sexuality in favor of someone else’s, often in a way that bespeaks his own greater interest in homosocial bonding than in sexual conquest. These tendencies are clearly visible in archaic, classical, and Hellenistic representations of Hermes, and they develop in generally consistent and almost predictable ways through classical Roman treatments of Mercury down to quite late texts that become foundational for the medieval reception of classical antiquity.