Henry James and Queer Filiation

Beschreibung

This study challenges the notion that closeted secrecy was a necessary part of social life for gay men living in the shadow of the trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde. It reconstructs a surprisingly open network of queer filiation in which Henry James occupied a central place. The lives of its satellite figures — most now forgotten or unknown — offer even more suggestive evidence of some of the countervailing forms of social practice that could survive even in that hostile era. If these men enjoyed such exemption largely because of the prerogatives of class privilege, their relative freedom was nevertheless a visible rebuke to the reductive stereotypes of homosexuality that circulated and were reinforced in the culture of the period. This book will be of particular interest to scholars of Henry James and queer studies, readers of late Victorian and modern literature, and those interested in the history and social construction of gender roles.
This study challenges the notion that closeted secrecy was a necessary part of social life for gay men living in the shadow of the trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde. It reconstructs a surprisingly open network of queer filiation in which Henry James occupied a central place. The lives of its satellite figures — most now forgotten or unknown — offer even more suggestive evidence of some of the countervailing forms of social practice that could survive even in that hostile era. If these men enjoyed such exemption largely because of the prerogatives of class privilege, their relative freedom was nevertheless a visible rebuke to the reductive stereotypes of homosexuality that circulated and were reinforced in the culture of the period. This book will be of particular interest to scholars of Henry James and queer studies, readers of late Victorian and modern literature, and those interested in the history and social construction of gender roles.

Reveals a fascinatingly open network of queer filiation in which Henry James occupied a central position
Challenges Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s interpretation of 'The Beast in the Jungle', showing that the concealment of homosexual behaviour during the Edwardian era by those vulnerable to persecution was far from universal

Explores how class privilege affected the need to conceal male-male relationships in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century

Autor*in

Michael Anesko

Themen in »Henry James and Queer Filiation«

Alexander Robertson James Criminalisation of homosexuality Edwardian era Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Frederick Demmler Henry James Homosexual relationships Jane de Glehn John Borie, Jr John Singer Sargent Oscar Wilde Queer couples Queer expatriation Robert Allerton The Beast in the Jungle

Stimmen zu »Henry James and Queer Filiation«

Details

Link teilen