"This is cultural history of the first order, and it is liberal and humane history at its very best."—David Cannadine An essential work for anyone who wishes to understand the social history of the nineteenth century, Schnitzler's Century is the culmination of Peter Gay's thirty-five years of scholarship on bourgeois culture and society. Using Arthur Schnitzler, the sexually emboldened Viennese playwright, as his master of ceremonies, Gay offers a brilliant reexamination of the hundred-year period that began with the defeat of Napoleon and concluded with the conflagration of 1914. This is a defining work by one of America's greatest historians.
'A Gay Century: Vol 1' is a canter through 60 years of gay history in ten serious or comic playlets.Wilde's deathbed encounter with Queen Victoria; the theft of the Irish crown jewels by a sadomasochistic cabal in Dublin Castle; Compton Mackenzie demanding of the Home Secretary that his own lesbian novel be prosecuted like 'The Well of Loneliness', because he needs the money; matinee idol Ivor Novello sharing a cell in Wandsworth with teenage psycho 'Mad' Frankie Fraser; the Jeremy Thorpe/Norman Scott affair seen through the eyes of the dogs involved, etc. etc. A sideways look at our queer past offers vivid vignettes which may or may not be true - and if they're not, they ought to be.
This intriguing, authoritative book tracks stage representations of lesbians and gay men from Oscar Wilde to the present day and examines scores of British and American plays and playwrights, including works by Wilde, Maugham, Coward, Hellman, O'Neill, Le Roi Jones, and Joe Orton.
For many foreign observers, Brazil still conjures up a collage of exotic images, ranging from the camp antics of Carmen Miranda to the bronzed girl (or boy) from Ipanema moving sensually over the white sands of Rio's beaches. Among these tropical fantasies is that of the uninhibited and licentious Brazilian homosexual, who expresses uncontrolled sexuality during wild Carnival festivities and is welcomed by a society that accepts fluid sexual identity. However, in Beyond Carnival, the first sweeping cultural history of male homosexuality in Brazil, James Green shatters these exotic myths and replaces them with a complex picture of the social obstacles that confront Brazilian homosexuals. Ranging from the late nineteenth century to the rise of a politicized gay and lesbian rights movement in the 1970s, Green's study focuses on male homosexual subcultures in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. He uncovers the stories of men coping with arrests and street violence, dealing with family restrictions, and resisting both a hostile medical profession and moralizing influences of the Church. Green also describes how these men have created vibrant subcultures with alternative support networks for maintaining romantic and sexual relationships and for surviving in an intolerant social environment. He then goes on to trace how urban parks, plazas, cinemas, and beaches are appropriated for same-sex erotic encounters, bringing us into the world of street cruising, male hustlers, and cross-dressing prostitutes. Through his creative use of police and medical records, newspapers, literature, newsletters, and extensive interviews, Green has woven a fascinating history, the first of its kind for Latin America, that will set the standard for future works. "Green brushes aside outworn cultural assumptions about Brazil's queer life to display its full glory, as well as the troubles which homophobia has sent its way. . . . This latest gem in Chicago's 'World of Desire' series offers a shimmering view of queer Brazilian life throughout the 20th century."—Kirkus Reviews Winner of the 2000 Lambda Literary Awards' Emerging Scholar Award of the Monette/Horwitz Trust Winner of the 1999 Hubert Herring Award, Pacific Coast Council on Latin American Studies
This anthology examines Love's Labours Lost from a variety of perspectives and through a wide range of materials. Selections discuss the play in terms of historical context, dating, and sources; character analysis; comic elements and verbal conceits; evidence of authorship; performance analysis; and feminist interpretations. Alongside theater reviews, production photographs, and critical commentary, the volume also includes essays written by practicing theater artists who have worked on the play. An index by name, literary work, and concept rounds out this valuable resource.
A Century of Gay Erotica is a testimonial to the extraordinary erotic imagination of gay writers in this century: Samuel Delany, John Preston, Aaron Ravis and Larry Townsend. How do men together define their unique experience of desire? What are the farthest reaches of endurance and lust? Classics sit side-by-side with brilliant contemporary stories in a collection focused on the romantic extremes and male power and passion.
A fresh examination of this forbidden history shows the profound effects of gay culture on modern life. Robb, brilliant biographer of Balzac, Hugo, and Rimbaud, examines how homosexuals were treated by society and finds a tale of surprising tolerance.
Annotation 'The Straight State' is an expansive study of the federal regulation of homosexuality across the US. Margot Canaday uses new evidence to show how the state came to systematically penalise homosexuality, giving rise to a regime of second-class citizenship that dogs sexual minorities to this day.
In gay men's writing, tenderness lies side by side with rage; existential rejection of convention rubs shoulders with sexual hedonism. Beginning with Wilde's and Byron's existentialist outlaw, the theme of social rebellion, and the fight against conformity, form a common link among the literary works of the twentieth century. But mainstream academic criticism has shown itself for the most part incapable of engaging gay work without distorting or ignoring its most central features.
