Single Discursive Essay
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GENDER-NON-CONFORMITY in ELIZABETHAN DRAMA Shakespeare & Marlowe OK- ELIZABETHAN? QUEEN ELIZABETH I OF ENGLAND r.1558-1503 CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE? Born 1564- Canterbury Poor background- but GETS EDUCATED! Poor background- but GETS EDUCATED! AND WINS A SCHOLARSHIP TO THE KING’S SCHOOL, CANTERBURY (probably the oldest school in the world) and then ANOTHER scholarship- to CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE THIS REQUIRES SERIOUS HARD WORK he receives a very CLASSICAL education (in the new, post-reformation style) His education leaves Marlowe in a couple of rather AMBIGUOUS positions: 1) He is a poor man with a gentleman’s education 2) He has been given access to pagan classical ideas in a country that is based around Christianity as a poor man with an education HE HAS TO LOOK FOR WORK and he finds two jobs PLAYWRIGHT and SPY (both disreputable) 1580s- creation of first professional English Secret Service targeted at CATHOLICS who aimed to replace Elizabeth with a Catholic monarch through assassination and/or invasion and/or rebellion Used a lot of DOUBLE AGENTS- probably including Marlowe Murky and dangerous work- but well paid! Same goes for being a playwright! Theatre people had connections to noblemen, but also to brothels, taverns and criminals They were not respectable- in fact, playwrights usually concealed their identities But they could make good money as someone with a classical education in a Christian country Marlowe has access to some UNORTHODOX ideas about sex, religion and government LIKE • sleeping around is great • having sex with other men is totally fine and normal • there is no god, or certainly no one god, and no afterlife • kings and emperors are tyrants and should be deposed • the world is not run by providence, but is basically materialistic TRANSLATES • OVID’s AMORES (about SEX) • LUCAN’s PHARSALIA (about REPUBLICANISM) as a • man who liked to have sex with men • highly-educated lower-class person in a rigidly class-structured society • person familiar at close hand with the less reputable operations of politics and business these ideas held a strong attraction for Marlowe So Marlowe’s kind of an outsider, with weird dangerous radical ideas out of the deep past but what’s AMAZING is he manages to leverage these ideas into INCREDIBLY POPULAR THEATRE that has a huge influence on popular thought ALL HIS PLAYS ARE RADICAL BUT EDWARD II IS PARTICULARLY NOTABLE FOR ITS RADICALISM ON QUESTIONS OF SEX & GENDER and for its ENGLISH setting it makes use of the fairly new HISTORY PLAY genre usually seen as beginning with Skelton’s Magnyfycence in 1519, this genre had mainly been used for Tudor propaganda and nationalistic storytelling 1591- Henry VI part 1 by Shakespeare and maybe Thomas Nashe (both Marlowe’s friends or acquaintances) CHANGES EVERYTHING Marlowe is quick to take notice He goes to Holinshed’s Chronicles (available online at http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/holinshed/ ) and comes out with a story of a king who LIKED BOYS and GOT MURDERED he uses this to make a play about • Being intensely frustrated by the limitations the world places on your behavior • Transgressing them • And being destroyed for it ALL THE MAIN CHARACTERS DO THIS! but Edward in the KING! He’s allowed to do ANYTHING he WANTS EXCEPT it seems fall in love with another man Marlowe gets away with depicting a man in love with another man because 1) it’s historical 2) Edward gets punished for his transgression but the key thing to remember is HE GETS AWAY WITH CLEARLY AND SENSITIVELY DEPICTING A MAN IN LOVE WITH ANOTHER MAN GAVESTON: These are not men for me, I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits, Musicians, that with touching of a string May draw the pliant King which way I please. Music and poetry is his delight; Therefore I’ll have Italian masks by night, Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows; And in the day, when he shall walk abroad, Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad; My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns, Shall with their goat feet dance the antic hay. Sometime a lovely boy in Dian’s shape, With hair that gilds the water as it glides, Crownets of pearl about his naked arms, And in his sportful hands an olive tree, To hide those parts which men delight to see, Shall bathe him in a spring; and there, hard by, One like Actæon, peeping through the grove, Shall by the angry goddess be transformed, And running in the likeness of an hart, By yelping hounds pulled down, shall seem to die: Such things as these best please his majesty, this is A powerfully attractive depiction of the pleasures and pains of sexual transgression it: • makes a statement about males being sexually attracted to other males, and what that’s like • gives this statement both prestige and immediacy by bringing together classical ideas and English history • conceals what its up to enough to avoid getting into trouble, but not so much that you don’t notice MORTIMER SENIOR: Nephew, I must to Scotland: thou stayest here. Leave now to oppose thyself against the King: Thou seest by nature he is mild and calm; And seeing his mind so dotes on Gaveston, Let him without controlment have his will. The mightiest Kings have had their minions Great Alexander loved Hephaestion, The conquering Hercules for Hylas wept, And for Patroclus stern Achilles droop’d. And not kings only, but the wisest men; The Roman Tully loved Octavius, Grave Socrates wild Alcibiades. Then let his grace, whose youth is flexible, And promiseth as much as we can wish, Freely enjoy that vain lightheaded earl; For riper years will wean him from such toys. again, this: • makes a statement about males being sexually attracted to other males, and what that’s like • gives this statement both prestige and immediacy by bringing together classical ideas and English history • conceals what its up to enough to avoid getting into trouble, but not so much that you don’t notice GAVESTON. My Lord, I hear it whispered everywhere That I am banished and must fly the land. EDWARD. ‘Tis true, sweet Gaveston; oh, were it false! The legate of the Pope will have it so, And thou must hence, or I shall be deposed. But I will reign to be revenged of them; And therefore, sweet friend, take it patiently. Live where thou wilt, I’ll send thee gold enough; And long thou shall not stay; or, if thou dost, I’ll come to thee; my love shall ne’er decline. GAVESTON. Is all my hope turned to this hell of grief? EDWARD. Rend not my heart with thy too piercing words: Thou from this land, I from myself am banished. GAVESTON. To go from hence grieves not poor Gaveston; But to forsake you, in whose gracious looks The blessedness of Gaveston remains; For nowhere else seeks he felicity. EDWARD. And only this torments my wretched soul, That, whether I will or no, thou must depart. Be Governor of Ireland in my stead, And there abide till fortune call thee home. Here, take my picture, and let me wear thine. O, might I keep thee here, as I do this, Happy were I, but now most miserable. GAVESTON. ‘Tis something to be pitied of a King. EDWARD. Thou shalt not hence; I’ll hide thee, Gaveston. GAVESTON. I shall be found, and then ’twill grieve me more. EDWARD. Kind words and mutual talk makes our grief greater. Therefore, with dumb embracement, let us part. Stay, Gaveston; I cannot leave thee thus. GAVESTON. For every look, my love drops down a tear: Seeing I must go, do not renew my sorrow. EDWARD. The time is little that thou hast to stay, And, therefore, give me leave to look my fill. But, come, sweet friend; I’ll bear thee on thy way. GAVESTON. The peers will frown. EDWARD. I pass not for their anger. Come, let’s go: O, that we might as well return as go! This is RADICAL at points like this the play’s essential nature as a PROTEST becomes dangerously clear at points like this the play’s essential nature as a PROTEST becomes dangerously clear and this dangerous clarity eventually got Marlowe in serious trouble! Because of his opinions, Marlowe was almost certainly MURDERED on orders from someone in the upper levels of the Elizabethan government Some of Marlowe’s opinions, as reported to the Privy Council a few days before he was murdered by government agents: That St John the Evangelist was bedfellow to Christ and leaned alwaies in his bosome, that he vsed him as the sinners of Sodoma. That all they that loue not Tobacco & Boies were fooles. That all the apostles were fishermen and base fellowes neyther of wit nor worth, that Paull only had wit but he was a timerous fellow in bidding men to be subiect to magistrates against his Conscience. That he had as good Right to Coine as the Queene of England Marlowe is an example of the power of literature to PROTEST and to powerfully challenge the boundaries of what is allowed and of how dangerous such protest can be Shakespeare’s comedies offer an example of a very different way of writing about gender-non-conformity and the constrictions of societal roles One that protests less but asks a lot of difficult questions. As You Like It Written several years after Marlowe’s death But refers to Marlowe twice! A play where gendered behavior, and the limitations it imposes, are central Makes major use of the stage convention of cross-dressing Rosalind • Is played by a male bodied actor Rosalind • Is played by a male bodied actor • Who dresses up as a female character Rosalind • Is played by a male bodied actor • Who dresses up as a female character • Who dresses up as a male character Rosalind • Is played by a male bodied actor • Who dresses up as a female character • Who dresses up as a male character • Who then pretends to be female Rosalind • • • • Is played by a male bodied actor Who dresses up as a female character Who dresses up as a male character Who then pretends to be female GOT THAT? Questions are being asked here about gender, like: • What do different genders allow you to do? • What do they stop you doing? • What do they make you do? • What might you want out of them? WHAT CAN’T THIS REPRESENT? Rosalind can be seen as: • • • • • • • A girl who is attracted to men A boy who is attracted to men A girl involved in a flirtation with another girl A girl who wants to be a boy A boy who wants to be a girl Someone for whom gender is a trap and a problem Someone who is able to move fluidly between genders to solve problems OLIVER Be of good cheer, youth: you a man! you lack a man’s heart. ROSALIND I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would think this was well counterfeited! I pray you, tell your brother how well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho! OLIVER This was not counterfeit: there is too great testimony in your complexion that it was a passion of earnest. ROSALIND Counterfeit, I assure you. OLIVER Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man. ROSALIND So I do: but, i’ faith, I should have been a woman by right. CELIA Come, you look paler and paler: pray you, draw homewards. Good sir, go with us. OLIVER That will I, for I must bear answer back How you excuse my brother, Rosalind. ROSALIND I shall devise something: but, I pray you, commend my counterfeiting to him. Will you go? Shakespeare is involved in opening up a space to consider what gender-nonconformity looks like And this space is so wide, so productive of questions That 400 years later not only gay or queer people but also trans or genderqueer identified people might can still find something interesting in it But at the same time, it cannot be tied down! YOU CAN’T SHOW THAT THIS IS ABOUT TRANS OR EVEN GAY DESIRE YOU CAN’T GET A CLEAR STATEMENT ABOUT GENDER OUT OF IT YOU CAN’T BE SURE IT’S SAYING ANYTHING AT ALL! (and in this it’s very unlike Marlowe) Where Marlowe is openly insurrectionary Shakespeare is subtly subversive Aphra Behn, Katherine Philips and Anne Killigrew 17th Century poetry of Love Between Women Katherine Philips 1632-1664 Born into middle-class London family of PURITANS! ENGLISH CIVIL WAR (English revolution) 1648- age of 16 Marries James Philips Who was 24 and a Parlimentarian/Puritan AND MOVES TO WALES! (DISASTER!) gets to know HENRY VAUGHAN Begins to circulate her poems in MANUSCRIPT (MANUS- hand SCRIPTUS- WRITTEN) Her circulation is based on a linked series of COTERIES Poems are sent as correspondence to friends, who then pass them on to their own circle of friends They may eventually get copied widely, but they are never ‘publicly available’ This gives her • • • • Control over the text Control over the audience Respectability (not done for money) Anonymity (her poems were often initialled, but you had to be ‘in the know’) • Freedom from censorship (remember she’s a royalist) • Low cost to circulation (like a blog vs a printed book) central to this distribution was the SOCIETY OF FRIENDSHIP (founded c.1651) in which she is known as THE MATCHLESS ORINDA allows her to circulate poems between her (royalist) circles in WALES, LONDON & DUBLIN peripheral to the society are all kinds of influential and important people but CENTRAL to the society are Philips intense relationships with a series of other women First with Mary Aubrey (Rosania) (c.1648-51) The with Anne Owen (Lucasia) (c.1651- 1663) Inconstancy in Friendship Lovely Apostate! what was my offence? Or am I punish’d for Obedience? Must thy strange rigours find as strange a time? The Act, & Season, are an equall crime. Of what thy most ingenious Scorn can doe Must I be subject, & Spectatour too! Or were the sufferings, & sins too few To be sustain’d by me, perform’d by you! Unless with Nero, your uncurb’d desire Be to survey the Rome, you set on fire. While wounded for, & by your power I At once your Martyr, & your prospect dy. This is my doom, & such a ridling fate, As all impossibles does complicate. For obligation heere is injury, Constancy crime, friendship a heresy. And you appear so much on ruine bent, Your owne destruction gives you new content. For our two spirits did so long agree, You must undoe your self to ruine me. And like some frantick Goddess, be enclin’d To raze the Temple, where you were enshrin’d. And to be furious to the last degree, Kill that which gave you Immortallity. For glorious Friendship, whence your honour springs, Ly’s gasping, in the croud of common things. And I’m so odious, that for being kind, Doubled, & study’d Murthers are design’d. Thy sin’s all Paradox! for shouldst thou be Thy self again, ’twould be severe to me. For thy repentance, coming now so late, Would only change, & not relieve the fate. So dangerous is the consequence of ill, Thy least of crimes, is to be cruell still. For of thy smiles I should yet more complain, If I should live to be betray’d again. Go then (fayr Tyrant,) & securely be Both from my kindness, & my anger free. While I, who to the Swains had sung your fame, And taught each Eccho to repeat your name, Will now my privat sorrow’s entertain. To Rocks, & Rivers, not to you complain. And though before, our Union cherish’d me, ’Tis now my Pleasure, that we disagree. For from my Passion, your last rigours grew, And you slight me, because I courted you But my worst vow’s shall be your happiness, And ne’re to be disturb’d by my distress. And though it would my sacred flame pollute, To make my heart a scorned prostitute, Yet I’le respect the Author of my death, And kiss the hand that rob’s me of my breath. Then to the Great Lucasia have recourse, There gather up new excellence and force, Till by a free unbyass’d clear Commerce, Endearments which no Tongue can e’re rehearse, Lucasia and Orinda shall thee give Eternity, and make even Friendship live. I now see by Experience that one may love too much, and offend more by a too fond Sincerity, than by a careless Indifferency, provided it be but handsomly varnish’d over with civil Respect. I find too there are few Friendships in the World Marriage-proof. . . We may generally conclude the Marriage of a Friend to be the Funeral of a Friendship […] there is indeed a certain secret Meanness in our Souls, which mercenarily inclines our Affections to those with whom we must necessarily be oblig’d for the most part to converse, and from whom we expect the chiefest outward conveniencies. And thus we are apt to flatter our selves that we are constant and unchang’d in our Friendship, tho’ we insensibly fall into Coldness and Estrangement. Then… another intense friendship All that I can tell you of my Desires to see your Ladiship will be repetition, for I had with as much earnestness as I was capable of, Begg’d it then, and yet have so much of the Beggar in me, that I must redouble that importunity now, and tell you, That I Gasp for you with an impatience that is not to be imagin’d by any Soul wound up to a less concern in Friendship then yours is, and therefore I cannot hope to make others sensible of my vast desires to enjoy you, but I can safely appeal to your own Illustrious Heart, where I am sure of a Court of Equity to relieve me in all the Complaints and Suplications my Friendship can put up. Has become very well-known 1664 unauthorized (pirated) edition of her poems published She is publicly upset- was she really? Probably. 1604-DIES! 1607- Posthumous Official Poems 1705- Letters published How do we understand her poems? How do we understand her poems? Her contemporaries, pretty much unanimously, understood her as describing intense but pure, non-sexual friendship Refered to her as ‘the virtuous Orinda’ (often in opposition to Aphra Behn, who wasn’t virtuous at all) She was drawing on the available literature of male ‘friendship’ Authors like Thomas Churchyard and Walter Dorke (real name) They reference Plato, Cicero and Montaigne to describe intense male-on-male friendships that definitely DIDN’T involve sodomy Philips claims this kind of intense non-sexual friendship for women Causes a contemporary debate, not about whether it existed, but about whether women were capable of it- a debate she basically wins! So they took her at her word? Well, mostly… They talk of Sappho, but, alas! the shame! Ill Manners soil the lustre of her fame. Orinda’s inward Vertue is so bright, That, like a Lantern’s fair enclosed light, It through the Paper shines where she doth write. Honour and Friendship, and the gen’rous scorn Of things for which we were not born, (Things that can only by a fond disease, Like that of Girls our vicious stomachs please) Are the instructive subjects of her Pen. Abraham Cowley on Philips- protesting too much? Phillips also draws on METAPHYSICAL poetry, especially John DONNE Dull sublunary lovers’ love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it. If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do. But we by a love so much refined, That our selves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. And though it in the center sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. Compare Philips I did not live until this time Crowned my felicity, When I could say without a crime, I am not thine, but thee. This carcase breathed and walked and slept, So that the world believed There was a soul the motions kept, But they were all deceived. For as a watch by art is wound To motion, such was mine; But never had Orinda found A soul till she found thine; Which now inspires, cures, and supplies, And guides my darkened breast; For thou art all that I can prize, My joy, my life, my rest. No bridegroom’s nor crown-conqueror’s mirth To mine compared can be; They have but pieces of this earth, I’ve all the world in thee. Then let our flames still light and shine, And no false fear control, As innocent as our design, Immortal as our soul. Takes the BODY out of Donne Goes from ‘grows erect’ to ‘as innocent as our design’ FROM So must pure lovers’ souls descend T’ affections, and to faculties, Which sense may reach and apprehend, Else a great prince in prison lies. To our bodies turn we then, that so Weak men on love reveal’d may look; Love’s mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book (DONNE) TO Thus our twin-souls in one shall grow, And teach the World new love, Redeem the age and sex, and show A flame Fate dares not move : And courting Death to be our friend, Our lives together too shall end. (PHILIPS) She is combining FRIENDSHIP LITERATURE with LOVE POETRY to create a new kind of writing which allows her to express HER INTENSE RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER WOMEN and to develop a kind of spiritual love between ‘friends’ which she considers superior to physical love: All Love is sacred, and the marriage-tie Hath much of honour and divinity. But Lust, Design, or some unworthy ends May mingle there, which are despis’d by Friends. Passion hath violent extremes, and thus All oppositions are contiguous. So when the end is serv’d their Love will bate, If Friendship make it not more fortunate: Friendship, that Love’s elixir, that pure fire Which burns the clearer ’cause it burns the higher so they’re NOT lesbian poems as we understand the term they have to be approached on their OWN terms Luc. Say, my Orinda, why so sad? Orin. Absence from thee doth tear my heart; Which, since with thine it union had, Each parting splits. Luc. And can we part? Orin. Our bodies must. Luc. But never we: Our souls, without the help of Sense, By ways more noble and more free Can meet, and hold intelligence. Orin. And yet those Souls, when first they met, Looked out at windows through the eyes. Luc. But soon did such acquaintance get, Nor Fate nor Time can them surprise. Orin. Absence will rob us of that bliss To which this friendship title brings: Love’s fruits and joys are made by this Useless as crowns to captived Kings. Luc. Friendship’s a Science, and we know There Contemplation’s most employed. Orin. Religion’s so, but practice too, And both by niceties destroyed. Luc. But who ne’er parts can never meet, And so that happiness were lost. Orin. Thus Pain and Death are sadly sweet, Since Health and Heav’n such price must cost. Chorus. But we shall come where no rude hand shall sever, And there we’ll meet and part no more for ever. This mixes two genres of dialogue •LOVER’S DIALOGUE •DIALOGUE BETWEEN SOUL AND BODY Luc. Say, my Orinda, why so sad? Orin. Absence from thee doth tear my heart; Which, since with thine it union had, Each parting splits. Luc. And can we part? Orin. Our bodies must. Luc. But never we: Our souls, without the help of Sense, By ways more noble and more free Can meet, and hold intelligence. Orin. And yet those Souls, when first they met, Looked out at windows through the eyes. Luc. But soon did such acquaintance get, Nor Fate nor Time can them surprise. Orin. Absence will rob us of that bliss To which this friendship title brings: Love’s fruits and joys are made by this Useless as crowns to captived Kings. Luc. Friendship’s a Science, and we know There Contemplation’s most employed. Orin. Religion’s so, but practice too, And both by niceties destroyed. Luc. But who ne’er parts can never meet, And so that happiness were lost. Orin. Thus Pain and Death are sadly sweet, Since Health and Heav’n such price must cost. Chorus. But we shall come where no rude hand shall sever, And there we’ll meet and part no more for ever. Aphra Behn 1640- 1669 if Philips is SUPER-RESPECTABLE Behn is ULTRA-SCANDALOUS (and she lied about her life a lot!) born to lower-class parents but with some UPPER-CLASS connections in ROYALIST and CATHOLIC circles 1663- goes to South America (Surinam) 1664- comes back and marries Johan Behn (if he existed) By 1666 is presenting as a widow 1666 Employed as a SPY in the Netherlands- doesn’t get paid Goes bankrupt 1670- puts on her first play First English professional woman writer! which means SHE PUBLISHES! FOR MONEY!! WITH HER NAME ON IT!!! if Philips insisted women could be friends, Behn insisted they could be WITS Indeed that day ’twas Acted first, there comes me into the Pit, a long, lither, phlegmatick, white, illfavour’d, wretched Fop, an Officer in Masquerade newly transported with a Scarf & Feather out of France, a sorry Animal that has nought else to shield it from the uttermost contempt of all mankind, but that respect which we afford to Rats and Toads, which though we do not well allow to live, yet when considered as a part of God’s Creation, we make honourable mention of them. A thing, Reader— but no more of such a Smelt: This thing, I tell ye, opening that which serves it for a mouth, out issued such a noise as this to those that sate about it, that they were to expect a woful Play, God damn him, for it was a woman’s. Now how this came about I am not sure, but I suppose he brought it piping hot from some who had with him the reputation of a villanous Wit: for Creatures of his size of sense talk without all imagination, such scraps as they pick up from other folks. I would not for a world be taken arguing with such a propertie as this; but if I thought there were a man of any tolerable parts, who could upon mature deliberation distinguish well his right hand from his left, and justly state the difference between the number of sixteen and two, yet had this prejudice upon him; I would take a little pains to make him know how much he errs. For waving the examination why women having equal education with men, were not as capable of knowledge, of whatsoever sort as well as they: I’ll only say as I have touch’d before, that Plays have no great room for that which is men’s great advantage over women, that is Learning […] affectation hath always had a greater share both in the action and discourse of men than truth and judgement have; and for our Modern ones, except our most unimitable Laureat, I dare to say I know of none that write at such a formidable rate, but that a woman may well hope to reach their greatest heights. 1682 pisses off the KING- not allowed on stage for a few years Starts writing POETRY and NOVELS 1689 DIES- poor, but gets buried in Westminster abbey- not in Poet’s Corner, but in the corridor outside! RIP Here lies a proof that wit can never be Defence enough against mortality SO Poems are from the early 1680s, in the style of the libertine court wits (more like Rochester- died 1680- than Dryden) But unlike (most) libertine poems, they usually have FEMALE speakers Writes a witty poetry of FEMALE sexual desire Imitation of Horace- Gender switched! Here’s Cowley’s first stanza To whom now Pyrrha, art thou kind? To what heart-ravisht lover, Dost thou thy golden locks unbind, Thy hidden sweets discover, And with large bounty open set All the bright stores of thy rich cabinet? Here’s hers What mean those Amorous Curls of Jet? For what heart-Ravished Maid Dost thou thy Hair in order set, Thy Wanton Tresses Braid? And thy vast Store of Beauties open lay, That the deluded Fancy leads astray. Behn insists that • women have sexual desires (duh!) • Men (not boys!) are potential objects of desire • Men seduce women! (who are the ones who get into trouble about it) • Men are vain, fickle, duplicitous etc. -all the things men charge women with in misogynistic poems of this period To the Fair Clarinda Who made love to me, imagin’d more than woman. Fair lovely Maid, or if that Title be Too weak, too Feminine for Nobler thee, Permit a Name that more Approaches Truth: And let me call thee, Lovely Charming Youth. This last will justifie my soft complaint, While that may serve to lessen my constraint; And without Blushes I the Youth persue, When so much beauteous Woman is in view. Against thy Charms we struggle but in vain With thy deluding Form thou giv’st us pain, While the bright Nymph betrays us to the Swain. In pity to our Sex sure thou wer’t sent, That we might Love, and yet be Innocent: For sure no Crime with thee we can commit; Or if we shou’d – thy Form excuses it. For who, that gathers fairest Flowers believes A Snake lies hid beneath the Fragrant Leaves. Thou beauteous Wonder of a different kind, Soft Cloris with the dear Alexis join’d; When e’er the Manly part of thee, wou’d plead Though tempts us with the Image of the Maid, While we the noblest Passions do extend The Love to Hermes, Aphrodite the Friend. PHILIPS BEHN Manuscript Coterie Respectable Souls Friendship Metaphysicals Subversive? Professional Public Scandalous Bodies Sex Libertines Insurrectionary? ANNE KILLIGREW – 1660-85 CLERGYMAN’S DAUGHTER but a POSH clergyman receives an education POET and PAINTER influenced by Phillips but also in touch with some different things because of her situation becomes maid of honour to Mary of Modena – wife of the King’s brother she circulated a lot of poems with male speakers addressing women BUT IT’S THE POEMS SHE DIDN’T CIRCULATE THAT ARE REALLY INTERESTING dies aged 25 of smallpox her father decides to publish her poems- but finds three poems he’d never seen among her papers Is kinda freaked out by them and says they’re probably not hers- but publishes them anyway LET’S LOOK AT A COUPLE OF THEM On the Soft and Gentle Motions of Eudora Divine Thalia strike th’ Harmonious Lute, But with a Stroke so Gentle as may sute The silent gliding of the Howers, Or yet the calmer growth of Flowers; Th’ ascending or the falling Dew, Which none can see, though all find true. For thus alone, Can be shewn, How downie, how smooth, Eudora doth Move, How Silken her Actions appear, The Aire of her Face, Of a gentler Grace Then those that do stroke the Eare. Her Address so sweet, So Modestly Meet, That ’tis not the Lowd though Tuneable String, Can shewforth so soft, so Noyseless a Thing! O This to express from thy Hand must fall, Then Musicks self, something more Musical. UPON A LITTLE LADY UNDER THE DISCIPLINE OF AN EXCELLENT PERSON A little Nymph whose Limbs divinely bright, Lay like a Body of Collected Light, But not to Love and Courtship so disclos’d, But to the Rigour of a Dame oppos’d, Who instant on the Faire with Words and Blows, Now chastens Error, and now Virtue shews. […] I turn’d the little Nymph to view, She singing and did smiling shew; Eudora led a heav’nly strain, Her Angels Voice did eccho it again! I then decreed no Sacriledge was wrought, But neerer Heav’n this Piece of Heaven was brought. She also brighter seem’d, than she had been, Vertue darts forth a Light’ning ‘bove the Skin. Eudora also shew’d as heretofore, When her soft Graces I did first adore. I saw, what one did Nobly Will, The other sweetly did fulfil; Their Actions all harmoniously did sute, And she had only tun’d the Lady like her Lute. Transgender Love Stories The trans tipping point! (apparently we are past it) Trans /= Gay Trans /= Gay (any more) 1972 “Pride” Parade “Sexuality” approved writing vs disapproved writing Genres of trans writing prior to c.2000 • Memoir / Autobiography • Erotica • Self-help • Poetry • Zines! TRANS MEMOIR • About transition • Written for a cis audience • Plot structure: trans person has a problem which can be solved by becoming more normal 1922! 1976 On a physical plane I have myself achieved, as far as is humanly possible, the identity I craved. Distilled from those sacramental fancies of my childhood has come the conviction that the nearest humanity approaches to perfection is in the persons of good women—and especially perhaps in the persons of kind, intelligent and healthy women past their menopause, no longer shackled by the mechanisms of sex but creative still in other kinds, aware still in their love and sensuality, graceful in experience, past ambition but never beyond aspiration. In all countries, among all races, on the whole these are the people I most admire: and it is into their ranks, I flatter myself, if only in the rear file, if only on the flank, that I have now admitted myself. POETRY SHE Here I am, sitting weeping, this lonely feeling creeping into my inner self, “She,” my mirror. As I ponder my fate to be how to help this inner me, an open heart, “She,” my mirror. Why is joy so tearful here? Now I’ve found her, cheer! My gladness smiles for her “She,” my mirror. Now I hope, with a fervent heart, she will play a joyous part in my life, “She,” my mirror. To the future I now gaze, to seek happiness beyond this haze, to be free, “She,” my mirror. SELF-HELP SELF-HELP Zines Zines Zines So at the same time as “trans” is being used as the “evil twin” to gayness, in order to help gayness become acceptable, there is also a line of acceptable/unacceptable being developed within transness LAMB draws on ZINES whereas MOCK draws on Memoir Janet Mock Awareness of tropes! My assignment at birth is only one facet of my identity, one that I am no longer invested in concealing. Acknowledging this fact and how it has shaped my understanding of self has given me the power to challenge the ways in which we judge, discriminate, and stigmatize women based on bodily differences. The media’s insatiable appetite for transsexual women’s bodies contributes to the systematic othering of trans women as modern-day freak shows, portrayals that validate and feed society’s dismissal and dehumanization of trans women. The U.S. media’s shallow lens dates back to 1952, when Christine Jorgensen became the media’s first “sex change” darling, breaking barriers and setting the tone for how our stories are told. These stories, though vital to culture change and our own sense of recognition, rarely report on the barriers that make it nearly impossible for trans women, specifically those of color and those from low-income communities, to lead thriving lives. They’re tried-and-true transition stories tailored to the cis gaze. What I want people to realize is that “transitioning” is not the end of the journey. Yes, it’s an integral part of revealing who we are to ourselves and the world, but there’s much life afterward. These stories earn us visibility but fail at reporting on what our lives are like beyond our bodies, hormones, surgeries, birth names, and before-and-after photos. Challenging the media tropes has been the most difficult part of sharing my story. On the one hand, there are through lines, common elements in our journeys as trans women, that are undeniable. At the same time, plugging people into the “transition” narrative (which I have been subjected to) erases the nuance of experience, the murkiness of identity, and the undeniable influence of race, class, and gender. It’s no coincidence that the genre of memoir from trans people has been dominated by those with access, mainly white trans men and women, and these types of disparities greeted me head-on when I stepped forward publicly. Ways she challenges the narrative • Talks about issues in her life over than being transincluding race and class • Describes time as a sex worker • Describes trans community and friendships • Challenges reader directly • Includes a LOVE STORY as well as a transition story Challenging reader directly… One of the reasons the gay rights movement has been successful is its urging that gays and lesbians everywhere, no matter their age, color, or wealth, come out of the closet. This widespread visibility has shifted culture and challenged misconceptions. People often transpose the coming-out experience on me, asking how it felt to be in the closet, to have been stealth. These questions have always puzzled me. Unlike sexuality, gender is visible. I never hid my gender. Every day that I stepped out into the sunlight, unapologetically femme, I was a visible woman. People assume that I was in the closet because I didn’t disclose that I was assigned male at birth. What people are really asking is “Why didn’t you correct people when they perceived you as a real woman?” Frankly, I’m not responsible for other people’s perceptions and what they consider real or fake. We must abolish the entitlement that deludes us into believing that we have the right to make assumptions about people’s identities and project those assumptions onto their genders and bodies. It is not a woman’s duty to disclose that she’s trans to every person she meets. This is not safe for a myriad of reasons. We must shift the burden of coming out from trans women, and accusing them of hiding or lying, and focus on why it is unsafe for women to be trans. … but who is the reader here? What do we make of this love story? The meet cute Pop beats filled my head as my booty and voluminous hair, draped over my bare shoulders, bounced on the dance floor. In this swaying mass, no one’s past mattered. Every person’s only requisite was to keep moving. I twirled and twerked to Kelis’s “Milkshake,” my gold-tinted curls bobbing around my face. I felt the brightness of my wide, toothy smile and the ampleness of my cheekbones, a feature given to me by Mom, and the prominence of my forehead, inherited from Dad. My pointed widow’s peak draped a thick tendril over my right eye, shaded in bronze eye shadow and framed by an arched brown brow. I was soon stopped in midorbit by the sight of a man. Fuck, he’s hot! was my first thought. His skin was the color of sweet toffee, the kind that gets stuck in your teeth. He had shiny black wavy hair, just long enough to run my fingers through, and that indistinguishable ethnic look that one could take for Dominican or Brazilian or some kind of swirly black. He looked dangerously yummy, with sly brown eyes, one of which was punctuated with a horizontal scar that matched the mischievous curve of his smirk. His beauty—birthed out of my mental sketch of Mr. Hypothetical Husband—led me to commit to sleeping with him if the night led us to a bed. He said hey, and I said hey back. “I’m on my way to the bathroom, but will you be here when I come back?” he asked. I nodded while flipping my curls to the other side of my face: my go-to “My Hair Is Real I’m So Flirty and Effortless” move. He returned a few minutes later with that same smirk. “Take a walk with me,” he said, nodding toward the exit. “I don’t even know your name,” I said. “If you come with me, maybe I’ll tell you,” he said, pointing toward the exit. I rolled my eyes and smiled as we walked out the door. The Happy Ending I’ve experienced varying levels of disclosure throughout my life. At thirteen, I told Wendi I was a girl. At fifteen, I told my mother and my siblings to call me Janet. At twenty-six, I told Aaron that I was a different kind of woman. At twenty-eight, I shed my anonymity in Marie Claire because I wanted to disclose an aspect of my identity that I felt was widely misunderstood, and often invisible. That catalytic piece moved people to think differently, disrupting the portrait of womanhood. It was the pivot in which I decided to invite the world into my life, when I chose to acknowledge that though you may not perceive me as trans, I am trans, and being trans—as is being black, Hawaiian, young, and a woman—is an integral part of my experience, one that I have no investment in erasing. All of these parts of myself coexist in my body, a representation of evolution and migration and truth. My body carries within its frame beauty and agony, certainty and murkiness, loathing and love. And I’ve learned to accept it, as is. For so much of my life, I wished into the dark to be someone else, some elusive ideal that represented possibility and contentment. I was steadily reaching in the dark across a chasm that separated who I was and who I thought I should be. Somewhere along the way, I grew weary of grasping at possible selves, just out of reach. So I put my arms down and wrapped them around me. I began healing by embracing myself through the foreboding darkness until the sunrise shone on my face. Eventually, I emerged, and surrendered to the brilliance, discovering truth, beauty, and peace that was already mine. Sybil Lamb Sybil Lamb Sybil Lamb Sybil Lamb Where did this book come from? Where Janet Mock is subverting the established mainsteam, Sybil Lamb is building something out of the assorted parts of outsider writing What do we make of this love story? The Meet Cute About halfway through the night Sibyl walked in. She wandered around for a lil bit, then she saw Sissy serving ice cream. Sissy had no eyebrows, and gash-scars across the left of her face. You could see the marks from where she used to have a dozen face piercings. She had choppy ultra-white hair and was wearing one-third of an $80 t-shirt, mutilated into a micro halter-top. She was thin as a coat hanger even though she kept snacking on her own ice cream, using the same spoon she scooped caramel with. Sybil didn’t notice her clean it in-between. She went up to the ice cream stand and stood there just staring and scowling a bit. Sissy looked up at her and said “So hay.” Then she just burnt her eyes at Syb like what she just said was possibly intended to be final. Her mind was ticking away loudly right behind her micro tiny pupils. At last she said, “what’s up with you?” Sybil herself was spinning her wheels and just throwing up dirt. I must be on a rock or sumthin’, she thought. She just stared back at the ice cream lady for a long time, then said “huh?” and then flipped a lazy punk-rock sneer at her. It was, in fact, a secret punk-rock gesture code. In punk circles, it sent a message of sexual swagger and unflappable apathy. “Queen, you roll up here makin fucked up eyes at melike you’re about to swing at me. Can I help you??” Sissy put her hands apart on the counter and squared her shoulders and stuck her face in Syb’s. She was perfect at this. She is more than this room, Syb thought. All the women I løve are nasty, crazy faggots and I’m amassing a collection of them. Syb smiled. ““Bullshit!!!! Lady, you are running a giant cartoon ice cream stand!!! And I really like your shirt. It’s so flattering.” […] Three songs into the MISC. set Sissy got bored, and came up to where Syb was dancing and stuck her tongue in her. They were both at fault for all the stumbling and falling into people that followed. Sissy was drunk, and Syb was really high, but then so was everybuddy else. One of them toppled the other into a pile of empty beer boxes. Soon they were pushing each other around in the trash, pinning each other down or up against a pile of garbage cans. Sumbuddy yelled “Fags making out in the garbage!!” and a photo flash went off. The “Happy” Ending You had to be dedicated all the way to do all the mindless werk needed to get enuff money to live in Metropolitopolis. But as long as you stayed and kept doing the same things your life would get better and better, your body better and better. Hundreds and then thousands of dollars, hundreds and then thousands of dicks in your mouth. If you ever found someone to hear your prayers you should beg for the strength to answer the phone over and over every night, to let boys vote for what surgeries you should get, to have your nose removed so you just had two apple seed nostrils and a tiny button skijump to show where yer nose used to be. You should pray to figure an angle so that when the manyou married at 40 inevitably dropped you for a baby girl at 45 you could swing it so you had money for a few months while you figured out how to market yer 46-year-old beauty to crap creepy crazy wasted depressed cheap tricks, so you could get your lips filled so rich boys would want themagain, your face like a 60-year-old plastic toy, cute but of archaic design, noseless, almost poreless after your pores all healed shut from bad hygiene, your body a bunch of clumps of plastic gnarled in gristle, your tits like a car accident, soft as a head of cabbage, your silicone hips feelin’ like a bag of ground beef and choppedup rubber boots, your little-girl punk-rock haircut with dry split ends and a grey windows peak, your smile-lines too deep to fill without you turning into a human cat. Sissy kicked her pink suitcase over the side of the bed. On the bottom of it, months ago, she’d written a løve/ hate poem to the metropolis that had kept her within 10 miles of it for her entire life. Each year was the same. Chain-smoking in a nook the sun wouldn’t touch, she began packing and repacking. But she knew she’d tried this before. Packing was not why she hadn’t left. There is nowhere to go, she thought. There is nowhere better. She stopped packing. She lay down again, let go, turned her thinking off, and floated on the billowing furs, waving her arms in the slow back-and-forth pulse of the current. Sissy opened her mouth and willed herself not to choke now, as warm salt filled her throat and lungs, and stung her pink eyes so her square pupils closed to horizontal slits. 13 frankenstein manatees made of fox, rabbit, coon, and wolflamb swam around her head playfully, wrapping it in the soft brush of their fur and then undulating into the rafters to sun themselves. She was looking at nuthin’, her foggy vision obscured by shadows of fish and seaweed, not once coming up from the bottom of the ocean to breathe. Is IGTB challenging the trans narrative? LESBIAN MODERNISTS STEIN and BARNES IMPORTANT CONTEXTS • Rise of America • Industrialization and Urbanization • Technological Innovation • Feminism and Working Women • World Wars people felt that THE WORLD WAS CHANGING RADICALLY AND QUICKLY a massive cultural movement claims to respond to and embody this change… a massive cultural movement claims to respond to and embody this change… modernism Some features of Modernism • • • • • • • • • • • It is international- it happens in many places It is international- it is a movable feast It is international- it is inspired by non-western art It is multi-generic It is multiple It is ideological It is difficult It is oriented towards the future… But it also draws on the distant past It is anti-Victorian It happens, above all, in Paris The 20th Century Lesbian and Gay Narrative? The 20th Century Lesbian and Gay Narrative! • • • • • • • • • A public identity It’s exclusive It’s natural/inherent/stable It places you in a community It’s not about gender It is about sex But it’s also about love Between adults Generally two adults LESBIAN WRITING! Beginning c.1900 with Natalie Clifford Barney’s Quelques Portraits- Sonnets de Femmes and Liane de Pougy’s Idylle Sapphique ? • 1922- Gertrude Stein- Miss Furr and Miss Skeene • 1923- Vita Sackville-West, Challenge • 1928- Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness • 1928- Virginia Woolf, Orlando • 1928- Djuna Barnes, Ladies Almanack • 1932- Colette, The Pure and the Impure • 1933- Gertrude Stein- The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas See also Bryher, Elsa von Freytag-lorighoven, H.D., Patricia Highsmith… MODERNIST and LESBIAN overlap both SOCIALLY and ARTISTICALLY GERTRUDE STEIN 1874-1947 Born in Pittsburgh Grows up in Oakland Wealthy Family (her father is director of the San Francisco Streetcar lines) Parents die whilst she is in her ‘teens Attends Radcliffe College- Taught by William James THEN GOES TO MEDICAL SCHOOL FOR TWO YEARS! 1903 moves to Paris with her brother, starts buying art SERIOUSLY MATISSE, CEZANNE, RENOIR, PICASSO, GRIS, BRAQUE, GAUGIN, DELACROIX, BONNARD, DAUMIER… 1907 meets ALICE B TOKLAS THEY FALL IN LOVE BECOME A COUPLE HOST A SALON STEIN IS BEST FRIENDS WITH PICASSO WHO PAINTS HER AND SHE ATTEMPTS TO CREATE CUBIST LITERATURE AND SHE ATTEMPTS TO CREATE CUBIST LITERATURE It is a wonderful thing as I was saying and I am now repeating, it is a wonderful thing how much a thing needs to be in one as a desire in them how much courage any one must have in them to be doing anything if they are a first one, if it is something no one is thinking is a serious thing, if it is the buying of a clock one is very much liking and every-body is thinking it an ugly or a foolish one and the one wanting it has for it a serious feeling and no one can think that one is buying it for any- thing but as doing a funny thing. It is a hard thing to be loving something with a serious feeling and every one is thinking that only a servant girl could be loving such a thing, it is a hard thing then to buy that thing. It is a very wonderful thing how much courage it takes to buy and use them and like them bright colored handkerchiefs when every one having good taste is using white ones or pale colored ones when a bright colored one gives to the one buying them so much pleasure that that one suffers always at not having them when that one has not bought one of such of them. It is a very difficult thing to have your being in you so that you will be doing something, anything you are wanting, having something anything you are wanting when you have plenty of money for the buying, in clocks in handkerchiefs, so that you will be thinking, feeling anything that you are needing, feeling, thinking, so that you will be having aspirations that are really of a thing filling you with meaning, so that you will be having really in you in liking a real feeling of satisfaction. It is very hard to know what you are liking, whether you are not really liking something that is a low thing to yourself then, it is a very difficult thing to get the courage to buy the kind of clock or handkerchiefs you are loving when every one thinks it is a silly thing, when every one thinks you are doing it for the joke of the thing. It is hard then to know whether you are really loving that thing. It takes very much courage to do anything connected with your being that is not a serious thing. It takes courage to be doing a serious thing that is connected with one’s being that is certain. WHAT IS CUBIST ABOUT THIS? It is a wonderful thing as I was saying and I am now repeating, it is a wonderful thing how much a thing needs to be in one as a desire in them how much courage any one must have in them to be doing anything if they are a first one, if it is something no one is thinking is a serious thing, if it is the buying of a clock one is very much liking and every-body is thinking it an ugly or a foolish one and the one wanting it has for it a serious feeling and no one can think that one is buying it for any- thing but as doing a funny thing. It is a hard thing to be loving something with a serious feeling and every one is thinking that only a servant girl could be loving such a thing, it is a hard thing then to buy that thing. It is a very wonderful thing how much courage it takes to buy and use them and like them bright colored handkerchiefs when every one having good taste is using white ones or pale colored ones when a bright colored one gives to the one buying them so much pleasure that that one suffers always at not having them when that one has not bought one of such of them. It is a very difficult thing to have your being in you so that you will be doing something, anything you are wanting, having something anything you are wanting when you have plenty of money for the buying, in clocks in handkerchiefs, so that you will be thinking, feeling anything that you are needing, feeling, thinking, so that you will be having aspirations that are really of a thing filling you with meaning, so that you will be having really in you in liking a real feeling of satisfaction. It is very hard to know what you are liking, whether you are not really liking something that is a low thing to yourself then, it is a very difficult thing to get the courage to buy the kind of clock or handkerchiefs you are loving when every one thinks it is a silly thing, when every one thinks you are doing it for the joke of the thing. It is hard then to know whether you are really loving that thing. It takes very much courage to do anything connected with your being that is not a serious thing. It takes courage to be doing a serious thing that is connected with one’s being that is certain. A RED STAMP. If lilies are lily white if they exhaust noise and distance and even dust, if they dusty will dirt a surface that has no extreme grace, if they do this and it is not necessary it is not at all necessary if they do this they need a catalogue. Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose- Now listen! I’m no fool. I know that in daily life we don’t go around saying is a is a is a. Yes, I’m no fool; but I think that in that line the rose is red for the first time in English poetry for a hundred years Miss Furr and Miss Skeene She was gay exactly the same way. She was never tired of being gay that way. She had learned very many little ways to use in being gay. Very many were telling about using other ways in being gay. She was gay enough, she was always gay exactly the same way, she was always learning little things to use in being gay, she was telling about using other ways in being gay, she was telling about learning other ways in being gay, she was learning other ways in being gay, The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas I am a pretty good housekeeper and a pretty good gardener and a pretty good needlewoman and pretty good secretary and a pretty good editor, and a pretty good vet for dogs and I have to do them all at once and I find it difficult to add being a pretty good author. About six weeks ago Gertrude Stein said, it does not look to me as if you were ever going to write that autobiography. You know what I am going to do. I am going to write it for you. I am going to write it as simply as Defoe did the autobiography of Robinson Crusoe. And she has and this is it. Comprehensible Repetition Before I decided to write this book my twenty-five years with Gertrude Stein, I had often said that I would write, The wives of geniuses I have sat with. I have sat with so many. I have sat with wives who were not wives, of geniuses who were real geniuses. I have sat with real wives of geniuses who were not real geniuses. I have sat with wives of geniuses, of near geniuses, of would be geniuses, in short I have sat very often and very long with many wives and wives of many geniuses. BIG HIT STEIN DOES A TOUR OF AMERICA- 1934/5 Stein becomes a BIG PUBLIC WRITER WAS SHE EVASIVE ABOUT THE LOVE STORY SHE WAS TELLING? We had been resting and looking at every body and it was indeed the vie de Bohème just as one had seen it in the opera and they were very wonderful to look at. Just then somebody behind us put a hand on our shoulders and burst out laughing. It was Gertrude Stein. You have seated yourselves admirably, she said. But why, we asked. Because right here in front of you is the whole story. We looked but we saw nothing except two big pictures that looked quite alike but not altogether alike. One is a Braque and one is a Derain, explained Gertrude Stein. They were strange pictures of strangely formed rather wooden blocked figures, one if I remember rightly a sort of man and women, the other three women. Well, she said still laughing. We were puzzled, we had seen so much strangeness we did not know why these two were any stranger. She was quickly lost in an excited and voluble crowd. • 1934/5 kind of a high point for Stein • Surivives World War 2 (as a jew in occupied France)… • With picture collection intact… • Because she collaborates with Vichy regime! • Dies 1947 • Leaves everything to Alice but her family take the pictures! • Alice publishes a cookbook, lives to be 89 and dies in poverty, but ends up in the same grave. DJUNA BARNES 1892-1982 COTERIE LITERATURE • Brought up in a cabin in upstate New York • Her father was a polygamist and child abuser • Raped by neighbour, with her father’s consent, aged 16 • Married off to 52 year old aged 17 • 1912 (when she was 26) she and her mother escape to New York City • She becomes a journalist • Visits prize fights, gets force-fed, meets famous people Moves to Greenwich Village- Centre of Bohemian Life Famous for her Black Cloak 1921- sent to Paris by McCall’s- falls in with set around Natalie Clifford Barney Falls in love with Thelma Wood 1928 Ryder and Ladies Almanack • 1936 Nightwood • 1940 Returns to to America • 1958 The Antiphon • Becomes a recluse • 1972 Ladies Almanack reprinted • 1982 DIES (1982!) • Where Stein depicts the exterior, Barnes depicts the interior • Where Stein is public, Barnes is private • Where Stein is carefully blank, Barnes is VERY detailed • Where Stein is future-oriented Barnes draws on the past ALMANACS • Origins in 13th Century • Take off in the 16th Century • Annual books containing calendars, tables of tides and moons, zodiacs, predictions for weather, other predictions, calendars of saints days, lists of kings, accounts of history… 1704-1841- The Ladies’s Diary or Woman’’s Almanack 1704-1841- The Ladies’s Diary or Woman’’s Almanack WOODCUTS WOODCUTS BARNES PRODUCES ONLY 1050 COPIES and sells them directly herself and through her friends Ladies Almanack doesn’t just COME OUT OF and DESCRIBE a community but CONTRIBUTES TO and HELPS CONSTITUTE it too it is a Roman a Clef • • • • • • • • • Evangeline Musset is Natalie Clifford Barney Patience Scalpel is the poet Mina Loy Doll Furious is Dolly Wilde (Oscar’s niece) Tilly Tweed-in-Blood is the novelist Radclyffe Hall Cynic Sal is the painter Romaine Brooks Nip and Tuck are Janet Flammer and Solita Solano Lady Buck-and-Balk is Una Troubridge Bounding Bess is Esther Murphy etc…. It is deliberately hard to understand partly to keep outsiders out (and for safety) and partly to make insiders feel like insiders Compare James Joyce And in the castle was set a board that was of the birchwood of Finlandy and it was upheld by four dwarfmen of that country but they durst not move for enchantment. And on this board were frightful swords and knives that are made in a great cavern by swinking demons out of white flames that they fix in the horns of buffalos and stags that there abound marvellously. And there were vessels that are wrought by magic of Mahound out of seasand and the air by a warlock with his breath that he blares into them like to bubbles. And full fair cheer and rich was on the board that no wight could devise a fuller ne richer. And there was a vat of silver that was moved by craft to open in the which lay strange fishes withouten heads though misbelieving men nie that this be possible thing without they see it natheless they are so. And these fishes lie in an oily water brought there from Portugal land because of the fatness that therein is like to the juices of the olive press. And also it was marvel to see in that castle how by magic they make a compost out of fecund wheat kidneys out of Chaldee that by aid of certain angry spirits that they do into it swells up wondrously like to a vast mountain. And they teach the serpents there to entwine themselves up on long sticks out of the ground and of the scales of these serpents they brew out a brewage like to mead. “In my day,” said Dame Musset, and at once the look of the Pope, which she carried about with her as a Habit, waned a little, and there was seen to shine forth the Cunning of a Monk in Holy Orders, in some Country too old for Tradition, “in my day I was a Pioneer and a Menace, it was not then as it is now, chic and pointless to a degree, but as daring as a Crusade, for where now it leaves a woman talkative, so that we have not a Secret among us, then it left her in Tears and Trepidation. Then one had to lure them to the Breast, and now,” she said, “You have to smack them, back and front to ween them at all! What joy has the missionary,” she added, her Eyes narrowing and her long Ears moving with Disappointment, “when all the Heathen greet her with Glory Halleluja! before she opens her Mouth, and with an Amen! before she shuts it! I would,” she said, “that there were one Woman somewhere that one could take to task for Lethargy. Ah!” she sighed, “there were many such when I was a Girl, and in particular I recall one dear old Countess who was not to be convinced until I, fervid with Truth, had finally so floored her in every capacious Room of that dear ancestral Home, that I knew to a Button, how every Ticking was made! And what a lack of Art there is in the Upholstery Trade, for that they do not finish off the under Parts of Sofas and Chairs with anything like Elegance showered upon that Portion which comes to the Eye! if you have to read into Gertrude Stein, you have to read out of Djuna Barnes A DIGRESSION ON GERTRUDE STEIN’S POODLES Photograph of Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas in the apartment at 27 rue de Fleurus, Paris, 1922: by Man Ray Stein and Toklas with their poodles (the poodles were named ‘Basket I’ and Basket II) Portrait of Basket I, by Man Ray • Stein and Toklas’s first poodle was a Standard white, bought at a dog show in Paris. • He was named ‘Basket’ by Toklas who felt he was so fashionable that he should carry a basket of flowers in his mouth (a feat he never accomplished). • A firm favorite of Stein’s, she insisted that Basket be bathed in sulfur water each day. • Toklas noted: “Basket, a large, unwieldy white poodle, still will get up on Gertrude’s lap and stay there. She says that listening to the rhythm of his water drinking made her recognize the difference between sentences and paragraphs, that paragraphs are emotional and sentences are not.” • Basket II was a pedigree and his papers came in handy during World War II when Nazis forbade the feeding of all pets except pedigrees. • She also had chiuauas th 19 Century Poetry of Desire Walt Whitman and Gerard Manley Hopkins Walt Whitman 1819-1892 • • • • • Born in Long Island Working-class, quaker-affiliated family Grows up in Brooklyn Finishes school at 11 Works as printer, schoolteacher and journalist • Educates himself from circulating libraries • 1846-8 editor of Brooklyn Daily Eagle • 1850 Decides to be a poet! 1855 FIRST EDITION OF LEAVES OF GRASS (this is a pun) Admired by EMERSON Writes Own Reviews AN American bard at last! One of the roughs, large, proud, affectionate, eating, drinking, and breeding, his costume manly and free, his face sunburnt and bearded, his posture strong and erect, his voice bringing hope and prophecy to the generous races of young and old. We shall cease shamming and be what we really are. We shall start an athletic and defiant literature. We realize now how it is, and what was most lacking. The interior American republic shall also be declared free and independent No sniveller, or tea-drinking poet, no puny clawback or prude, is Walt Whitman. He will bring poems fit to fill the days and nights—fit for men and women with the attributes of throbbing blood and flesh. The body, he teaches, is beautiful. Sex is also beautiful. Are you to be put down, he seems to ask, to that shallow level of literature and conversation that stops a man’s recognizing the delicious pleasure of his sex, or a woman hers? Nature he proclaims inherently pure. Other reviews more cautious… They are certainly original in their external form, have been shaped on no pre-existent model out of the author’s own brain. Indeed, his independence often becomes coarse and defiant. His language is too frequently reckless and indecent though this appears to arise from a naive unconsciousness rather than from an impure mind. His words might have passed between Adam and Eve in Paradise, before the want of fig-leaves brought no shame; but they are quite out of place amid the decorum of modern society, and will justly prevent his volume from free circulation in scrupulous circles. With these glaring faults, the Leaves of Grass are not destitute of peculiar poetic merits, which will awaken an interest in the lovers of literary curiosities. Goes to Pfaff’s Beer Cellar A BOHEMIAN HANG-OUT becomes part of the “Fred Gray Association” (probably a group of men who were attracted to men) has a brief relationship with Fred Vaughan and writes LIVE OAK WITH MOSS WHEN I heard at the close of the day more— how my name had been received with And the beautiful day passed well, plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a And the next came with equal joy—And happy night for me that followed; with the next, at evening, came my And else, when I caroused, or when my friend; plans were accomplished, still I was And that night, while all was still, I not happy; heard the waters roll slowly continually But the day when I rose at dawn from up the shores, the bed of perfect health, refreshed, I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid singing, inhaling the ripe breath of and sands, as directed to me, autumn, whispering, to congratulate me, When I saw the full moon in the west For the one I love most lay sleeping by grow pale and disappear in the me under the same cover in the cool morning light, night, When I wandered alone over the In the stillness, in the autumn beach, and, undressing, bathed, moonbeams, his face was inclined laughing with the cool waters, and saw toward me, the sun rise, And his arm lay lightly around my And when I thought how my dear breast—And that night I was happy. friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O then I was happy; O then each breath tasted sweeter— and all that day my food nourished me then expanded and re-ordered it into CALAMUS which is included in the 1860 “Leaves of Grass” Camouflage? Already you see I have escaped from you. For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book, Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it, Nor do those know me best who admire me and vauntingly praise me, Nor will the candidates for my love (unless at most a very few, prove victorious, Nor will my poems do good only, they will do just as much evil, perhaps more, For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not hit, that which I hinted at. But also an attempt to BROADEN and even POLITICIZE I will establish in the Mannahatta and in every city of these States inland and seaboard, And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large that dents the water, Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument, The institution of the dear love of comrades. Goes (almost) under the radar In our allusions to this book, we have found it impossible to convey any, even the most faint idea of its style and contents, and of our disgust and detestation of them, without employing language that cannot be pleasing to ears polite; but it does seem that some one should, under circumstances like these, undertake a most disagreeable, yet stern duty. The records of crime show that many monsters have gone on in impunity, because the exposure of their vileness was attended with too great indelicacy. “Peccatum illud horribile, inter Christianos non nominandum.” Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting, Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems. • • • • CIVIL WAR happens Whitman moves to Washington Volunteers as a ‘Nurse’ Publishes “Drum Taps’ – poems about the Civil War • Makes friends with William Douglas O’Connor • Who gets him a job at the Bureau of Indian Affairs… THEN He gets FIRED When the secretary of the interior discovers he writes ‘obscene’ poems O’Connor Defends Whitman writes “THE GOOD GRAY POET” (1866) and gets him a job at the Attorney General’s Office 1865- Meets Peter Doyle 1867, another Leaves of Grass 1868 Whitman’s poems published in ENGLAND and find a very interested audience • • • • • 1872 another Leaves of Grass 1873 has a stroke Moves to Camden, New Jersey! 1881 another Leaves of Grass Banned in Massachusetts but sells 6000 copies • 1891 another Leaves of Grass • 1892 DIES! Between 1868 and 1892 becomes a VERY important figure in England for the people beginning to identify themselves as INVERTS or URANIANS who represent the beginnings of what we would now call the “gay rights movement” John Addington Symonds (1840- 1893) • Writes “A Problem in Greek Ethics” • Earliest known use of “homosexual” in print? • Writes first “homosexual autobiography” • And corresponds with Whitman for about 20 years, beginning 1871 [Calamus] impressed me in every way most profoundly—unalterably; but especially did I then learn confidently to believe that the Comradeship which I conceived as on a par with the sexual feeling for depth and strength and purity and capability of all good, was real—not a delusion of distorted passions, a dream of the Past, a scholar’s fancy— but a strong and vital bond of man to man. Yet even then how hard I found it—brought up in English feudalism, educated at an aristocratic public school (Harrow) and an over refined University (Oxford)—to winnow from my own emotion and from my conception of the ideal friend all husks of affectations and aberrations and to be a simple human being! You cannot tell quite how hard this was, and how you helped me. I have pored for continuous hours over the pages of Calamus (as I used to pore over the pages of Plato), longing to hear you speak, burning for a revelation of your more developed meaning, panting to ask—is this what you would indicate?—are then the free men of your land really so pure and loving and noble and generous and sincere? Most of all did I desire to hear from your own lips—or from your pen—some story of athletic friendship from which to learn the truth. Yet I dared not to address you or dreamed that the thought of a student could abide the inevitable shafts of your searching intuition. Eventually (1890, after 18 years) he finally comes out and asks This reference to Havelock Ellis helps me to explain what it is I want to ask you. In your conception of Comradeship, do you contemplate the possible intrusion of those semi-sexual emotions and actions which no doubt do occur between men? I do not ask, whether you approve of them, or regard them as a necessary part of the relation? But I should much like to know whether you are prepared to leave them to the inclinations and the conscience of the individuals concerned? And Whitman… And Whitman… DENIES EVERYTHING! About the questions on “Calamus” pieces &c., they quite daze me. L of G is only to be rightly construed by and within its own atmosphere and essential character – all its pages and pieces so coming strictly under. That the Calamus part has even allowed the possibility of such construction as mentioned is terrible. I am fain to hope the pages themselves are not to be even mentioned for such gratuitous and quite at the time undream’d and unreck’d possibility of morbid inferences — wh’re disavow’d by me & seem damnable. Tho always unmarried I have had six children- two are dead- one living southern grandchild, fine boy, who writes me occasionally. this is NOT TRUE but it is a crushing disappointment to Symonds Edward Carpenter (1844- 1929) (later author of ‘The Intermediate Sex’) Has better luck! He visits Whitman, who insists he sleeps mainly with women but who also goes ahead and sleeps with Carpenter A “gentle laying on of hands leading not to a spilling of seed but to a far more intense orgasm of the whole nervous system” This connection to the URANIANS is also a connection to HOPKINS Gerard Manley Hopkins 1844-1889 Educated at Highgate School (me too!) Goes to Oxford (me too! I am life-stalking Hopkins!) • Taught by Walter Pater • Makes Friends with Robert Bridges • Falls in love with “Christian Uranian” Digby Mackworth Dolben, and writes him poems • Gets involved with the Anglo-Catholic Puseyites • Meets Cardinal Newman • Converts to Catholicism • Becomes estranged from his family 1868 Begins studying to BECOME A JESUIT PRIEST and GIVES UP POETRY Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb: It is the shut, the curfew sent From there where all surrenders come Which only makes you eloquent. 1872 reads DUNS SCOTUS and decides poetry is OK AFTER ALL 1876- starts writing ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland” BUT- it’s rejected by a Jesuit magazine because they think it is (metrically) TOO LIKE WHITMAN (who Hopkins had been reading) HOPKINS NEVER PUBLISHES AGAIN! From now on all his love From now on all his love IS FOR JESUS Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! 1877 ORDAINED 1882 Bridges compares a poem of his to Whitman Dearest Bridges, – I have read of Whitman’s (1) ‘Pete’ in the library at Bedford Square (and perhaps something else; if so I forget), which you pointed out; (2) two pieces in the Athenaeum or Academy, one on the Man-of-War Bird, the other beginning ‘Spirit that formed this scene’; (3) short extracts in a review by Saintsbury in the Academy: this is all I remember. I cannot have read more than a half a dozen pieces at most. . . . The question then is only about the fact. But first I may as well say what I should not otherwise have said, that I always knew in my heart Walt Whitman’s mind to be more like my own than any other man’s living. As he is a very great scoundrel this is not a pleasant confession. And this also makes me the more desirous to read him and the more determined that I will not. Then concedes Extremes meet, and (I must for truth’s sake say what sounds pride) this savagery of his art, this rhythm in its last ruggedness and decomposition into common prose, comes near the last elaboration of mine. For that piece of mine is very highly wrought. The long lines are not rhythm run to seed: everything is weighed and timed in them. Wait till they have taken hold of your ear and you will find it so. 1884- sent to Ireland as professor of Greek HATES IT struggles with sexual attraction to men To what serves mortal beauty | dangerous; does set dancing blood the O-seal-that-so | feature, flung prouder form Than Purcell tune lets tread to? | See: it does this: keeps warm Men’s wits to the things that are; | what good means—where a glance Master more may than gaze, | gaze out of countenance. Those lovely lads once, wet-fresh | windfalls of war’s storm, How then should Gregory, a father, | have gleanèd else from swarmed Rome? But God to a nation | dealt that day’s dear chance. To man, that needs would worship | block or barren stone, Our law says: Love what are | love’s worthiest, were all known; World’s loveliest—men’s selves. Self | flashes off frame and face. What do then? how meet beauty? | Merely meet it; own, Home at heart, heaven’s sweet gift; | then leave, let that alone. Yea, wish that though, wish all, | God’s better beauty, grace. writes “Terrible Sonnets” I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hours we have spent This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went! And more must, in yet longer light’s delay. With witness I speak this. But where I say Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent To dearest him that lives alas! away. I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me; Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse. Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see The lost are like this, and their scourge to be As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse DIES 1889 Poems published (by Bridges) only in 1918! But they have a HUGE belated impact BOTH THESE POETS EXIST ON THE THRESHOLD OF “GAY” BUT NEITHER FALLS WITHIN THAT DESCRIPTION WHITMAN IS VERY PUBLIC (and struggles to find a way to be publicly a lover of other men) HOPKINS IS VERY PRIVATE (and struggles to find a way to be privately a lover of other men) you might say WHITMAN TELLS WHAT IT IS LIKE WHEN YOU CAN’T SPEAK THIS THING TO OTHERS HOPKINS WHAT IT IS LIKE WHEN YOU CAN’T SPEAK IT TO YOURSELF
