Before the closet : same-sex love from Beowulf to Angels in America
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Before the closet : same-sex love from Beowulf to Angels in America
University of Chicago Press, 1998
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [309]-358) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This study challenges the long-held belief that the early Middle Ages tolerated and even fostered same-sex relations and that intolerance of homosexuality developed only late in the medieval period. Th e text argues that early medieval Christians did not tolerate same-sex acts and, furthermore, that men and women during this time who preferred homosexual relations pursued their desires in spite of official sanctions. This was an age before people recognized the existence - or the possibility - of the "closet". This work focuses on Anglo-Saxon literature but also includes examinations of contemporary opera, dance and theatre. The text employs the figure of the shadow to illustrate the coexistence of homosexual and heterosexual relations in the Middle Ages. The figure is introduced through an analysis of a man's part sung by a woman in operas such as Gounod's "Faust". The reverse figure - men taking women's parts - is traced in two dances by Mark Morris, "The Hard Nut" and "Dido and Aeneas". Also analyzed is the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant in Tony Kushner's play, "Angels in America" and the poems, "Beowulf" and "The Wanderer".
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Introduction: Straightforward Pt. 1: Trouser Roles and Transvestites 1: What's Love Got to Do with It? 2: Kiss and Tell: Anglo-Saxon Tales of Manly Men and Women Pt. 2: The Anglo-Saxons 3: Surveying Same-Sex Relations in the Early Middle Ages 4: The Sociology of Sex in Anglo-Saxon Laws and Penitentials 5: The Shadow of Sodom: Same-Sex Relations in Pastoral Prose and Poetry Pt. 3: From Angles to Angels 6: Sex and the Anglo-Saxons from the Norman Conquest to the Renaissance 7: Alla, Angli, and Angels in America Afterword: Me and My Shadows Notes Index
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