The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to StonewallTerry Castle Since the Renaissance, countless writers have been magnetized by the notion of love between women. From Renaissance love poems to twentieth-century novels, plays, and short stories, The Literature of Lesbianism brings together hundreds of literary works on the subject of female homosexuality. This is not an anthology of "lesbian writers." Nor is it simply a one-sided compendium of "positive" or "negative" images of lesbian experience. Terry Castle explores the emergence and transformation of the "idea of lesbianism": its conceptual origins and how it has been transmitted, transformed, and collectively embellished over the past five centuries. Both male and female authors are represented here and they display an astonishing and often unpredictable range of attitudes. Some excoriate female same-sex love; some eulogize it. Some are salacious or satiric; others sympathetic and confessional. Yet what comes across everywhere is just how visible--as a literary theme--Sapphic love has always been in Western literature. As Castle demonstrates, it is hardly the taboo or forbidden topic we sometimes assume it to be, but has in fact been a central preoccupation for many of our greatest writers, past and present. Beginning with an excerpt from Ariosto's comic epic poem, Orlando Furioso, the anthology progresses chronologically through the next five centuries, presenting selections from Shakespeare, John Donne, Katherine Philips, Aphra Behn, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Alexander Pope, the Marquis de Sade, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Dickinson, Guy de Maupassant, Henry James, Willa Cather, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Nella Larsen, Colette, and Graham Greene, among many others. It also includes some anonymous works--several published here for the first time--as well as numerous translations from the writers of antiquity, such as Sappho, Ovid, Martial, and Juvenal, whose rediscovery in the early Renaissance helped shape subsequent Western literary representations of female homosexuality. |
From inside the book
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Page 4
... lived in Paris in the 1920s . ( Wood's name is embedded , like ancient cellulose , in the novel's darkly sylvan title . ) Yet until her death in 1982 , Barnes detested being called a lesbian writer . " I am not a lesbian , " she was ...
... lived in Paris in the 1920s . ( Wood's name is embedded , like ancient cellulose , in the novel's darkly sylvan title . ) Yet until her death in 1982 , Barnes detested being called a lesbian writer . " I am not a lesbian , " she was ...
Page 6
... lived - experience ( however narrowly or loosely defined ) toward lesbianism - as - theme : as locus communis , as site of collective imaginative inquiry , as topic of cultural conversation . Far more useful than chasing down the ...
... lived - experience ( however narrowly or loosely defined ) toward lesbianism - as - theme : as locus communis , as site of collective imaginative inquiry , as topic of cultural conversation . Far more useful than chasing down the ...
Page 24
... lived it , find erotic love between women unbearable - so much so , in fact , that they have to write about it again and again . One of the most articulate writers ever to be inspired by the subject was undoubtedly the Russian poet ...
... lived it , find erotic love between women unbearable - so much so , in fact , that they have to write about it again and again . One of the most articulate writers ever to be inspired by the subject was undoubtedly the Russian poet ...
Page 33
... lived most of her adult life in rooms in the Paris Ritz ) but I cannot help but find in Flanner's essay an inspiring trib- ute to " private love " -in all its forms - and to life itself pursued without hysteria or spleen . 4 My emphasis ...
... lived most of her adult life in rooms in the Paris Ritz ) but I cannot help but find in Flanner's essay an inspiring trib- ute to " private love " -in all its forms - and to life itself pursued without hysteria or spleen . 4 My emphasis ...
Page 80
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Contents
V | 59 |
VI | 72 |
VII | 76 |
VIII | 79 |
IX | 82 |
X | 86 |
XI | 94 |
XII | 99 |
XCII | 515 |
XCIV | 521 |
XCV | 536 |
XCVII | 542 |
XCVIII | 547 |
C | 549 |
CII | 555 |
CIII | 556 |
XIII | 108 |
XIV | 115 |
XV | 117 |
XVI | 120 |
XVII | 125 |
XVIII | 129 |
XIX | 131 |
XX | 134 |
XXI | 136 |
XXII | 138 |
XXIII | 145 |
XXIV | 147 |
XXV | 155 |
XXVI | 158 |
XXVII | 160 |
XXVIII | 161 |
XXX | 162 |
XXXI | 163 |
XXXII | 165 |
XXXIII | 171 |
XXXIV | 175 |
XXXV | 178 |
XXXVI | 181 |
XXXVII | 184 |
XXXVIII | 187 |
XXXIX | 191 |
XL | 201 |
XLI | 206 |
XLII | 208 |
XLIII | 217 |
XLIV | 219 |
XLV | 229 |
XLVI | 230 |
XLVII | 231 |
XLVIII | 235 |
XLIX | 237 |
L | 243 |
LI | 248 |
LII | 250 |
LIII | 252 |
LIV | 267 |
LV | 272 |
LVI | 286 |
LVII | 292 |
LVIII | 294 |
LIX | 297 |
LX | 308 |
LXI | 313 |
LXII | 319 |
LXIII | 322 |
LXIV | 324 |
LXV | 330 |
LXVI | 334 |
LXVII | 339 |
LXVIII | 344 |
LXIX | 349 |
LXX | 351 |
LXXI | 360 |
LXXII | 380 |
LXXIII | 390 |
LXXIV | 400 |
LXXV | 402 |
LXXVI | 410 |
LXXVII | 424 |
LXXVIII | 426 |
LXXIX | 428 |
LXXX | 434 |
LXXXI | 453 |
LXXXIII | 471 |
LXXXIV | 476 |
LXXXVI | 482 |
LXXXVII | 484 |
LXXXIX | 493 |
XCI | 499 |
CIV | 557 |
CV | 558 |
CVI | 559 |
CVII | 560 |
CVIII | 564 |
CIX | 573 |
CXI | 581 |
CXII | 589 |
CXIII | 595 |
CXIV | 599 |
CXV | 602 |
CXVII | 608 |
CXVIII | 610 |
CXX | 613 |
CXXI | 620 |
CXXII | 622 |
CXXIV | 626 |
CXXV | 643 |
CXXVII | 648 |
CXXIX | 651 |
CXXXI | 669 |
CXXXII | 673 |
CXXXIV | 683 |
CXXXVI | 692 |
CXXXVII | 697 |
CXXXVIII | 705 |
CXXXIX | 716 |
CXL | 723 |
CXLII | 726 |
CXLIII | 732 |
CXLIV | 740 |
CXLVI | 751 |
CXLVIII | 756 |
CXLIX | 762 |
CL | 769 |
CLI | 779 |
CLII | 785 |
CLIV | 795 |
CLV | 806 |
CLVI | 816 |
CLVIII | 820 |
CLX | 826 |
CLXI | 833 |
CLXII | 844 |
CLXV | 849 |
CLXVII | 854 |
CLXIX | 860 |
CLXX | 865 |
CLXXII | 876 |
CLXXIII | 887 |
CLXXIV | 890 |
CLXXV | 894 |
CLXXVII | 900 |
CLXXVIII | 905 |
CLXXX | 917 |
CLXXXI | 924 |
CLXXXIII | 932 |
CLXXXIV | 940 |
CLXXXV | 948 |
CLXXXVII | 967 |
CLXXXIX | 974 |
CXC | 977 |
CXCII | 989 |
CXCIII | 999 |
CXCIV | 1008 |
CXCV | 1016 |
CXCVI | 1018 |
CXCVII | 1028 |
CXCIX | 1047 |
CCI | 1054 |
CCII | 1064 |
CCIV | 1075 |
CCV | 1083 |
Other editions - View all
The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall Terry Castle No preview available - 2003 |
The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall Terry Castle No preview available - 2003 |
Common terms and phrases
Alwynne Aphra Behn arms beauty began breast charming child Clare Cynthia D. H. Lawrence D'AIGUINES dark daughter dear death door dress Elizabeth Emma Donoghue English erotic eyes face feel Felipa felt female fiction friendship FURTHER READING Gallathea Gertrude Stein girl hair hand head heart homosexual JACQUES Jane Katherine Mansfield Katherine Philips kiss knew lady laugh lesbian lips literary lived London look Lorn lover maid married Mary Miss Egert Miss Ogilvy mother never night novel once Paris passion pleasure poems poet poetry Radclyffe Hall Renée Vivien sapphic Sappho seemed sexual smile soul stood story strange sweet talk tell Terry Castle thee things thou thought told took Tribades turned University Press verse Virginia Woolf Vita Sackville-West voice Willa Cather woman women Woolf words writing York young
References to this book
Lesbian Inscriptions in Francophone Society and Culture Renate Günther,Wendy Michallat Limited preview - 2007 |