Effeminate England
Subtitle: Homoerotic Writing after 1885
By: Joseph Bristow.
Series: Between men--between women
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 1995
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 193
Subjects: English literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Homosexuality and literature -- England -- History -- 20th century; Homosexuality and literature -- England -- History -- 19th century; English literature -- Male authors -- History and criticism; English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Gay men's writings, English -- History and criticism; Androgyny (Psychology) in literature; Homosexuality, Male, in literature; Gender identity in literature; Gay men in literature
Description: In Effeminate England, Joseph Bristow explores the legacy of effeminacy in homoerotic literature that began more than a century ago with the 1885 Labouchere Amendment criminalizing male homosexual contact and Oscar Wilde's subsequent incarceration.

This broad overview looks into the century that followed these defining moments in the history of gay literature, demonstrating how the effeminate behavior that came to be connected so solidly with male homosexual identity has manifested itself in the literature of gay male writers in England.

Effeminate England focuses closely on the works and lives of several prominent British literary figures of the past century, including E. M. Forster, John Addington Symonds, and Quentin Crisp. In a concluding section, Bristow evaluates the impact of the AIDS epidemic on gay men's writing and offers a thoughtful, original reading of Alan Hollinghurst's highly regarded recent novel, The Swimming Pool Library.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction
pagenum: 1; label: 1
title: Wilde's fatal effeminacy
pagenum: 16; label: 2
title: Against 'effeminancy': The sexual predicament of E.M. Forster's fiction
pagenum: 55; label: 3
title: Firbank's exotic effeminacy
pagenum: 100; label: 4
title: 'No sign of effeminatio'? Towards the military orchid
pagenum: 127; label: Coda
title: Effeminate endings
pagenum: 166