Monumental anxieties
Subtitle: homoerotic desire and feminine influence in 19th century U.S. literature
By: Scott S. Derrick.
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: New Brunswick, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 259
Subjects: American fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism.; Homosexuality and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; Women and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century.; American fiction -- Male authors -- History and criticism.; Masculinity in literature.; Gender identity in literature.; Sex role in literature.; Gay men in literature.; Desire in literature.; Self in literature.
Description: Recent gender-based scholarship on nineteenth-century American literature has established male authors' crucial awareness of the competition from popular women writers. Critical work in gay studies and queer theory has stressed the importance in canonical American literature of homoerotic relations between men, even before "homosexuality" became codified at the end of the century.

Scott Derrick draws on these insights to explore an ongoing compositional crisis in which a series of male authors struggle to accommodate identity-threatening desires, and yet consolidate literature as a masculine and heterosexual enterprise.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-248) and index.