Lovers and beloveds
Subtitle: sexual otherness in southern fiction, 1936-1961
By: Gary Richards.
Series: Southern literary studies
Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Baton Rouge
Language: eng
Number of pages: 243
Subjects: American fiction -- Southern States -- History and criticism; Homosexuality and literature -- Southern States -- History -- 20th century; American fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Erotic stories, American -- History and criticism; Love stories, American -- History and criticism; Difference (Psychology) in literature; Sexual orientation in literature; Homosexuality in literature; Lesbians in literature; Gay men in literature
Description: "A challenge to traditional criticism, this study demonstrates that issues of sexuality - and same-sex desire in particular - were of central importance in the literary output of the Southern Renaissance. Especially during the end of that period - approximately the 1940s and 1950s - the national literary establishment tacitly designated the South as an allowable setting for fictionalized deviancy, thus permitting southern writers tremendous freedom to explore sexual otherness. In Lovers and Beloveds, Gary Richards draws on contemporary theories of sexuality in reading the fiction of six writers of the era who accepted that potentially pejorative characterization as an opportunity: Truman Capote, William Goyen, Harper Lee, Carson McCullers, Lillian Smith, and Richard Wright."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-231) and index.
Table of contents: title: Freaks with a voice; title: Truman Capote, William Goyen, and the gendering of male homosexuality; title: Richard Wright and compulsory Black male heterosexuality; title: Lillian Smith and the scripting of lesbian desire; title: Harper Lee and the destabilization of heterosexuality; title: Carson McCullers and gay/lesbian (non) representation; title: Epilogue : other voices, other rooms.