our primary responsibility as scholars and intellectuals is to the
difficult and rigorous work of the thinking. In the case of Spenser,
Barnfield, and the many other writers of the sixteenth century who wrote
about little else but the passionate and erotic in its relation to the oral
as a category at once aesthetic, conceptual, and sexual (witness
Barnfield's celebrations of what Stephen Whitworth aptly describes as the
figure of fellatio) this responsibility is to the thinking of the desire
in/as the aesthetic.
It has been dismayingly predictable to see this list a-void the essential
and insist on continuing to speak of texts beautifully erotic which allure
and demand an engagement at once passionate and philosophically rigorous in
terms of the sloppy and banal a-historicism of Foucault, an intellectual
giant in his early writings (which of course have not been translated) who,
at the time he wrote the history of sexuality Renaissance scholars are so
fond of quoting to avoid the issue, was so involved in exploring his
personal identity recommended in the last message in this thread he no
longer cared about producing anything intellectually responsible or even
engaging.
Human existence does not admit of simplicity, and, especially where passion
is concerned, far from being emotionally safe. Anything which is not
complex, anything which is "non-threatening," is not worth our, and our
students' time.
Shirley Sharon-Zisser
At 02:01 16/10/00 -0400, you wrote:
>
>In accord with Anne's perspective on the word "sodomy," I would recommend
>that anyone who is concerned about the treatement of "sodomy," queer
>studies, or the history of sexuality read Allen J. Frantzen's _Before the
>Closet: Same-Sex Love from Beowulf to Angels in America_. Chicago:
>University of Chicago Press, 1998.
>
>Frantzen's work takes important steps in correcting the scholarly flaws of
>some approaches to homosexuality in literary studies and offers a more
>balanced perspective that matches the data that Anne describes.
>
>And with all due respect to Professor Hamilton, I do think that questions
>about sexuality are valuable to the scholarly study of literature and
>writers.
>
>Sexuality is a core element of human nature, and much literature takes it
>as its primary subject. Furthermore, because sexuality is so
>important a part of everyone's identity, studying its treatment in
>literature is a relatively non threatening way to come to terms with it in
>our own lives and a good reference point for exploring cultural
>difference. Students love to complain that their literature professors
>talk about nothing but sex; but such discussions engage them deeply and
>personally in the literature and open the way for a greater understanding
>of other topics and of the aesthetics of literary art.
>
>Those of you who have been uncomfortable with recent approaches to
>sexuality in literary studies will find Frantzen's book very satisfying, I
>think.
>
>Susan Oldrieve
>Baldwin-Wallace College
>
>
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