Dear Susan,
I totally agree and will order the Frantzen book, but I think Prof.
Hamilton was only talking about sexual *biography* of our authors;
certainly his interpretations of Lust in IV.vii exhibit no squeamishness
about sex in *literature.*
While I have the floor, may I propose a new "thread" which is also
biographical? For Spenser's dte of birth, why do we say 1552? That seems
too early. As I understand it, our evidence is Am. 60, "Than all those 40
which my life outwent," which points (if it refers to his courtship of
Elizabeth Boyle) to 1554, and the year of his matriculation at Cambridge,
1569, which minus 14, the usual year of matriculation in college, gives us
1555. At 02:01 AM 10/16/00 -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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