I presume that Reformation attacks on monastic sodomy contain an element
of projection.
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From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Wilson-Okamura
Sent: Wednesday, 1 November 2006 5:48 a.m.
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Subject: Homosexual subculture at Ren. universities?
I am rewriting (again) the section of my Virgil in the Renaissance book
that deals with homosexuality* in The Shepheardes Calender. Don't need
to rehearse all of the evidence for this crowd. Have been wondering,
though: was there a homosexual* subculture at English universities in
the 1570s? If so, has anyone written about it?
Gary M. Bouchard, Colin's Campus: Cambridge Life and the English Eclogue
(Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 2000) argues that much of
The Shepheardes Calender can be understood in reference to student life
at Cambridge, but doesn't comment on this aspect.
* Many scholars, I know, deprecate the use of "homosexual" for this
period. But the period terms -- bugger, sodomite, tribade -- are equally
misleading; or so I have been convinced by reading Claude J. Summers,
"Homosexuality and Renaissance Literature, or the Anxieties of
Anachronism," South Central Review 9 (1992): 2-23.
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Dr. David Wilson-Okamura http://virgil.org [log in to unmask]
English Department Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
East Carolina University Sparsa et neglecta coegi. -- Claude Fauchet
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