Homosexuality and Renaissance Literature, or the Anxieties of Anachronism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5826142 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Claude J Summers (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1992 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 2-2 |
| Publication date | 1992-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | South Central Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0743-6831 • E-ISSN: 1549-3377 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/3189384 |
| OpenAlex | W2321821357 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
Homosexuality is a vexed topic for historical and literary study for many reasons, prominent among which are some basic conceptual problems, including definitional ones. Who, exactly, is a homosexual? What constitutes homosexual identity? To what extent is sexuality the product of broadly defined social forces? To what degree do sexual object choices manifest a biological or psychological essence within the desiring individual? These questions are not only problematic for the historical study of homosexuality, they also reflect current controversies about contemporary sexual roles and categories. Although we typically think in terms of a dichotomy between homosexuality and heterosexuality, and between the homosexual and the heterosexual, with vague compartments for bisexuality and bisexuals, the range of human sexual response and behavior is actually far less restricted than these artificial classifications suggest. Empirical studies of sexual behavior even in our own rigidly categorizing society, for example, reveal that most people in twentieth-century America experience homoerotic feelings at various points in their lives, that a large minority (37% in the 1948 Kinsey sample of American men) participate in homosexual behavior to a significant extent, and that the sexual responses and behavior of a smaller number are exclusively or predominantly homoerotic.1 Some people repeatedly participate in same-sex activities without ever defining themselves as homosexuals, while others define themselves as homosexual without ever participating in homoerotic activities. Because human sexual behavior and emotions are fluid and various rather than static or exclusive, Kinsey and other students of sexuality have argued that the terms homosexual and heterosexual should more properly be used as adjectives rather than nouns, referring to acts and emotions, but not to people. As Mary McIntosh pointed out in an influential 1968 essay, the conception of homosexuality and heterosexuality as essential and exclusive categories operates as a form of social control in a society that condemns homosexual behavior.2 To observe that there is likely no such biological entity as a homosexual or a heterosexual and that these role categories are cultural constructs rooted in social history and ideology is emphatically not to say that sexual
Aesthetics · Anachronism · Art · Art history · Homosexuality · Literature · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · The Renaissance · Law · Marriage and Sexual Relationships · Psychology · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Renaissance Literature and Culture
| Citations per year | 0.21 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1997 - 2024 (28) |
| Highly cited | No |