![]() Universities offered courses in gay and lesbian literature and culture, and the number of gay-themed books being published increased considerably. Gay literature made a significant impact in the literary landscape in the 1980s and 1990s. The specter of AIDS is present in most recent literature, whether directly or lurking in the shadows. As AIDS became more prevalent, its threat acted as a mobilizing force for the community. During the early years of AIDS, a panic swept through the gay community since doctors and researchers did not know exactly how the disease was contracted. With the onslaught of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) in the early 1980s, the gay community became one of the hardest-hit groups. Later that year the National Institute of Mental Health recommended that the United States repeal laws against homosexual sex between consenting adults. Although it did not gain the momentum of the civil rights and women’s rights movements of the time, this marked the beginning of an age when gays stopped hiding underground and became advocates for their rights. ![]() The birth of the contemporary gay rights movement was heralded in 1969 at a small gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City. (Hilda Doolittle) the playwrights Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and Christopher Isherwood and the fiction writers Gore Vidal and John Cheever. Other gay American authors writing early to midcentury include the poet H. ![]() Central to the Beat movement and preceding the “free love” years of the 1960s, Allen Ginsberg gave an “in-your-face” homoerotic sexuality to his poetry. The African-American writer James Baldwin introduced gay themes in his novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) and later-more boldly-in Giovanni’s Room (1956). At this point the literary world began to note and accept more direct gay references in fiction. In general, their better-known works do not contain overt sexual references, but their sexuality has been the subject of much biographic and bibliographic research and scholarly debate and has led to new interpretations of their works in recent years.Īt midcentury psychological associations told Americans that homosexuality was abnormal behavior, thereby contradicting the Kinsey Report, which indicated that nearly 10 percent of Americans were homosexual. In premodern America, Walt Whitman and Herman Melville were reputed to have been gay. Despite the much-heated debate over William Shakespeare’s sexuality, many critics believe his work-littered with cross-dressing characters and same-sex affectionate themes-strikes a definite gay or bisexual cord. Among them is the Greek philosopher Plato, who has been among the most influential historically in the fields of philosophy and literature. Further, gay literature also can share traits of other thematic clusters of literature, such as Feminist/Feminism, Native American, and African-American and such genres as detective short fiction, the ghost story, and the comedy.įrom the early days of civilization, there have always been gay thinkers and writers. No single piece of gay fiction can claim to be emblematic of the “gay experience,” for as the growing numbers of gay short stories shows, this “experience” is different in each story. ![]() Thus, not all gay literature is written by gay authors nor do all gay authors write gay fiction. In general, however, fiction is termed gay when it incorporates a gay theme or gay character into its narrative. The writer Christopher Isherwood said it best when he explained that being gay does not involve the act of sex instead, it is the proclivity or the ability to fall in love with another member of the same gender. Not all gay literature deals specifically with sex most focuses on emotion. Defining gay literature is sometimes difficult, given the frequent vague and subtle references to gay characters or themes found in works. With the increasing impact of the gay rights movement and acceptance of gays in mainstream society, gay studies and gay literature are emerging as respected fields. ![]()
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