Henry James and Queer Modernity / Edition 1

by Eric Haralson

Overview

Eric Haralson examines the far-reaching changes in gender politics and the emergence of modern male homosexuality in writings of Henry James and three authors greatly influenced by him: Willa Cather, Gertrude Stein, and Ernest Hemingway. Emphasizing American masculinity portrayed in fiction between 1875 and 1935, Haralson traces James' engagement with sexual politics from his first novels of the 1870s to his "major phase" at the turn of the century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521813945
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/27/2003
Series:	Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture , #133
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Eric Haralson is Associate Professor of English at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has published articles in such journals as American Literature and Nineteenth-Century Literature, and has contributed to The Cambridge Companion to Henry James (1998). He is also the editor of the two-volume Encyclopedia of American Poetry (1998, 2001).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments; List of abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Indiscreet anatomies and protogay aesthetes in Roderick Hudson and The Europeans; 2. The elusive queerness of 'queer comrades': The Tragic Muse and 'The Author of 'Beltraffio''; 3. The Turn of the Screw, or: The Dispossessed Hearts of Little Gentlemen; 4. Masculinity 'changed and queer' in The Ambassadors; 5. Gratifying 'the eternal boy in us all': Willa Cather, Henry James and Oscar Wilde; 6. 'The other half is the man': the queer modern triangle of Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway and Henry James; Coda: 'Nobody is alike Henry James': Stein, James and queer futurity; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

'… there are scintillating readings in Henry James and Queer Modernity, not least of Roderick Hudson, The Tragic Muse and The Ambassadors. These are combined with shrewd insights, considerable erudition and writing of rare panache.' The Times Higher Education Supplement

'Brilliantly reasoned, witty and erudite study …' The Henry James Review

'Henry James and Queer Modernity is inspired and essential for the way it makes James's sexuality not only a positive part of his signature aesthetic but a source of trenchant cultural critique beyond what we normally expect from him … offers up an important theory of the relations among art, sex and politics.' Modernism/Modernity

From the Publisher