Has anyone given a plausible explanation of why 19th century American literature was so queer (Melville, Whitman, Dickinson, James, etc. etc.). It's very striking.
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But I'd be leery of an explanation along the lines of "gay critics chose gay writers when they made the canon." Literary scholarship may always have been disproportionately gay, but it almost certainly has never been in the dominion of gays. The arguments had to persuade.
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Yeah, I suspect it was a multiplicity of factors, partly some gay critics looking for a usuable past but also that the past they found (democratic, fraternal, outdoorsy) conformed to a certain very popular version of American nationalism.
End of conversation
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