1. So I have some thoughts on Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Louisa May Alcott, the rise of gay culture in the 20th century, buddy comedies, Kirk/Spock slash fiction, Leslie Fiedler, Freudian homophobia, a few other things.
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2. I did a podcast with
@chick_in_kiev where we talked about Melville & Moby Dick, with a focus on the homoeroticism of the Ishmael/Queequeg relationship. The two are in fact described as a married couple and certainly act like one.7 replies 3 retweets 90 likesShow this thread -
3. One important context for Melville's homoeroticism was the larger queerness of 19th century American literature: (Cooper, Whitman, Dickinson, Lincoln, Alcott, Henry James) -- a product of a frontier society where genders were segregated & artistry considered fey.
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4. Melville was famously forgotten by the larger world in the last few decades of his life. The Melville revival, sparks of which were visible in the 1890s with Havelock Ellis' enthusiasm, was largely the work of gay enthusiasts claiming an ancestor.
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5. An article in The Nation and Athenaeum in 1922 alludes (in coded terms) to the gay enthusiasm for Melville's stories of many sailors. Gay artists & scholars (Newton Arvin, F.O. Matthiessen, Benjamin Britten, E.M. Forster) were among the major advocates for Melville.pic.twitter.com/dfUrbbRU3w
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6. In 1948 in Partisan Review, Leslie Fiedler wrote a famous essay ("Come Back to the Raft Ag'in, Huck Honey!") arguing that the dominant archetype of 19th century American culture was the interracial homosexual love story (as seen in Cooper, Melville & Twain).
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7. Fiedler argued that American writers repeatedly told tales of interracial male couples (Hawk-eye/Chingachgook Ishmael/Queequeg, Huck/Jim) who bond over a shared disdain for the constrictions of civilization (as embodied by white women).
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8. Fiedler's essay and his subsequent working out of this idea suffers from a kind of Freudian homophobia. Fiedler thought the homoerotic element of American literature was proof of immaturity -- that a real literature would have stories of mature heterosexual relationships.
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9. But leaving aside Fiedler's normative judgement, the pattern he recognized does exist -- and in fact continues to show up in the long tradition of the buddy comedy and in many cop movies. Fiedler himself saw Captain Kirk & Mr. Spock as continuations of the theme.
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10. The function of fan fiction is often to take the latent homoeroticism of such stories and make it explicit -- Kirk/Spock slash fiction being the most obvious. But you hardly need to do Ishmael/Queequeg slash fiction -- it's all pretty much in the text.
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Jeet Heer Retweeted Moby Dick Energy
11. Anyways, if you want to hear me and the delightful @chick_in_kiev develop these ideas at greater length, you can listen to this podcast.https://twitter.com/mobydickenergy/status/1237064313841618944 …
Jeet Heer added,
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Replying to @HeerJeet @Chick_in_Kiev
Twist: this reading benefits from the fact it's equally accessible to highly sophisticated academics and gurning kid brothers. He said sperm!
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Replying to @HeerJeet @Chick_in_Kiev
This was not what I expected, but am pleasantly surprised.
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