Queer friendship : male intimacy in the English literary tradition / George E. Haggerty.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Haggerty, George E., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English fiction--History and criticism.

English fiction.

Gay people in literature.

Male friendship in literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

viii, 202 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Summary:

Friendship in the classical world was celebrated as among the highest human achievements: nothing was more likely to lead to the divine than looking for it in the eyes of a friend. In exploring the complexities of male-male relations beyond the simple labels of sexuality, Queer Friendship shows how love between men has a rich and varied history in English literature. The friend could offer a reflection of one's own worth and a celebration of a kind of mutuality that was not connected to family or home. These same-sex friendships are memorable because they give shape to the novels of which they are a part, and question the assumption that the love between friends is different from the love between lovers.

Contents:

Introduction: male friendship and Greek love

Elegiac friendship. "Alas, poor Yorick!": elegiac friendship in Tristram Shandy

"The last vich ian vohr": history as loss in Waverley

"O sorrow, wilt thou live with me?: love and loss in Tennyson's in Memoriam

"Jacob! Jacob!": the culture of loss in Jacob's room

Erotic friendship. Smollett's world of masculine desire in Roderick Random

Adultery and friendship in Fielding's Amelia

The abyss of friendship in Godwin's Caleb Williams

The horror of friendlessness in Frankenstein

Platonic friendship. The meaning of friendship in Great expectations

The failure of friendship in Wilde's The picture of Dorian Gray

Platonic love in The longest journey and Maurice

Epilogue: queer friendship in a single man.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781108418751

1108418759

OCLC:

1019838605