There is a
topic that I would like to portray in this entry, for I believe I could
establish a point regarding the several pieces of work that we’ve read along
this semester. Considering the information that we’ve been exposed to during
this term, it’s inevitable not to pay attention to this particular topic or
subject—whatever—which is present, intrinsically, in Literature: homosexuality.
It is not
relevant to expose my opinion concerning this aspect of sexuality because nobody
cares—I think—and it is not my intention either to generate a discussion about
homosexuality itself—I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, right? For I must say that it does call my attention
that homosexuality is present, intrinsically, in so many literature works.
To make myself
clear, I would like to start portraying this general idea of modernism, which,
basically, could be understood like this rebellion of mankind against God.
“Thank God” this rebellion was expressed through many pieces of Art, so now we
can witness their majesty and beauty. I believe that as part of the result of
this rebellion many people, especially artist, were willing to explore and
exhibit what was considered to be prohibited and unusual regarding the period
of time we are alluding to. From this point, many writers allowed themselves to
express their inner thoughts, feelings, convictions and why not say, sexual
desires without fear, ignoring any kind of prejudice. The result? The creation
of characters and storylines that we’ve been reading in classes.
Ironically
enough is that writers who were well-known for having other sexual orientation wrote
stories and created characters, portraying homosexuality—maybe not all of them were
open towards sharing this private side of their lives but “rumors always has it”;
always. Personally, I can understand this fact, considering that Art is a form
of expression, and consequently, they were expressing something by doing this,
as I mentioned before.
For instance,
let’s start with the author of Mrs.
Dalloway, Virginia Woolf. Even
though she was a married woman and a person who suffered from nervous breakdowns,
it is believed that she had a liberal life—during the 30’s it was speculated
that she had an affair with Vita Sackville-West, her eternal lover. Her
masterpiece, Orlando, published in
1928, is said to be a biographical novel based on Vita’s life. In addition, for
those who may not know, Woolf belonged to the Bloomsbury Group, circle of
writers, artists and intellectuals from the Bloomsbury district of London that
supported gay rights, women in Arts, open marriages, and other unconventional
ideas.
In connection
with the same idea, The Hours, in
which Virginia Woolf is also part, but this time as a character, also exhibits the
topic of homosexuality through these three characters portrayed by the writer,
Clarissa Vaughan, and Laura Brown. Although there are many themes that we could
expand on regarding this literature work, the topic I’m mentioning is connected
in the way how every character deals with it. Laura Brown is supposed to be a
married and unhappy woman, who chooses to accept her reality and face life by
abandoning her family. Clarissa is an independent woman with an established
life and who doesn’t have anything to hide, given that she has this aspect of
her life resolved. In your opinion,
which would be the case for Virginia? Oh! I almost forgot, needless to say, Cunningham
has openly talked about his sexual orientation.
Last but not
least, there has been speculations concerning Fitzgerald and Hemingway's friendship,
pointing out that they were something else than friends. Regarding Fitzgerald,
it is believed that Nick, the leading character of his play The Great Gatsby, would be homosexual as
well, only if we analyze his personality and consider certain passages of the
play that could be read between lines—it’s not my intention though to expand
more on this idea, but, would you like to share something?
I would like
to finish my entry by providing an extract of a beautiful letter that Hemingway
wrote to Fitzgerald on July 1st 1925:
(…)I am feeling better than I’ve ever
felt—havent drunk any thing but wine since I left Paris. God it has been
wonderful country. But you hate country. All right omit description of country.
I wonder what your idea of heaven would be—A beautiful vacuum filled with
wealthy monogamists, all powerful and members of the best families all drinking
themselves to death. And hell would probably [be] an ugly vacuum full of poor
polygamists unable to obtain booze or with chronic stomach disorders that they
called secret sorrows.
Thank you for reading
my entry, I’m looking forward to exchanging more ideas with you!
Hello, Sergio!
ResponderBorrarI want to say that I really liked your post because it points out an aspect that inevitably influences an artist's piece: his or her private life. Although you say sending this sort of hidden "Hey, I'm gay and I'm creating gay characters in order to show it" messages appear in Modernist times, I believe that it has always been there, but probably people were not that interested in finding out why the author wrote about such a topic.
Why do I think it has been there all the time? Because homosexuality has always been a taboo issue and a source of discrimination. Thus, do you think if popular or famous artists came out of the closet 90 or 50 (or even 20) years ago, the artists would have continued to be as popular or as famous as they were? Think about Woolf or Fitzgerald, whose books were published in 1925; that is, after the First World War. This oppression obviously made them release their frustration of not being able to come out of the closet through writing, painting, etc. And this may be Woolf's case (and probably Fitzgerald if he was bi-curious,) but I have doubts about this being Cunningham's case. Do you think this might be Cunningham's case?
Best,
=)
I would like to say that even though there are some artists that have a sexual orientation crealy marked in their pieces of writing, it is not a must haha! I mean, those especulations about Hemingway's sexual orientation are maybe only because of the way he writes. I think that it is obvious that some of the writer's thoughts or characteristics or even wishes are going to appear in their characters, not only because they wanted to be them, but also because the authors may want people to know about those topics to make them more"acceptable," which is the case of homosexuality. Perhaps the only way of expressing their thoughts or feelings without being judged was giving those characteristics to their characters. We all know the case of Virginia, who had this ambiguity in her sexual orientation, that was probably the main problem in her life and the reason she felt unhappy during it, maybe she thought she was liying to herself when being married with a men, Who knows? For us this topic is not a taboo, but we need to put ourself in their place and in that time to try to understand the motifs they had.
ResponderBorrarVery interesting post Sergio I really liked it.
ResponderBorrarEven though homosexuality has always been a taboo topic as Francisca mentioned above, it has been an important part of the literature world. Art has always been a way of expressing feelings, views, opinions, etc. so when you create something there is a part of yourself into your artwork. I think that art contributes to the promotion of the acceptance and tolerance in a society that used to classified gay people as a subculture. Artist, from the very beginning, have tried to portray reality as they perceive it.
When writers started writing gay literature it was a huge change in the way people used to see homosexuals in real life, readers began to realize that there was a hidden message in what they were reading, the author tried to show a reality that was forbidden to be shown because of the social prejudice.
In the end, opression and prejudices were taking away the most important part of Art "Your right To Free Expression"