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A challenge to traditional criticism, this engaging study demonstrates that issues of sexuality-and same-sex desire in particular-were of central importance in the literary production of the Southern Renaissance. Especially during the end of that period-approximately the 1940s and 1950s-the national literary establishment tacitly designated the South as an allowable setting for fictionalized deviancy, thus permitting southern writers tremendous freedom to explore sexual otherness. In Lovers and Beloveds, Gary Richards draws on contemporary theories of sexuality in reading the fiction of six writers of the era who accepted that potentially pejorative characterization as an opportunity: Truman Capote, William Goyen, Harper Lee, Carson McCullers, Lillian Smith, and Richard Wright. Richards skillfully juxtaposes forgotten texts by those writers with canonical works to identify the complex narratives of same-sex desire. In their novels and stories, the authors consistently reimagine gender roles, centralize homoeroticism, and probe its relationship with class, race, biological sex, and southern identity. This is the first book to assess the significance of same-sex desire in a broad range of southern texts, making a crucial contribution to the study of both literature and sexuality.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Jocelyne Lachance
reviewed Lovers and beloveds on August 29, 2014
Lovers and beloveds
This landmark 1992 book, edited by Krentz, is for all those people wishing to understand why women read romance. There are several good discussions here and one can learn (or reminisce) about the advancement of this genre of past authoresses through analyses and debates of various essayists. However, IMHO, the best line in the book comes from Daphne Clair in her submission of 'Sweet Subversions'.
Half a century later, in the very teeth of women's liberation, Kathleen Woodiwiss's The Flame and the Flower and Rosemary Rogers's Sweet Savage Love generated a flood of immensely successful rape-romances that enraged feminists, created guilt in many avid readers, and were cited as perpetuating the notion that women really do like being forced. (We might assume then that men, major consumers of thrillers, westerns, and detective fiction, enjoy being beaten up, tortured, shot, stabbed dragged by galloping horses, and thrown out of moving vehicles.)
That last line was so good I had to e-mailed it to my sister-in-law when I informed her that romances, with its ever expanding sub-genres, comprise 55% of the current paperback market. I don't favor rape scenes in my romance books, I think because I identify too much with the heroines, and I have no desire to re-read Sweet Savage Love. However, there are notable exceptions where the author is so talented she can pull it off (as I mentioned in in my review of The English Heiress by Roberta Gellis). But, alas, now fortified with Ms. Clair's words, I no longer have to feel guilty for having that awfully embarrassing wonderful 'bodice-ripper' The Flame and the Flower on my 'all-time-favorites' bookshelf. What an enormous relief! :-)
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