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19Th-Century Male Visions of Queer Femininity

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19Th-Century Male Visions of Queer Femininity 19TH-CENTURY MALE VISIONS OF QUEER FEMININITY A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirement for the Degree Master of Arts In English By Dino Benjamin-Alexander Kladouris 2015 i SIGNATURE PAGE PROJECT: 19TH-CENTURY MALE VISIONS OF QUEER FEMININITY AUTHOR: Dino Benjamin-Alexander Kladouris DATE SUBMITTED: Spring 2015 English and Foreign Languages Dr. Aaron DeRosa _________________________________________ Thesis Committee Chair English and Foreign Languages Lise-Hélène Smith _________________________________________ English and Foreign Languages Dr. Liliane Fucaloro _________________________________________ English and Foreign Languages ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Dr. Aaron DeRosa, thank you for challenging and supporting me. In the time I have known you, you have helped to completely reshape my scholarship and in my worst moments, you have always found a way to make me remember that as hopeless as I am feeling, I am still moving forward. I do not think that I would have grown as much in this year without your mentorship. Thank you for always making me feel that I am capable of doing far more than what I first thought. Dr. Lise-Hélène Smith, my writing skills have improved drastically thanks to your input and brilliant mind. Your commitment to student success is absolutely inspiring to me, and I will be forever grateful for the time you have taken to push me to make this project stronger as my second reader, and support me as a TA. Dr. Liliane Fucaloro, you helped me switch my major to English Lit 6 years ago, and I am honored that you were able to round out my defense. I’d also like to thank Dr. Liam Corley who first introduced me to my three primary authors. Without your courses, I don’t think I would have found out how foundational of a genre 19th-Century American Lit would be to my scholarship. Dr. Anne Simpson, your courses first gave me the opportunity to produce close readings of texts supplemented by queer theory, skills that have been fundamental to this project. Danielle Cofer, thank you for being delusionally optimistic about my thesis as I was in the dark and abysmal stages of completing it; you are the Nomi to my Cristal. Sapna Jethani, Robert Zavala, Kristin Tamayo, and Stephanie Gibbons, your friendships mean so much to me, and your willingness to proofread portions of my work have helped me fill out so many “XYZ’s!” Ian Noonan, thank you for being my partner and best friend; I love you so much, and cannot imagine life without you. And finally, to my mother, who has always been a huge influence to me. iii ABSTRACT This thesis examines visions of queer female identity in nineteenth-century American male-authored texts, specifically Bayard Taylor’s Hannah Thurston (1863) and Joseph and His Friend (1870), Henry James’ The Bostonians (1886), and William Dean Howells’ The Shadow of a Dream. Critics have predominantly explicated nineteenth- century depictions of queerness as same sex attraction between men. Throughout the nineteenth century, more authors committed same sex bonds to their literary productions. These texts convey that socially constructed paradigms of gender restrict individuals that do not fit within social/temporal concerns that largely dictated the nineteenth century construction of gender, specifically accomplished through marriage and child rearing. While male authors in particular have received an abundance of critical attention for their depictions of queer identity, their portrayals of females are oftentimes cast into a reductive framework, one that presupposes a predictability of female positionality that subordinates female bodies to masculine aims. But the texts I examine demonstrate that females experience queerness as lesbians, widows, and childless wives; these maneuvers often cast them into a precarious position against mainstream society. Allegedly pursuing their own narcissistic self-interests and forging unions with other women as a means of negotiating autonomy, they are perceived as nihilistic or fatalistic. As I argue, queer female bodies risk codification as transgressive, hysterical, and narcissistic, rhetoric exercised to disarm women of political agency and access to traditionally masculine spaces. While consideration of these female figures expands the scope of nineteenth- century queer identity, I find that male authors nonetheless used female queerness to cipher their anxieties over their own queerness and interpersonal relationships. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page…………………………………………………………………………….ii Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………..iii Abstract..………………………………………………………………………………….iv Chapter One: Introduction: Women who Disrupted Spatial, Medical, and Temporal Discourses of Gender………………………………………………..…1 Chapter Two: Women with “masculine aspirations”: Divisions and Distortions of Gendered Space in the Works of Bayard Taylor….……………………………..12 Chapter Three: James On James: The Reinvention of Alice James’ Queer Identity.……42 Chapter Four: A Queer Shadow: Queer Femininity, Failings, and Futurity in The Shadow of a Dream.………………………………………………………... 75 Chapter Five: Conclusion………………………………………………………………102 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………….107 v vi CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION: WOMEN WHO DISRUPTED SPATIAL, MEDICAL, AND TEMPORAL DISCOURSES OF GENDER This thesis examines visions of queer female identity in nineteenth-century American male-authored texts and their socio-cultural implications, specifically Bayard Taylor’s Hannah Thurston (1863) and Joseph and His Friend (1870), Henry James’ The Bostonians (1886), and William Dean Howells’ The Shadow of a Dream. Initially, critics predominantly explicated nineteenth-century depictions of queerness as same sex attraction between men. Such depictions flourished in literature due to contemporary anxieties over genital sex that allowed a subversive privileging of same sex emotional intimacy in literature (Nissen, Manly 6). In other words, because fictionalized male-male relations negotiated desire through coded acts such as intense spiritual/emotional/intellectual connection and socioeconomic guidance, as opposed to through genital contact, these pairings could evade stigma. Throughout the nineteenth century, more authors committed same sex bonds to their literary productions. These texts convey that socially constructed paradigms of gender restrict individuals that do not fit within social/temporal concerns that largely dictated the nineteenth century construction of gender, specifically accomplished through marriage and child rearing. While male authors in particular have received an abundance of critical attention for their depictions of queer identity, their portrayals of women are oftentimes cast into a reductive framework, one that presupposes a predictability of female positionality that subordinates female bodies to masculine aims. Critics such as Robert K. Martin and Eve Sedgwick assume that females merely facilitate love triangles for queer male pairings or 1 are Mother/Muse figures, and may be removed from discussion. But the texts I examine demonstrate that females respond to the breakdown of rigid gender categories following the Civil War in diverse ways. These particular characters experience queerness as lesbians, widows, and childless wives; these maneuvers often cast them into a precarious position against mainstream society. Allegedly pursuing their own narcissistic self- interests or forging unions with other women as a means of negotiating autonomy, they are perceived as nihilistic or fatalistic. As I argue, queer female bodies risk codification as transgressive, hysterical, and narcissistic, rhetoric exercised to disarm women of political agency and access to traditionally masculine spaces. I argue that these texts articulate an alignment between queer male and female characters as both sexes subversively renegotiate socially constructed gender identities. While consideration of these female figures expands the scope of nineteenth-century queer identity, I find that male authors nonetheless used female queerness to cipher their anxieties over their own queerness and interpersonal relationships. Scholarship has largely privileged male queer identity in the works of Taylor and Howells. Criticism of Hannah Thurston, Joseph and His Friend, and The Shadow of a Dream first emerged in the 1970s, decades that precede the advent of queer theory. When critics addressed queerness in these texts, they created a largely masculine discourse imbued with homophobic rhetoric. Arguably because these texts are not widely read as part of the canon, a very limited number of readings have emerged that go beyond outdated tensions underlying the hetero/homosexual binary. Critics often linked productions of male queerness in Taylor and Howells to their biographical venerations and denouncements of same sex friendship; their literary depictions of male sexuality 2 have since overshadowed the equally non-normative undercurrents of gender that intrinsically yet inadvertently propel their female characters. I amend this by studying the extent to which female queer identity is elusive, at times reengaging with readings of queer males to offer a backdrop by which to design a more comprehensive discourse of nineteenth-century queerness. I envision these maneuvers as means by which to recast the queer femininity in these texts to the center as opposed to the peripheries. Although female queer identity has warranted a greater deal of scholarly attention in Henry James’ The
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