On Love, Loss, and Virginity

The First Time and the Mourning After: On Love, Loss, and Virginity by Jonathan Andrew Allan A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Comparative Literature University of Toronto © Copyright by Jonathan Andrew Allan 2012 The First Time and the Mourning After: On Love, Loss, and Virginity Jonathan Andrew Allan Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Comparative Literature University of Toronto 2012 Abstract In “The First Time and the Mourning After: On Love, Loss, and Virginity,” I consider the question, mythology, and importance of the first time. My study opens theoretically and polemically with a concern for the meanings of the first time, why we reify the first time, why we mythologise the first time, and why we narrate the first time. In this opening, I also develop an argument for, what I call, “the flirtatious method,” a method, which pays little attention to commitment, but instead finds productive comfort in flirting with various theoretical postures, textual examples, and varying belief systems. The goal, thus, of the flirtatious method is to consider a problem, like the first time, from a variety of, and at times, competing discourses. In the chapters that follow, I begin to theorise one of the most important first times: the loss of virginity, and more specifically, male virginity. I argue that all first times must include paranoia, jouissance, hysteria, and mourning. In the next chapter, “On the First Love and First Loss,” I begin to theorise the first time in Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. In this chapter, I further establish the theoretical framework that was presented in the opening chapter by demonstrating the ways in which the first time is theorised and experienced within the text; additionally, I also develop Jane Gallop’s notion of “anecdotal theory.” In the following chapter “Popular Romance and Virginity,” I begin to study the popular romance novel. My ii theorisation of the first time is dependent upon it being true in a variety of “literatures”; accordingly, I move to the most optimistic treatment of love to consider the place of mourning. If my theorisations of the first time and the mourning after are true then surely they must also appear in the most optimistic, hopeful, and utopian manifestations of love. I begin initially by providing a reading of Last Virgin in California by Maureen Child, which narrates the first time of its heroine. Once this first time has been considered and explored, I move to the specific site of interest: narratives about male virginity. In “His First Time, His Mourning After, His Virginity,” I provide readings of popular romance novels and how the male exhibits each of these tendencies and experiences his first time. Finally, after concluding these readings, I move to the perhaps obvious question that has been lurking in the background: what about the second time? In my closing chapter, “The Second Time and the Morning After,” I consider the question of how we experience the second time in relation to the process of the first time and the mourning after. iii Acknowledgments Dissertations are funny things, for they are as much labours of love as they are tumultuous journeys of mourning and melancholia, and this dissertation is no exception. But, perhaps the strangest part of any dissertation is the page in which the author acknowledges his precursors, his mentors, his colleagues, his family, and his friends. So often the author begins by acknowledging the work is dependent upon these people but all mistakes and errors are his own, a nice inversion of “to err is human, to blame it on someone else even more human.” In many ways, as many dissertators surely know, the most difficult part of the dissertation is the least exciting—the acknowledgements, where no argument is made, no thesis proven. I am grateful to have been afforded the opportunity to write a dissertation under the supervision of Dr. Eva-Lynn Jagoe and Dr. Jonathan Hart. They have both provided intellectual support in times when it seemed as if there was no end in sight (or too many ends in sight). I am especially delighted to have had the opportunity to take Dr. Jagoe’s course on Marcel Proust, and that she agreed to share her lecture, “Technologies of Extended Perception: Psychoanalysis and the Long Novel as Expanded Forms,” which has been thoroughly inspiring and refreshing. Dr. Bolus-Reichert joined this project late, when it became clear I was writing about love and romance, and her input has been invaluable. Dr. Hart graciously agreed to join this project when it was about Northrop Frye, but as ideas changed, and focus shifted, he agreed to stay on and advise from afar. Drs. Jagoe, Hart, and Bolus-Reichert provided engaging critiques of the work marked by their own intellectual curiosities. Dr. Carol Mavor provided a thorough engagement with my dissertation and offered a critique that was challenging and fair, and one that I am certain I shall return to often. Dr. Mavor’s work has been stimulating and I look forward to engaging with it further in the future. Though not a part of the dissertation committee, I must recognise the tremendous efforts of Dr. Goldenson, who has somehow managed to keep my head clear enough to write. This dissertation has benefitted greatly from discussions and many cups of coffee with friends and colleagues at the University of Toronto and abroad: Daniel Brielmaier, Rachel Stapleton, Laura Joosse, Jeannine Pitas, Paula Karger, Adleen Crapo, Rebecca Janzen, Ryan Culpepper (who assures me I’m a psychoanalytic critic) and Teresa Ott, Lauren Beard and Marcel Gort, Antonio and Maria Viselli, Kristina Syvarth, Kevin McGuiness, and Janice Zehentbauer. At conferences, I have met great friends and interlocutors on the subject of romance and love, especially: Amy Burge, Sarah S. G. Frantz (who would prefer I read Foucault rather than Freud), An Goris, Pamela Regis, Eric Selinger, and Angela Toscano, all of whom have been passionate advocates of popular romance scholarship and have shared many of their forthcoming publications and typescripts. Dr. Cristina Santos, once a mentor now a friend, has been a constant support throughout my academic career, helping me land my first “academic” job as a part-time instructor, critiquing my work, and always reminding me that as literary scholars we are also interested in literary texts and not just theory. One friend deserves special recognition, Victoria Henderson, who has kept me on my toes, iv helped me to refine ideas, has always been a good critic and a passionate defender, and above all an amazing friend. Though distance separates us, email unites us. One must also—for how could one not?—acknowledge the incredible love that only a family can provide. I am and will always be grateful to my family—especially my parents, Lucy and George Allan, grandparents, John and Helena Human (with whom I share much in common and from whom I continue to learn), my sister, Helena, my uncle and aunt, Andrew and Ida Human, and Patricia—who have seen me through the worst and hopefully, one day, the best. While I imagine that my mother would rebel at being called “good enough,” I hope that I am a “good enough” son, the one that she imagined I’d be, and I hope to be a “good enough” brother, son, grandson, cousin, nephew to my family (even though I’m not entirely certain what that would entail or require of me). This thesis, as strange as it must surely seem to my family (it still seems strange to me!), is a testament to their love. Finally, I wish to thank the University of Toronto, the Centre for Comparative Literature, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance, McDaniel College, Studies in Comparative Literatures and Arts at Brock University, the Canadian Comparative Literature Association, and the Romance Writers of America for their financial support. v Table of Contents First Words and the Affinity of Influence 1 The First Time 13 On the First Love and First Loss 70 Popular Romance and Virginity 141 His First Time and the Mourning After 177 The Second Time and the Morning After 235 Works Cited 263 vi 1 First Words and the Affinity of Influence “The First Time and the Mourning After: On Love, Loss, and Virginity” is written from a self- reflexive, metacritical position, which considers the authority of subjectivity in the experience of reading text. This authority should matter because the writers that I find most provocative are those who begin from the position of the self and move outwards, and I hope that this study contributes to that body of knowledge. In this regard my dissertation questions the bounds between the authorial subject and the subjects reading the study. Throughout the thesis I oscillate between “I” and “we,” a rhetorical device that allowed me change points of view and to ask and encourage the reader to ask: for whom is “the first time” not important? As far as I can tell nearly every medium has considered the question of the first love, the first loss, and the first sexual time, ranging from the tragedy of the first time to the entirely farcical exploration of finally achieving the first time, the damning depression of losing the first love to the thrilling excitement of finding (and hoping) that the first love is the love, the happily ever after. In this study, I position a series of theorists alongside one another who often have little in common, chief among them are: Roland Barthes, Sigmund Freud, Eva-Lynn Jagoe, Carol Mavor, Adam Phillips, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.

Load more