Queer Reads by Rofouf
Queer literature is the queer works varying from books to novels to short stories and autobiographies, written by queer people, or relating to causes of the queer community; and although our perception of literature in its current form is a modern perception, but queer literature goes back to mythologies and ancient legends, and we wouldn’t be exaggerating if we say queer literary works have emerged with the emergence of languages.
Preface
The Iliad
Although the nature of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus didn’t hold a clear and frank label in the scripture of the Iliad, but many of the Greek philosophers considered the love relationship between them clearer than to be mentioned directly in the script.
Ages of Poetry, Wine and Passion
Queer literary works weren’t only confined in the European cultures, but they were candidly present in the famous Arab literature, and we mention here for example, Ibn al-Rumi’s words:
A boy ruined my repentance - a smooth branch and a full moon
Blend the wine for me with the saliva of a boy - the most delicious of passions are the twins of sins
And from Abu al-Fath al-Busti’s famous poem, called The Title of Wisdoms:
Take this boy with my blood for he has - thrown me with the arrows of his pupils on purpose
The Beginnings
Although queer literature has started emerging largely in the twentieth century, yet the novel “Joseph and His Friend” by the American Bayard Taylor was the first American Novel to feature homosexual characters in the lead and it was in the year 1870; the novel speaks about the relationship between the young country rich man Joseph, and Philip the person with more experience in life. Joseph met Philip on one of their train trips and a friendship started based on platonic love, and that was the direction of how homosexual relationships were tackled in the American literature for a long period afterwards…. In the path of the novel’s events, Joseph’s wife dies and he becomes the main suspect to the town’s people, but Philip undertakes the investigations to prove his lover’s innocence, and the novel here takes the detective style that was popular at the time.
By this example we notice that the writer chose the criminal mystery plot that was attractive to the reader to make him finish the novel, and also for marketing purposes, also he adopted the direction of platonic love to avoid a hostile reaction from the conservative readers; and within the novel we notice that the language used in conversation between Joseph and Philip, and also the description of their feelings towards one another, all confirm that there is an emotional attraction between them, but the writer didn’t describe their relationship with anything but a friendship.
The success and popularity of this piece encouraged many writers to mention homosexual characters in their work like The Immoralist.
Then came the American Blaire Niles’s novel “Stranger Brother” in 1931 to start a new form in tackling queer causes with the story of Mark, who was a young man who had recently moved to New York City where he meets Joan who quickly becomes his friend, and the events start shifting with the arrest of someone they know and his imprisonment for 6 months because of his feminine behaviors, which led Mark to examine the law of the anti-nature crimes that was used at the time which got him in a state of depression and pushed him to come out to his friend Joan… she shows complete support and helps him expand his contact with other homosexual individuals; despite of the happiness Mark finds in his new community, the threats continue until he decides to end his life in the wake of threats to out him in his work place.
The novel is considered to be a huge shift for not tackling homosexual relationships with the perspective of platonic love, popular in the works at the time, and didn’t get busy providing any justifications to the reader, as much as caring to showcase the reality of homosexual men in the light of a law that invites irony and is in contradiction with The Bill of Rights and the constitution of the Americans; the novel also displayed the hardships that homosexuals face in dating, gathering and communication, where some individuals had to travel to the country to spend vacations and have parties wanting to be far from the police and desiring privacy. The writer’s choice for this painful ending is an expression of the message of the novel, which is a murder that the society has committed against many by rejecting them.
Progress and Diversity
So far we notice that queer literary pieces only feature homosexual white men, but the 60s decade witnessed more diverse queer literature that presented other shades of the queer communities. The icon of that period is Myra Breckinridge - Gore Vidal (1968); it’s considered to be among one of the first novels to exhibit the trans communities and to tackle the complications and suffering of queer individuals with the gender molds via the story of Myra, who was a cinema-loving young girl who moves to the Acting Arts Academy which her uncle owns, and works there as a teacher, and throughout this period we are being introduced to her once again but as a trans woman who hadn’t finished the phase of transitioning yet, and is going through a stage of lack of hormones that she can’t acquire, and hence she faces some disturbing instances and things become harder after being in a car accident that she removes her breasts in its proceedings…
The novel focused on the expressive and narrative aspect of trans women’s reality, and also took advantage of the sex revolution to showcase the reality without abiding to the society’s chains and culture. And thus the novel becomes and icon to the changes the American society witnessed at the time.
Contemporary Literary Works
With the beginning of the millennium, queer literature became more productive and expressive of the queer communities, and also took forms other than novels, in addition to tackling the colored queer communities’ causes and fighting conversion therapy.
[insert] boy – Danez Smith (2017)
A poetry collection written by an African American queer writer that was on the NYT Bestseller list. He expressed in it the writer’s interaction with his body and soul, the society’s interaction with him as a queer individual, and the queer communities’ interaction with him as an African American.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post - Emily M.Danton (2012)