Scandal in the Ink: Male and Female Homosexuality in Twentieth-century French Literature (Lesbian & gay studies) Book

This study of the influences and roles of homosexual writers and themes in modern French literature examines how views of homosexuality are polarized between negative self-hatred (Proust) and positive idealization (Gide and the Blarney Group). Because the nature of identity is a key theme in 20th-century French literature, the quest for understanding sexual identities and self-image is an integral focus for the contemporary writers cited here. The book includes an analysis of the lesbian literary scene, including: Paris as the centre of international lesbianism in the 1930s; the growth of a lesbian feminist separatist philosophy (Colette) and the denial of lesbianism (Yourcenar, whose novels focus on gay men instead). It also covers AIDS novelists. Finally, it analyzes the relationship between a "new view" of the world embodied by sexual liberation and literary form. It looks at the experimental style of many 20th-century lesbian and gay writers, such as Proust's view of the novel, Surrealism and the "theatre of the absurd".Read More