Product Description

This study challenges the long-held belief that the early Middle Ages tolerated and even fostered same-sex relations and that intolerance of homosexuality developed only late in the medieval period. Th e text argues that early medieval Christians did not tolerate same-sex acts and, furthermore, that men and women during this time who preferred homosexual relations pursued their desires in spite of official sanctions. This was an age before people recognized the existence - or the possibility - of the "closet". This work focuses on Anglo-Saxon literature but also includes examinations of contemporary opera, dance and theatre. The text employs the figure of the shadow to illustrate the coexistence of homosexual and heterosexual relations in the Middle Ages. The figure is introduced through an analysis of a man's part sung by a woman in operas such as Gounod's "Faust". The reverse figure - men taking women's parts - is traced in two dances by Mark Morris, "The Hard Nut" and "Dido and Aeneas". Also analyzed is the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant in Tony Kushner's play, "Angels in America" and the poems, "Beowulf" and "The Wanderer".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #994602 in Books
• Published on: 2000-05-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 380 pages

Customer Reviews

This review appeared in Publishers Weekly 9/14/98 (p. 9)
An exciting account of medieval sexuality? Surprisingly, yes. Loyola University English professor Frantzen brings the "shadows" of same-sex relations ("as closely attached to heterosexual relations as shadows are to their objects") into relief by highlighting their centrality in everything from operatic "trouser roles," in which women dress as men in ambiguous visions of female-female desire, to the dances of Mark Morris, which "offer gay people entertainment and affirmation of the highest order." Turning to his specialty, Frantzen reveals an Anglo-Saxon world much less prudish than we are accustomed to imagining. Where "queer theory" has sought to uncover gay liberation in the past, his "assimilationist" model never limits same-sex desire to genital contact. An engaging and witty guide to tales of cross-dressing saints, legal codes paying much more attention to heterosexual than homosexual misbehavior and references to "Sodom and Gomorrah" less severe than one would expect, he discovers both self-identified same-sex lovers and a culture that allowed them a certain license. Pointing out the nationalist chauvinism of the numerous historians who have labeled William the Conqueror's son gay, Frantzen also makes clear the vast difference between medieval and modern conceptions of sexual identity. Frantzen's marvelous book, concluding with a fascinating discussion of how Angels in America reverses Anglo-Saxon codes of national unification, opens up a world most readers will never have even known was there. It's a difficult topic, but Frantzen's comprehensive, readable and even wryly funny treatment makes this an unexpected pleasure. (0ct.)