Queer Reading Practices and Sexology in Fin-de-Siecle Literature

Wilde, Stenbock, Prime-Stevenson
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-77208-0
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 176 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 490 g

Reihe: Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory

This book scrutinises the production and transnational distribution of sexological knowledge at the turn of the century. The works of three transnationally mobile authors are in the focus: The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890/1891) and Teleny (1893) by, and attributed to, Oscar Wilde; ‘The True Story of a Vampire’ (1894) by Count Stanislaus Eric Stenbock; and Imre: A Memorandum (1906) by Edward Prime-Stevenson. The textual analysis is governed by references in all four works to Hungarian culture to demonstrate how they conceptualised ‘Hungarianness’ and same-sex desire simultaneously in the light of the new classificatory science of sexualities coming from German-speaking Central Europe. By foregrounding a timely literary angle and a ‘culturalist’ approach, this book offers non-Anglocentric insights, not bound by either language or nationality, to shed new light on the interdisciplinary reading practices of late-Victorian subjects and the ways they contributed to the emergence of fin-de-siècle queer fiction.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bojti, Zsolt

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Strömungen & Epochen
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies: Homosexualität, LGBTQ+
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Homophilia and Hungarophilia

Chapter 1: (Con)texts of Same-Sex Desire: Medico-Legal Discourses and Literature

Chapter 2:  Literary Snares in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Teleny

Chapter 3: Gothic Performance: Homophile Conceptual Muddle in Eric Stenbock’s ‘The True Story of a Vampire’

Chapter 4: False Snares and Sexology in Edward Prime-Stevenson’s ‘Homosexual Romance’

Conclusions and Afterword: Whatever Happened to Reading Hungarophilia Anthologically

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Zsolt Bojti is a senior lecturer in the Department of English Studies of ELTE Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest, Hungary) and is the editor-in-chief of the Department’s scholarly journal, The AnaChronisT. His research focuses on the intersection of nineteenth-century German sexology and the English literary history of sexuality at the turn of the century.