![]() ![]() He clearly believed that homosexuality was a character trait, which he called "adhesiveness." The term comes from phrenology, the then-popular study of the skull as an indicator of personality. Whitman was a vigorous adherent of this view, Schmidgall shows. ![]() It was only in the mid-19th century that sodomy - as same-sex relations were called - began to be regarded not simply as a sexual act but as a temperament. The core of Schmidgall's biography lies in the book's examination of Whitman's homosexuality and his love affairs. In contrast to earlier biographers, who have ignored, pathologized or denied the poet's sexuality, Gary Schmidgall focuses on Whitman as "a gay man finding his voice, finding sex, finding love, finding friendship." In the process, Schmidgall has written an exciting biography that may permanently recast the terms of Whitman scholarship. More than 100 years after his death, the exuberantly gay - in all senses of the word - Walt Whitman finally has a biographer who puts the poet's homosexuality where the poet himself placed it, at the front and center of his work and his life. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |