ENGL 285: Gay and Lesbian Literature

(1 Unit)
Examines lesbian and gay literature written in Great Britain and America from the Renaissance through the twentieth century, including works by Shakespeare, Byron, Whitman, Melville, Dickinson, Wilde, Cather, Woolf, Baldwin, and Lorde. Considers such questions as: What makes a text “gay”? How does the cultural oppression of homosexuals shape the literary texts they produce? Do these works form any sort of literary tradition and, if so, how do they build on and influence each other? What is their place in the larger literary canon? Staff.