Gay literature
In contexts where homosexuality has been perceived negatively, LGBT literature may also document the psychological stresses and alienation suffered by those experiencing prejudice, legal discrimination, AIDS, self-loathing, bullying, violence, religious condemnation, denial, suicide, persecution, and other such obstacles.
In classical mythology, male lovers were attributed to ancient Greek gods and heroes such as Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon and Heracles (including Ganymede, Hyacinth, Nerites and Hylas, respectively) as a reflection and validation of the tradition of pederasty.
[4] Though Homer did not explicitly portray the heroes Achilles and Patroclus as homosexual lovers in his 8th-century BC Trojan War epic, the Iliad,[5][6] later ancient authors presented the intense relationship as such.
[34] Despite the "increased visibility of queer behavior" and prospering networks of male prostitution in cities like Paris and London, homosexual activity had been outlawed in England (and by extension, the United States) as early as the Buggery Act 1533.
[40][41] Robert K. Martin called it "quite explicit in its adoption of a political stance toward homosexuality" and notes that the character Philip "argues for the 'rights' of those 'who cannot shape themselves according to the common-place pattern of society.
'"[42] Henry Blake Fuller's 1898 play, At St. Judas's, and 1919 novel, Bertram Cope's Year, are noted as among the earliest published American works in literature on the theme of homosexual relationships.
[43] The new "atmosphere of frankness" created by the Enlightenment sparked the production of pornography like John Cleland's infamous Fanny Hill (1749), which features a rare graphic scene of male homosexual sex.
[33][44] Published anonymously a century later, The Sins of the Cities of the Plain (1881) and Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal (1893) are two of the earliest pieces of English-language pornography to explicitly and near-exclusively concern homosexuality.
[48] Drew Banks called Dorian Gray a groundbreaking gay character because he was "one of the first in a long list of hedonistic fellows whose homosexual tendencies secured a terrible fate.
"[49] The French realist Émile Zola in his novel Nana (1880) depicted, along with a wide variety of heterosexual couplings and some lesbian scenes, a single homosexual character, Labordette.
Nobel Prize-winner André Gide's semi-autobiographical novel The Immoralist (1902) finds a newly married man reawakened by his attraction to a series of young Arab boys.
"[64] "Smoke, Lilies, and Jade" by gay author and artist Richard Bruce Nugent, published in 1926, was the first short story by an African-American writer openly addressing his homosexuality.
[70] Slide names only four familiar gay novels of the first half of the 20th century in English: Djuna Barnes' Nightwood (1936), Carson McCullers' Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941), Truman Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) and Gore Vidal's The City and the Pillar (1948).
[63] Other notable works of the 1940s and 1950s include Jean Genet's semiautobiographical Our Lady of the Flowers (1943) and The Thief's Journal (1949),[78] Yukio Mishima's Confessions of a Mask (1949),[79] Umberto Saba's Ernesto (written in 1953, published posthumously in 1975),[80] and Giovanni's Room (1956) by James Baldwin.
[34][83][84] A key element of Allen Drury's 1959 bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning political novel Advise and Consent is the blackmailing of young US senator Brigham Anderson, who is hiding a secret wartime homosexual tryst.
[90] Tormented homosexual North McAllister is one of the ensemble of Alpha Zeta fraternity brothers and their families that Drury follows over the course of 60 years in his University novels (1990-1998),[91] as well as René Suratt — villain and "bisexual seducer of students" — and the tragic lovers Amos Wilson and Joel.
"[94] Nevertheless, Pai Hsien-yung's Jade Love (1960), "Moon Dream" (1960), "Youthfulness" (1961), and "Seventeen Years Old and Lonely" (1961) — novellas and short stories exploring male homosexual desire — were published in Xiandai Wenxue.
He published "A Sky Full of Bright, Twinkling Stars" in 1969, which follows gay characters who frequent Taipei's New Park area and would appear in Pai's 1983 novel Crystal Boys.
Crystal Boys is set in 1970s Taipei and covers the main character Li-Qing's life after he is expelled from school for engaging in sexual relations with his classmate Zhao Ying.
I merely note that it deals with a Manhattan subculture wholly devoid of ethics or morality, that said readers may well find it 'shocking', that it is beautifully plotted and written with elegance and wit ... and that you must under no circumstances miss it.
It explores adolescent homosexual relations and includes a fictional first-person account, written in 1944, of a brief tragic encounter between a young soldier and a bakery apprentice in rural France.
"[115] The following year, Chi Ta-wei published Sensory World (1995), which is composed of short stories are significant because of their explicit discussion of sex, sexuality, gender, transgender identity, and male homosexual desire.
LGBT themes have also become more visible in a growing body of high-quality young adult literature, with notable authors including Alex Sánchez, Stephen Chbosky, Shyam Selvadurai, Perry Moore, Adam Silvera, Benjamin Alire Sáenz, and David Levithan.
[119][120] Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue is another example of young adult gay and bisexual romantic fiction, and there is currently in the works a film adaptation by Amazon Studios.
[127][128][129] Uranian Worlds, by Eric Garber and Lyn Paleo, was compiled in 1983 and is an authoritative guide to science fiction literature featuring gay, lesbian, transgender, and related themes.
[34] Somewhat later came the first lesbian vampire novella Carmilla (1872) by Sheridan Le Fanu[35][36][37] and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde, which shocked readers with its sensuality and overtly homosexual characters.
"[134] Richard Dyer discusses the recurring homoerotic motifs of vampire fiction in his article "Children of the Night", primarily "the necessity of secrecy, the persistence of a forbidden passion, and the fear of discovery.
Independently published one-off comic books and series, often produced by gay creators and featuring autobiographical storylines, tackled political issues of interest to LGBT readers.
The first openly gay characters appeared in prominent strips in the late 1970s; representation of LGBT issues in these titles causes vociferous reaction, both praise and condemnation, to the present day.
House of Hades (2013), Book 4 in the young adult series The Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan, features a gay supporting character, Nico di Angelo.
