Book Review	Book Reviews Archive

The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Aristo to Stonewall
Terry Castle, editor
Columbia University Press
How to order

Terry Castle's books have been among the sheer delights of contemporary queer criticism. Her Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture, published in 1993, was an original look at the specter of queer women in Western culture, from Sapphic ghost stories to the way Marie Antoinette became a lesbian icon. Her 1996 Noel Coward & Radcliffe Hall: Kindred Spirits was a brilliant analysis, in just under 100 pages, of the never-explored connections between Coward, a gay man who was the leading satiric wit of his time, and a lesbian whose earnestness was matched by her plodding writing style.

View our poll archive

With The Literature of Lesbianism, Castle hits a new high. As weighty as Kindred Spirits was small, Castle here pieces together how Western writers since the Renaissance conceptualized sex and love among women. This anthology is not about lesbianism per se, but rather the fantasy of lesbianism-- and so it's about gender and sometimes male sexual variance, as well.

For one of the loves that dare not speak its name, a lot of people were dwelling on the same-sex female desire. From Aristo and Sir Philip Sidney, through the Marquis de Sade and Maria Edgeworth, to Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Lawrence, Castle finds fascinating and provocative selections. With the book's heft, Castle had the luxury of reprinting lengthy portions, so we never feel teased or cheated. Surprises abound. Check out the sexy diary entries of 18th-century Anne Lister (who sees herself, unambiguously, as a lesbian, and isn't afraid to go after what she wants). There's a selection here from Ernest Hemingway's The Sea Change and from William Carlos Williams's The Knife of the Times (which ends with two old women friends going at it in a pubic bathroom).

The pictures of lesbianism emerging in Castle's anthology have less to do with what women actually did than with surviving texts from the cultural elite. Still, Castle's romp through deviant lesbian sex in the West's popular imagination gives us a whole new way of looking at queerness and the world.

Author Profile:  Michael Bronski
	Michael Bronski is the author of Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility and The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom. He writes frequently on sex, books, movies, and culture, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Email:	mabronski@aol.com