The Gay Canon Great Books Every Gay Man Should Read

by DRAKE, ROBERT

• ISBN13: 9780385492287
• ISBN10: 0385492286
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-11-10
• Publisher: Anchor

Summary

There are countless works of interest to gay men in print right now--anthologies, novels, memoirs, and more. It is a reflection of progress that there is such an openly recognizable culture. Yet how to make sense of the choices offered? What do gay men need to read? What books have shaped the gay heart, mind, and soul? The Gay Canongives its readers answers to these questions. Not only does it list the one hundred great gay books that have influenced writers and continue to shape the gay imagination, it also provides a deeper, more comprehensive look at the twenty-six most seminal works, each of which is followed by a series of useful group discussion questions. Reaching all the way back to Gilgamesh and continuing through classics likeLeaves of Grass, Confessions of a Mask,andThe Wild Boys,as well as more recent books likeBorrowed Time, The Gay Canonconsistently avoids impenetrable academic literary criticism in favor of a more popular introduction for general readers and book groups. The Gay Canonis a book to give to any young man just coming out, a book every gay reading group will want to rely on, and--most important--a book that will enrich and improve the gay story that continues to be written.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xv	(8)
How to Use This Book	xxiii
Part One: The Age of Inspiration	3	(124)
(11th-10th century B.C.E.) Unknown, 1 Samuel	3	(16)
800-750 B.C.E. Homer, The Iliad	19	(4)
750-700 B.C.E. Homer, The Odyssey	23	(3)
700 B.C.E. Archilochus, The Fragments	26	(2)
627 B.C.E. Sin-Leqi-Unninni, Gilgamesh	28	(10)
400 B.C.E. Plato, The Dialogues	38	(12)
400 B.C.E. Xenophon, Symposium	50	(3)
(384-322 B.C.E.) Aristotle, Ethics	53	(9)
(384-322 B.C.E.) Aristotle, Poetics	62	(4)
(85-55 B.C.E.) Catullus, Poems	66	(2)
(70-19 B.C.E.) Virgil, Eclogues	68	(4)
(70-19 B.C.E.) Virgil, The Aeneid	72	(10)
(43 B.C.E.-17 C.E.) Ovid, The Metamorphoses	82	(5)
23-15 B.C.E. Horace, The Complete Odes and Epodes	87	(3)
(27-66 C.E.) Petronius, Satyrica	90	(3)
86-98 C.E. Martial, Epigrams	93	(3)
(100 C.E.) Unknown, "The Cut Sleeve"	96	(2)
100 C.E. Plutarch, Lives	98	(3)
110 C.E. Plutarch, The Dialogue on Love	101	(4)
(1st-2nd century C.E.) John, The Gospel	105	(22)
Part Two: The Age of Enlightenment	127	(248)
1501-1560 Michelangelo, Poetry	127	(2)
(1564-1593) Christopher Marlowe, Complete Plays and Poems	129	(9)
1625 Francis Bacon, Essays	138	(2)
1782 Marquis de Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom	140	(3)
1786 William Beckford, Vathek	143	(3)
(1788-1824) Lord Byron, Poetry	146	(3)
1841 Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls	149	(3)
1849 Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"	152	(11)
1851 Herman Melville, Moby-Dick	163	(3)
1857 Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's Schooldays	166	(2)
1869-1873 Arthur Rimbaud, Complete Works	168	(2)
1875 Henry James, Roderick Hudson	170	(10)
1881 Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass	180	(12)
(1809-1892) Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Selected Poems	192	(3)
1896 Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds, Sexual Inversion	195	(3)
(1854-1900) Oscar Wilde, Complete Works	198	(10)
(1859-1936) A. E. Housman, Collected Poems	208	(2)
1903 published (1902 deceased) Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh	210	(3)
1906 Mikhail Kuzmin, Selected Prose and Poetry	213	(4)
(1875-1955) Thomas Mann, Stories of Three Decades	217	(9)
1914 (1971 published; 1970 deceased) E. M. Forster, Maurice	226	(3)
1915 W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage	229	(3)
1918 Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and Prose	232	(2)
1918 Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians	234	(3)
(1893-1918) Wilfred Owen, Collected Poems	237	(3)
1909-1922 Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time	240	(3)
1924 Andre Gide, Corydon	243	(3)
1919, 1924, 1926 Ronald Firbank, Five Novels	246	(8)
1928 Jean Cocteau, The White Book	254	(3)
1916-1933 Hart Crane, The Poems	257	(4)
1884-1933 (1935 published) C. P. Cavafy, Complete Poems	261	(2)
(1898-1936) Federico Garcia Lorca, Selected Poems	263	(3)
1935, 1939 Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories	266	(3)
1943 Jean Genet, Our Lady of the Flowers	269	(7)
1944-1945 Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited	276	(9)
1945 William Maxwell, The Folded Leaf	285	(3)
1945 Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie	288	(3)
1949 Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky	291	(9)
1949 Yukio Mishima, Confessions of a Mask	300	(8)
1951 Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian	308	(4)
1952 Angus Wilson, Hemlock and After	312	(3)
1950, 1953, 1955, 1957 William Inge, Four Plays	315	(4)
1956 James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room	319	(8)
1956 J. R. Ackerley, We Think the World of You	327	(2)
1956 Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems	329	(2)
1959 James Purdy, Malcolm	331	(10)
(1926-1966) Frank O'Hara, Collected Poems	341	(2)
(1902-1967) Langston Hughes, Selected Poems	343	(3)
1963-1967 Joe Orton, The Complete Plays	346	(4)
1965, 1966 Truman Capote, In Cold Blood	350	(2)
1967 John Rechy, Numbers	352	(3)
1968 Gore Vidal, Myra Breckinridge	355	(8)
1969 Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness	363	(3)
1957-1971 Pier Paolo Pasolini, Poems	366	(3)
(1907-1973) W. H. Auden, Collected Poems	369	(6)
Part Three: The Age of Chaos	375	(94)
1970 Gordon Merrick, The Lord Won't Mind	375	(3)
1970 Michel Tournier, The Ogre	378	(3)
1971 William S. Burroughs, The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead	381	(10)
1975 Umberto Saba, Ernesto	391	(3)
1975 Agustin Gomez-Arcos, The Carnivorous Lamb	394	(3)
1977 John Cheever, Falconer	397	(7)
1978 Andrew Holleran, Dancer from the Dance	404	(3)
1978 Edward Swift, Splendora	407	(2)
1978 Armistead Maupin, Tales of the City	409	(3)
1979 Thomas M. Disch, On Wings of Song	412	(3)
1979 Patrick White, The Twyborn Affair	415	(3)
1981 Guy Davenport, Eclogues	418	(3)
1981 Charles Nelson, The Boy Who Picked the Bullets Up	421	(3)
1982 James Merrill, The Changing Light at Sandover	424	(2)
1985 Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat	426	(3)
1988 Paul Monette, Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir	429	(8)
1989 Allan Gurganus, Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All	437	(3)
1991 John Ashbery, Flow Chart	440	(6)
1992 Keith Giffen, Tom and Mary Bierbaum, The Legion of Super-Heroes	446	(3)
1992 Robert Rodi, Fag Hag	449	(3)
1992-1993 Tony Kushner, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes	452	(4)
1992 Geoff Ryman, Was	456	(2)
1993 Matthew Stadler, The Dissolution of Nicholas Dee	458	(3)
1996 Reynolds Price, Three Gospels	461	(4)
1998 David Watmough, I Told You So	465	(4)
Suggested Reading Group Schedule	469	(6)
Acknowledgments	475