The Heroes that were “So”
As my workshop for Blue Death gets underway, I continue to explore the sundry themes behind the novel for my research. Recently, I ran across an article (The Untold Gay History of Britain’s First World War Poets), which reviews a wonderful podcast called Love and War. I find both the essay and podcast stirring, and I recommend them to anyone participating in the workshop (or otherwise interested). They capture the sentiment of the age for men like Rupert Brooke, who dared share affinity for other men during the Great War. The portrayals and analysis validate my historical approach to Blue Death.
Writing about gay romances from this period was a challenge. At the time of the war, it was illegal in England to discuss homosexuality positively in fiction as well as nonfiction. There are only a handful of affirming, explicitly “gay” literary works to cite beyond this war poetry. It is likely because the poets veiled the subject matter in vagueness and metaphor, albeit several seemed fairly unabashed about openly expressing their sexuality by the war’s end.
One reason we find so little we can analyze is that it was common for family members and even close friends to destroy any record of a person’s gay inclinations upon their death. They would actually gather and burn what they could find. In fact, one of our best portrayals of same-sex affinities in that age comes from the notable writer E.M. Forester -- by way of the novel Maurice. But even Forester held back the work’s release from print until after his own death. It was not until the 1970s, with the book’s posthumous publication, that we were allowed a look inside the nuances of the queer world characterized by Forester.
Looking back, however, it appears World War One began to change things for same-sex portrayals. It is often argued that the horrors of the Great War caused gay men to be more resiliently open and defiant to social convention in the face of what they had experienced. This was clearly the case in Germany, where we see the rise of a vibrant gay rights movement in the wake of the Armistice; one to be brutally crushed later by the Nazis. We also see men in England more willing to express themselves explicitly in their private letters, which the podcast draws heavily upon to make its case. All of this opens the door for what will slowly unfold in gay literature over the next fifty to sixty years.
Scholars today generally believe that sexual identity is a modern phenomenon rooted in the 19th-century efforts to classify homosexuality as an inversion (innate mental condition) versus a perversion (men who simply engaged in immoral acts). They assert this is the first point where sexuality was seen as something internal to the individual's make-up instead of something one overtly (or covertly, in this case) did. Before the inversion/perversion classification, homosexuality was described as an immoral act that any man might engage in, and the idea one might be “gay” (as it will eventually become known) was non-existent and is argued to have not had relevant meaning until after that point in time.
But I have to say that I have begun — at an intuitive level — to question the notion that identifying with one’s sexual preferences is a modern development alone. Granted, I think it’s likely true that the 19th-century was the first time the wider, dominant culture began to see homosexuality this way. Still, I am less and less convinced that was the case for people predisposed themselves to non-gender conforming identities. My exploration of the subject for Blue Death leads me to believe that the history of gay subculture — centered around self-identifying as “being so” — runs more deeply into the past than we assume. It’s an idea I will make a case for in the coming days.
For now, however, this podcast gives us a window into the war as a crucible for writings that express same-sex attraction. The poets, like my protagonist in the novel, are contending with the moral implications of modern warfare as well as with their own romantic identities. These themes commingle and appear to dance darkly, and those struggles are palpable for me in light of my own work. The podcast, therefore, provides a rich and powerful vantage into the subject matter of these poets. And I find the discussion affirming of my efforts in Blue Death, capturing the current of inner anguish and reflection that coming out (in any age) requires of us.
I called him, once; then listened: nothing moved:
Only my thumping heart beat out the time.
Whispering his name, I groped from room to room.
Quite empty was that house; it could not hold
His human ghost, remembered in the love
That strove in vain to be companioned still.
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