258 pages
English language
Published 1990 by University of California Press.
Epistemology of the closet
4 stars
(1 review)
Working from classic texts of European and American writers―including Melville, James, Nietzsche, Proust, and Wilde―Sedgwick analyzes a turn-of-the-century historical moment in which sexual orientation became as important a demarcation of personhood as gender had been for centuries. In her preface to this updated edition Sedgwick places the book both personally and historically, looking specifically at the horror of the first wave of the AIDS epidemic and its influence on the text.
Subjects
- Melville, Herman, 1819-1891
- James, Henry, 1843-1916 -- Criticism and interpretation
- Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900 -- Criticism and interpretation
- Proust, Marcel, 1871-1922
- Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900
- American fiction -- Male authors -- History and criticism
- Homosexuality and literature
- Gay men's writings -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc
- Gay men in literature