Secrecy and Sapphic Modernism

Novels by significant Modernist authors can be described as romans à clef , providing insight into restrictions governing the representation of female homosexuality in the early twentieth century. Nair argues that key novels of the period represented same-sex desire through the encryption of personal references directed towards coterie audiences.

'Sashi Nair brings a theoretically deft hand to the literature of lesbian modernity. In persuasive, readable, and scholarly prose, Secrecy and Sapphic Modernism brings recent queer theoretical work on affect and normativity into dialogue with concepts of public, private, and counter-publics through artful close readings and rigorous archival work. A strong contribution to the field.' - Deborah Cohler, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies, San Francisco State University, USA

Autorentext
SASHI NAIR is based at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests include queer and feminist literary studies, modernist women's writing, and intersections between queer and postcolonial writing in male and female-authored texts of the early twentieth century. She has published articles on Sapphic modernism and Chaucer's 'Troilus and*Criseyde*'.

Inhalt
Acknowledgements Introduction: Screening Desire in the Sapphic Modernist Roman à Clef 'Moral Poison': Radclyffe Hall and The Well of Loneliness 'On her lips you kiss your own': Theorizing Desire in Djuna Barnes' Nightwood 'Truth & Fantasy': Virginia Woolf's Orlando as Sapphic Roman à Clef 'Gertrude, the world is a theatre for you': Staging the Self in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Conclusion: 'Two alert and vivid bodies', Desire and Salvation in H.D.'s HER References Index