The American Byron: Homosexuality and the Fall of Fitz-Greene HalleckHailed in the mid-nineteenth century as the most important American poet of the period, Fitz-Greene Halleck was a close friend of William C. Bryant, an associate of Charles Dickens and Washington Irving, and a celebrity sought out by John Jacob Astor and American presidents. Halleck, an attractive man of wit and charm, was dubbed "the American Byron" because he both employed similar poetic strategies and challenged the most sacred institutions of his day. A large general readership enjoyed his verse, though it was infused with homosexual themes. Indeed, Halleck's love for another man would be fictionalized in Bayard Taylor's novel Joseph and His Friend a century before the Stonewall riots. |
From inside the book
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... become particu- larly hospitable to mollies and their kind.17 Eighteenth - century London's gay scene was thriving and boasted nu- merous clubs known as molly houses , largely ignored by law enforce- ment.18 Homoerotic literature ...
... become authors ? " and expressed the thrill of seeing and hearing themselves " praised , puffed , eulogized , execrated and threatened . " 17 The Croakers enjoyed the highest form of flattery , imitation . Hundreds of bogus poems ...
... become " New York's leading authors " who " commanded national audiences . " 66 An 1830 review of Catherine Sedgwick's Clarence in Colburn's New Monthly Magazine noted Halleck's escalating fame , as did London's Monthly Magazine in 1831 ...