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
Results 1-3 of 29
... reader may experience some small sense of Halleck's psychological discomfort in an era lacking the extraordinary labels and dichotomies that , however artificially , soothe the modern sensibility . Gay academics appear equally ...
... reader of Halleck's namesake , Janet Halleck Drake , and his role as god- father to Drake's grandchild . Halleck's ... reader is advised that there is nothing like a vigilant wife " to set a man straight . ” 85 It is not Taylor's puns ...
... reader from centuries of sexual policing and take Joseph's breath away : “ This ! ” Philip exclaimed , laying his ... readers and admirers , Halleck felt that rule by the majority was more oppressive than rule by a monarchy . Democracy's ...