gay literature :: essays research papers

composition sexual difference may not exist between homosexuals whole other forms of difference do. These include differences of identity race, class origins, employment status, age, religion, somatic abilities - and while we may struggle against these differences within our individual spaces they have a material and institutional reality that cannot be wished awayWhat, to you, seems important astir(predicate) the call gay and lesbian in literature?In the formulation of a homophobic society we need creative and critical cognitive operationes that have out the complexity of lesbian lives and same sex choices, not a retreat into the comforting myths of heroines and unfractured, impeachable identities This quote addresses directly the primary difficulty of the issue. The terms gay and lesbian are useful in literature in that they allow a group of people who have been marginalised and even persecuted to twist visible. They enable a way of life and a set of identities, symmetr ic or conflicting, to be presented, to be questi iodind, to be understood and accepted. As categories they draw space in which there may develop a more than evolved understanding of schoolbooks and they also create a genre within which many lesbian and gay writers are comfortable with being placed. A gendered knowledge of a text can reveal undercurrents and depths which might otherwise not be apparent. These categories also make space for the author within the text which leads to a closer tie between the author and the reader in the reading process. However the danger which this sort of terminology presents is that of homogenising ways some(prenominal) of reading and writing a text. In creating a category one is always not only creating an inclusive zone tho in doing so also excluding certain elements. The risk is run of stultifying the creative process through the exclusion by a minority group of the minority groups within. As Bonnie Zimmerman writes in her essay Lesbians li ke this and thatBy positing the lesbian as excess in the patriarchal system we may operate to note the identities that function as excess within our own new created lesbian community. There is a risk of adopting a separatist approach, of placing the categories of gay and lesbian literature outside the mainstream and creating a gay canon but in doing so retaining the underlying values of that patriarchal system. How does one negatereplicating the masculinist cultural error of taking the dominant for the universal