Queer Dickens by Holly FurneauxISBN: 0199566097
Publication Date: 2010-02-22
This book offers a radically new reading of Dickens and his major works. It demonstrates that, rather than representing a largely conventional, conservative view of sexuality and gender, he presents a distinctly queer corpus, everywhere fascinated by the diversity of gender roles, the expandability of notions of the family, and the complex multiplicity of sexual desire. Holly Furneaux situates Dickens's writing in a broad literary and social context, alongsideauthors including Bulwer-Lytton, Tennyson, Braddon, Collins, and Whitman, to make a case for his central position in queer literary history. Examining novels, poetry, life-writing, journalism, and legal and political debates, Queer Dickens argues that this eminent Victorian can direct us to the ways inwhich his culture could, and did, comfortably accommodate homoeroticism and families of choice. Further, it contends that Dickens's portrayals of nurturing masculinity and his concern with touch and affect between men challenge what we have been used to thinking about Victorian ideals of maleness.