A Close Reading of Literary Passages with Queer Theory

A Close Reading of Literary Passages with Queer Theory
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A Close Reading of Literary Passages with Queer Theory
Queer theories have been a matter of controversy even before 1900. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, they have become rigid, creating a homosexual panic in society. However, passionate scholars like Sedgwick continued to explore its depths and deep connections to the social, cultural, theological, and political background. Also, they spotted the presence of queerness in literary works of the artists who never openly claimed their ideas around spreading homophobia and the damages associated with it. Nevertheless, the close reading of their works makes it visible that these poets, novelists, and playwrights have deliberately incorporated queer themes in their writings with intense care for their stigmatic aspect. Walter Whiteman is one of those most controversial queer literary artists who intentionally fused the themes of eroticism, homosexuality, and gender restrictions in their works through symbols and metaphors. Whiteman’s close reading of passages from “The Leaves of Grass” provides us with many passages rich in erotic ideas and queer desire. Nonetheless, the poet conveys these ideas through unsayable words to associate the fear of societal labels attached to these tendencies. Therefore, he travels from a rising desire for bodily love and makes bold remarks on homosexuality in abstract language for being a part of traditional social, cultural and political settings.
Queer theorists evaluate the importance of the same-gender relationship to understand the relationship between man and woman. In this regard, Eve Sedgwick’s definitions are the heart of criticism. She invites the reader to think beyond the conventional definitions of heterosexual and homosexual (Smith 1998). She also introduced ‘queer performativity,’ where she connects the transformation of the interpretation of the boundaries to identity with ‘shame.’ Shame works as the potential transformational sentiment fundamentally affecting the theory, according to her (Sedgwick 2018). Besides, Judith Butler’s ‘critically queer’ theory emphasizes a radical attitude toward the social norms and human classification based on gender, race, and class. She favours the multiplication of gender instead of abolishing it (Butler 2020). Another queer theorist Sharon Marcus presents ‘Queer Theory for Everyone”. He also provides an academic tool to measure the social, cultural, and political background with respect to traditional definitions of homosexual, transvestism, lesbianism, and transsexualism. His criticism challenges the century’s old society’s structure depending on man, woman, and marriage and the societal labels for different genders (Marcus 2005). Apart from this, Michael Foucault and Gayle Rubin are two other prominent queer theorists who have questioned the traditional definitions surrounding genders and sexuality and the role of the social, cultural, and political context in it.
All queer scholars have attempted to accentuate rebelliou...