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Covert
and Camp: The Case of Lytton Strachey and E.M. Forster
Federico
Sabatini
Institution:
University of Turin (Torino)
(Italy/Italia)
Starting from Meyers’ interpretation of the influence
of homosexuality in the arts of the Bloomsbury Group
members (Homosexuality and Literature), my paper will
explore the different treatment of the subject in the
literary works by Lytton Strachey and E. M. Forster.
Strachey wrote different kinds of biographies, real or
fictitious, adopting an elegant and lucid style which
imitates the model of 18th century literature. The most
significant peculiarities of his style, however, are
exaggeration, witty irony, grotesque, laughter born of
suffering and bitterness: all elements that are typical of
the tradition of High Camp.
Through the “pursuit of the artificial” and the “theatricalisation
of experience”, identified by Susan Sontag as the
essential components of the homosexual sensibility,
Strachey conveys the very soul of his personality and
artistry. Though cautiously and covertly, he presents the
homosexual theme without explicit mention but, on the
contrary, he only uses allusion and euphemism, in order to
appraise (and to mimic) the hypocrisy of Victorian culture,
which he deemed as repugnant, strongly criticizing its
barbarous prudery, its fake solemnity and religiosity, and
its obsession with duty and death.
In his biographical genre (which he considers “the
most human of all arts”), he achieves that consummation
which real life so frustratingly denied him because of
social restrictions. His personal recreation of real
historical characters intensifies conventional literary
effects and reveals the strength and the delicacy, the
breadth and particularity, and the sympathy for a “masculinity
leavened with femaleness” (as conceived both by Evelyn
Fox Keller and Thomas Laqueur).
As in Camp, incongruity and exaggeration are the
typical modes of his humorous art. Nevertheless, the
homosexual relationship or personality is never directly
stated, so as to become a negative mark for many gender
scholars, who saw this as a lack of queer pride. On the
contrary, his colleague and friend Forster wrote, almost
at the same time, the well-known and praised novel
Maurice, which was very direct in terms of gay issues but
was never intended to be published.
Despite this silence, Maurice became one of the most
acclaimed gay literary icons (though not being, as agreed
by most scholars and critics, the very best novel he wrote),
while the works of Lytton Strachey, despite their complex
style-elaboration and camp elements, have almost been
forgotten. Beside a close analysis of the two authors’
styles and themes, my paper aims at raising a
socio-political issue as well: is it better, in the name
of pride, to respond to a repressive society by exposing
oneself cautiously or, on the contrary, to be explicit and
straightforward but in silence, or only among a protecting
circle of friends? The subject proved to be more subtle
than one could think of, and it has opened to a fruitful
reflection on the role of the gay intellectual in
repressive societies.
About Federico Sabatini
Born in Assisi in 1973. He studies European Languages
and Literatures at Perugia University and graduates in
English Studies in 1998 with the dissertation “The (Auto)biographical
Genre in the Light of Gender”. Following a European
Commission Scholarship, he moves to London where he
settles for six years. He teaches Italian Language and
Literature, works for the Tate Gallery Archive and
continues his research independently. From 2003, he’s a
PhD student at Turin University, under the supervision of
Professor Carla Marengo Vaglio. His research compares
James Joyce’s works to other modernist and
post-modernist authors (Beckett and Genet), by examining
various conceptions of space and body as re-created in the
light of the epistemological thought, both modern and
ancient. He writes for several art-literary magaz |
