Before the Closet: Same-Sex Love from "Beowulf" to "Angels in America"
Allen J. Frantzen challenges the long accepted view that the early Middle Ages tolerated and even fostered same-sex relations and that intolerance of homosexuality developed only late in the medieval period. Frantzen shows that in early medieval Europe, the Church did not tolerate same-sex acts, in fact it was an age before people recognized the existence—or the possibility—of the "closet."

With its ambitious scope and elegant style, Before the Closet sets same-sex relations in Anglo-Saxon sources in relation to the sexual themes of contemporary opera, dance, and theatre. Frantzen offers a comprehensive analysis of sources from the seventh to the twelfth century and traces Anglo-Saxon same-sex behavior through the age of Chaucer and into the Renaissance.

"Frantzen's marvelous book . . . opens up a world most readers will never have even known was there. It's a difficult topic, but Frantzen's comprehensive, readable and even wryly funny treatment makes this an unexpected pleasure."—Publishers Weekly, starred review
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Before the Closet: Same-Sex Love from "Beowulf" to "Angels in America"
Allen J. Frantzen challenges the long accepted view that the early Middle Ages tolerated and even fostered same-sex relations and that intolerance of homosexuality developed only late in the medieval period. Frantzen shows that in early medieval Europe, the Church did not tolerate same-sex acts, in fact it was an age before people recognized the existence—or the possibility—of the "closet."

With its ambitious scope and elegant style, Before the Closet sets same-sex relations in Anglo-Saxon sources in relation to the sexual themes of contemporary opera, dance, and theatre. Frantzen offers a comprehensive analysis of sources from the seventh to the twelfth century and traces Anglo-Saxon same-sex behavior through the age of Chaucer and into the Renaissance.

"Frantzen's marvelous book . . . opens up a world most readers will never have even known was there. It's a difficult topic, but Frantzen's comprehensive, readable and even wryly funny treatment makes this an unexpected pleasure."—Publishers Weekly, starred review
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Before the Closet: Same-Sex Love from

Before the Closet: Same-Sex Love from "Beowulf" to "Angels in America"

by Allen J. Frantzen
Before the Closet: Same-Sex Love from

Before the Closet: Same-Sex Love from "Beowulf" to "Angels in America"

by Allen J. Frantzen

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Overview

Allen J. Frantzen challenges the long accepted view that the early Middle Ages tolerated and even fostered same-sex relations and that intolerance of homosexuality developed only late in the medieval period. Frantzen shows that in early medieval Europe, the Church did not tolerate same-sex acts, in fact it was an age before people recognized the existence—or the possibility—of the "closet."

With its ambitious scope and elegant style, Before the Closet sets same-sex relations in Anglo-Saxon sources in relation to the sexual themes of contemporary opera, dance, and theatre. Frantzen offers a comprehensive analysis of sources from the seventh to the twelfth century and traces Anglo-Saxon same-sex behavior through the age of Chaucer and into the Renaissance.

"Frantzen's marvelous book . . . opens up a world most readers will never have even known was there. It's a difficult topic, but Frantzen's comprehensive, readable and even wryly funny treatment makes this an unexpected pleasure."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780226260914
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 11/15/1998
Series: University of Chicago Geography Research Papers
Edition description: 1
Pages: 380
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Allen J. Frantzen is a professor of English at Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of Before the Closet: Same-Sex Love from "Beowulf" to "Angels in America."

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Straightforward
Pt. 1: Trouser Roles and Transvestites
1: What's Love Got to Do with It?
2: Kiss and Tell: Anglo-Saxon Tales of Manly Men and Women
Pt. 2: The Anglo-Saxons
3: Surveying Same-Sex Relations in the Early Middle Ages
4: The Sociology of Sex in Anglo-Saxon Laws and Penitentials
5: The Shadow of Sodom: Same-Sex Relations in Pastoral Prose and Poetry
Pt. 3: From Angles to Angels
6: Sex and the Anglo-Saxons from the Norman Conquest to the Renaissance
7: Alla, Angli, and Angels in America
Afterword: Me and My Shadows
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

Steven F. Kruger

An important contribution to the history of sexuality, this original work focuses on the clulture and literature of Anglo-Saxon England. . . . Before the Closet will generate much needed discussion and stimulate historical work in the study of same-sex relations.

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