• Home
  • Browse by…
    • Browse by Genre
      • Children’s
      • Comics
        • Manga
      • General Fiction
        • Adventure
        • Anthologies
        • Crime
        • Fairy Tales
        • Lesbian Pulp Fiction
        • Literary Fiction
        • Novellas
        • Retellings
        • Series
        • Short Stories
        • Thrillers
      • Historical Fiction
        • 1920s
        • Regency
      • Horror
        • Vampires
        • Zombies
      • Mystery
      • Memoirs
      • Nonfiction
        • Biographies
        • Essays
        • History
      • Poetry
      • Romance
        • Butch/Femme
      • Erotica
        • BDSM
      • SFF
        • Sci Fi
          • Dystopia
        • Fantasy
          • Mythical Creatures
            • Mermaids
            • Witches
          • Paranormal
          • Steampunk
          • Urban Fantasy
      • Young Adult
    • Browse by Rating
      • 5 Stars
      • 4 Stars
      • 3 Stars
      • 2 Stars
      • 1 Star
    • Browse by Representation
      • POC Content
        • Main Characters of Color
        • Black Representation
        • Asian Representation
        • Latina Representation
        • Indigenous Representation
      • Authors of Color
        • Black Authors
        • Asian Authors
        • Latina Authors
        • Indigenous Authors
      • Lesbian Representation
        • Lesbian Authors
      • Bisexual Representation
        • Bisexual Authors
      • Trans Representation
        • Trans Authors
        • Nonbinary Representation
      • Asexual Representation
        • Asexual Authors
      • Disability Representation
      • Neurodiverse Representation
      • Mental Health
    • Browse by Reviewer
      • Danika Ellis
      • Alice P.
      • Amanda Růžičková
      • Anna N.
      • Caelin
      • Casey
      • Emilia Ferrante
      • Emory Rose
      • Ire
      • Jamie Rose
      • Jazelle
      • Kathryne Slant
      • Kody
      • Laurel
      • Liv
      • Meagan Kimberley
      • Nat
      • Rachel Friars
      • Raquel R. Rivera
      • Sritama Sen
      • Susan
      • Susanne Salehi
      • Theo
      • Til
      • Vic
  • Recommendations List
  • About
  • Review Policy
  • Support the Lesbrary
  • Advertise with the Lesbrary

The Lesbrary

Sapphic Book Reviews

Articles, Uncategorized

T.S. Eliot, Lesbian Fiction Fan?

March 28, 2010 by Danika Ellis

Sorry about not posting in a while, I’ll be putting up a review later today, but first I wanted to share an article I just stumbled upon.

In  my high school Lit class, I used to amuse myself by finding or inventing gay and lesbian subtext in everything we read. My best friend and I interpreted T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” as a gay love story. I still can’t read it any other way. Now, years later, I just read an article about Eliot’s connection to lesbian literature.

Apparently, Eliot fought hard to get the lesbian classic Nightwood published, even when no other publisher would touch it for the “obscene” content. Here’s the article.

What do you think of Eliot, usually depicted as quite grim and conservative, being shown to have been this radical promoter of lesbian fiction?

Categories: Articles, Uncategorized
Tags: , article, Djuana Barnes, Nightwood, T.S. Eliot

Related Posts

Hannah reviews I Can’t Think Straight by Shamim Sarif
a graphic with a painting of two women reading together and the text 8 Sapphic Shakespeare Retellings8 of the Best Sapphic Shakespeare Retellings
The Lesbrary’s Favorite Sapphic Books We Read In 2022
Kalyanii reviews The Housing Crisis by Kate McLay
Previous:
Lambda Literary Finalists
Next:
Danika reviews Queer View Mirror

Comments

  1. Porter says

    March 29, 2010 at 5:10 pm

    I too read that poem and considered a queer undercurrent. It was brought up in class. It seems incredibly likely. My English prof was prompted to say “Well, you all probably know this but I’m gay…” and I think he did say that Eliot was homosexual. I could be wrong though–the shock of having my teacher come out in front of our entire class threw me off, so they could have said that Eliot was notoriously anti-gay and I might not have noticed.

    • Danika says

      March 29, 2010 at 6:16 pm

      Wow, I definitely would have been thrown off, too. That’s a pretty brave thing for him to do.

      Yeah, we ended up stumbling on some stuff that made it seem like he was queer… apparently Ezra Pound edited out some of his most gay-suggestive lines, which makes me suspicious, but it’s all guesses, really.

  2. Kathryn Capizzi says

    December 25, 2014 at 4:54 am

    t.s. eliot was grim and conservative but he was also quite involved in the queer side of literary modernism. actually, he talked barnes into editing out a lot of the more explicit references to nora and robin’s sexual relationship, and there is currently a version of nightwood edited by cheryl j plumb that is taken from an earlier draft that supposedly (i haven’t yet read this version) is much more explicit about their relationship. beside his relationship with djuna barnes, he also had close professional ties with virginia woolf as well as, to a lesser extent, e.m. forster. however, similar to forster and many male gays of the time, he was at times an outspoken misogynist, and was deeply influenced by ancient greek concepts of homosexuality, namely that men are more spiritually enlightened beings and that women are base, so that love between two men would be considered heavenly and love between two women completely irrelevant. in virginia woolf’s novel the waves, eliot is represented by the character of louis, whose sexuality in the novel nowadays could be described as bisexual or queer, contrasting with the strictly gay character neville. louis is often grouped with rhoda, who is a lesbian even though that wasn’t really the point of the character (in earlier drafts rhoda was explicitly lesbian) and they are the outcasts of their social circle. it’s a big web of queers! one warning, i am simplifying things a lot/heavily summarizing these complex people and their relationships to each other. long story short though, eliot and barnes were buddies, eliot’s statement that nightwood is a novel for poets has greatly affected the book’s reception over the ensuing decades, and it is completely legitimate to pick up on queer vibes in eliot’s work. he was definitely a misogynist, but it’s almost impossible to find male writers/poets/artists that aren’t in some way.

  3. Kathryn Capizzi says

    December 25, 2014 at 4:55 am

    ack i didn’t realize this post was so old!

    • Danika @ The Lesbrary says

      December 26, 2014 at 8:56 pm

      No, no, I’m really glad you commented! I’m still interested in this! And that is all really fascinating! I had no idea those authors were so interconnected, though I should have guessed. (If queer circles are so overlapping now, it could only be more so then.) It’s too bad, though not surprising, that he was a misogynist. I could pick up bits of that from his poems.

      I haven’t read Nightwood (or any Virginia Woolf, to my great shame) yet, but now I’ll have to check out the one edited by Plumb. It would be interesting to compare them.

About Me

About the Lesbrary

The Lesbrary is a sapphic book blog that started in 2010. It's run by Danika Ellis, and we have about a dozen reviewers from around the world recommending sapphic books in every genre. Check out the top navigation bar for more about the Lesbrary as well as options to browse by genre, age category, rating, and more.

Sapphic Book Blogs

  • Bi and Lesbian Literature: The Lesbrary's tumblr
  • Autostraddle's Books Coverage
  • I Heart Sapphfic
  • The Lesbian Review
  • Okazu: Yuri Manga

Queer Book Blogs

  • Book Riot's LGBTQ Coverage
  • Gay League: LGBT Comics
  • Lambda Literary
  • LGBTQ Reads
  • LGBTQ Reads tumblr
  • Our Queerest Shelves: My LGBTQ Books Newsletter at Book Riot.
Theme by SkyandStars.co
Back Top

Copyright © 2025