LHMP

The chapters in the latter part of The Cambridge Companion to Lesbian Literature seems intended to provide something of a catalog to sources and themes in different eras. In this, the chapters succeed to varying degrees. This one does a fairly good job, first by analyzing the difficulties in defining "medieval lesbian literature," and then in looking at various genres and themes that have a "lesbian-like" resonance for the modern reader.

I’m taking a different approach with this collection than my usual. Rather than either blogging all the articles or only blogging the relevant ones, I’m going to do a very brief summary of all the “less relevant” material in this book and then blog the four articles of specific historic interest separately. My very brief skim through the articles summarized below means that I’m likely oversimplifying or misrepresenting some of the details. But it seemed like a good compromise.

Several years ago, I ran into references to this book as an in-process project and have been waiting eagerly for its publication. Blogging it as a LHMP entry is a bit meta: a blog in support of lesbian historical fiction looking at a study of lesbian historical fiction as a genre. Garber is looking at a number of questions that have been simmering in the back of my mind over the years of looking at LHF as a field. Why do we write historical fiction? In particular, why do we write queer historical fiction? And what does it mean to write specifically lesbian historical fiction?

What it says in the subject line. This article doesn't directly address topics relevant to the Project, but Lanyer is definitely relevant in general for her interest in proto-feminist ideas and the complex intersections of her identity. There's a wonderful, if somewhat tongue-in-cheek play about her that I got to see an online performance of.