Onegin again

[David Powelstock]

Well, thank Venus we have Webster's Dictionary. Now we can discard all that messy and contentious sexuality scholarship, with all its inconvenient distinctions and differing viewpoints. And I wonder which is more reductive of sexual identities, to distinguish among various cultural, behavioral and psychological paradigms, or to conflate every set of synonyms and near synonyms on the basis of a dictionary designed for general use. To then cast this conflation in terms of political correctness, attacking those who don't buy into this facile maneuver as "homophobic, exclusionary aggressors" is a self-serving and despicable perversion of liberalism. If any term currently in play now seems more capacious than it did yesterday, it is "glupets."

David

David Powelstock
Asst. Prof. of Russian & East European Literatures
Chair, Program in Russian & East European Studies
Brandeis University
GREA, MS 024
Waltham, MA  02454-9110
781.736.3347 (Office)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list
> [mailto:SEELANGS at listserv.cuny.edu] On Behalf Of Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
> Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 6:13 PM
> To: SEELANGS at listserv.cuny.edu
> Subject: [SEELANGS] Onegin again
> 
> 31 March 2006
> 
> Rebecca Jane Stanton states:
> 
> >
> > I note, certainly not by way of reproof but for anyone on the list to
> > whom it may be useful information, that "homosexuality" and "gayness"
> > are not interchangeable as critical terms; "gayness" encodes a
> > political identity generally thought of as available only after the
> > 1969 Stonewall riots.  So technically neither Pushkin's Onegin nor
> > Tchaikovsky's can be "gay," though either or both could be homosexual
> > (and I suppose a modern-dress production of Onegin could present him
> > as being both).
> 
> 
> My Webster's Dictionary (2004 edition) gives the relevant definitions of
> the adjective "gay" as "homosexual" and "of, relating to, or used by
> homosexuals."  The derived noun is "gayness," and the other noun, "gay"
> is defined as "homosexual" and "a homosexual male."  So, no mention of
> the Stonewall riots.  Besides, how could Oscar Wilde have known of those
> riots?  Or Lord Byron?  Or Verlaine?  Or Gogol'?  Or Leonardo da Vinci?
> Or the ancient Greek _erastes_ with his _eromenos_?  Or the guys who
> live in politically organized "men's houses" in a variety of
> nonindustrial societies such as the Batak of Sumatra, the Keraki of New
> Guinea, and so on?
> 
> These people all SHARE an important human feature.
> 
> To say that "gayness" only encodes a recently established political
> identity is arbitrarily to EXCLUDE those who are either unable or are
> not particularly interested in buying into that identity, be they
> heterosexual or homosexual in their orientation, their fantasy life, or
> their behavior.  Let the gay community beware of identifying with its
> homophobic, exclusionary aggressors.  Let Onegin be latently
> gay/homosexual for Freudian analysis as well as for queer studies.  And
> as for those who see only a cultural, non-sexual construct in the words -
> 
> Он три часа, по крайней мере,
> Пред зеркалами проводил
> И из уборной выходил
> Подобный ветреной Венере,
> Когда, надев мужской наряд,
> Богиня едет в маскарад.
> 
> - that is fine too, for purely literary-cultural studies of the
> transvestite manifestations of Dandyism reveal much that is
> interesting.  But for the one who PROTESTS TOO MUCH against the idea of
> Onegin's underlying gayness/homosexuality, I say, again with Pushkin:
> 
> И не оспоривай глупца.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Regards to the list,
> 
> Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
> 
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