Onegin again

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

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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