Request for more LGBT content

Suggest and discuss books to read (all languages welcome!)
Carolin
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Post by Carolin »

annise wrote:I think the blogger wanted more things about the subject , rather than the sexuality of the authors though .
i confess i didnt know a pre-1923 book with lgbt content from the top of my head, so i thought id start with authors, who are of course most likely to explore this topic -- and, unlike many contemporaries, will hopefully portray homosexuality NOT as something evil, or a sickness.

so while we are discussing authors, let me point to the 1947 nobel laureate andre gide (1869-1951)
Carolin
MARTIN GEESON
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Post by MARTIN GEESON »

TriciaG wrote:
When reading some of this contorted, alienating stuff I cannot help rejoicing on behalf of the young men and women I see about on my visits to Brighton, for whom sexuality is no longer this grim lifelong struggle with self-definition and self-loathing.
I realize that people have strong feelings about this, but can we please keep the editorializing out of it? I know there are people who read this who are itching to counter it, and we don't want to get sidetracked by controversial debates. :)
Two of the 3 texts mentioned in my post were actually recorded by me, so I felt entitled to comment on their content. I wasn't referring to the general discussion within the thread.

I will withdraw from further contributions, however.
lubee930
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Post by lubee930 »

MARTIN GEESON wrote: I will withdraw from further contributions, however.
I hope not, Mr. Geeson. I find your posts both informed and informative, regardless of my personal views (positive or negative) on the LGBT community. And even if opinions vary strongly, surely we can rejoice if ALL of our fellow travelers are able to live happy and fulfilled lives, as we hope to do ourselves.
Kind regards,
Lucretia
J_N
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Post by J_N »

Availle wrote:Oscar Wilde was gay, wasn't he? I am not aware of him writing anything in that respect
He (supposedly) wrote "Teleny" which deals with all kinds of things and quite explicitly at that. I haven't come across a PD version yet, though.
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Author death +70 yrs? Legamus!
MaryinArkansas
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Post by MaryinArkansas »

This link seems to go along with the LGBT theme.

https://archive.org/details/LeftToThemselves
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gloriana
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Post by gloriana »

Great topic. Martin has recorded Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander, which includes some overtly homoerotic verses about the amorous Neptune's pursuit of Leander as he swims the Hellespont:

https://librivox.org/hero-and-leander-by-christopher-marlowe-and-george-chapman/

We've also done Marlowe's Edward II, which is about the demise of a relationship between the king and his favorite, Gaveston:

https://librivox.org/edward-ii-by-christopher-marlowe/

I've recorded LeFanu's Carmilla, which someone mentioned earlier, and which depicts (quite unusually) a lesbian vampire:

https://librivox.org/carmilla-by-sheridan-lefanu/

Shakespeare's sonnets, of course, are primarily written about a young man, and we have several recordings of them. Katherine Philips, although married, wrote far more passionately about the bonds between women than between women and men:

https://librivox.org/poems-by-the-most-deservedly-admired-mrs-katherine-philips-the-matchless-orinda/

I would love to do Margaret Cavendish's The Convent of Pleasure, which is a saucy 17th century closet drama about a lady who falls in love with a princess. (Alas, "she" turns out to be a prince in drag, and the play ends rather conventionally. But up to that point it's really interesting.) I can't find an online text, however, unfortunately.
English Andrew
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Post by English Andrew »

In reference to Marcel Proust - it's my understanding that it's only the first volume of Scott Moncrieff's translation which is PD in the US. The other volumes are public domain in Life + 70 countries, so I'm currently recording the second volume for legamus.eu. The final volume of the sequence was translated by somebody else so is not yet PD but, by the time anybody's recorded the other volumes I'm expecting it will be. I think the final volume in French is not PD in the US - there are certainly weird rules about whether translations of it can be published in the US.

Was Proust "a closeted homosexual"? It's more complicated than that. He had passionate crushes on both males and females, many of them unattainable. With the openly gay he was openly gay. Many gay readers have criticised him for making his narrator in A La Recherche ostensibly straight when he himself was not but this ignores several things:
a) the narrator is NOT Proust. He shares a lot of characteristics with him but differs in a lot of respects. Proust was gay, half-Jewish and had a younger brother who was central to Proust's life. The narrator is straight, Gentile and an only child.
b) the narrator's sexuality is not as clearcut as Proust's critics suggest eg he longs to spend a night with his bisexual friend Saint-Loup
c) the issue of homosexuality (including lesbianism) provides central themes to the novel.
Live in a Life + 70 or Life + 50 country? Record with us on legamus.eu too. It's like LibriVox but for those who obey different ridiculous rules on what's public domain.
English Andrew
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Post by English Andrew »

A 1950s US pro-lesbianism group (probably the first such) called themselves "The Daughters of Bilitis", taking their name from the supposed author of what appeared to be ancient Greek poems, including lesbian love-poems. These were in fact written by Pierre Louys and they are recorded here: https://librivox.org/les-chansons-de-bilitis-by-pierre-louys/.
I had a look for an English translation and found one here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/sob/index.htm
This was published in 1926 but it says the copyright was not renewed so should be OK for US readers to record. Unfortunately the translator lived an annoyingly long time - until 1985 - so Life + readers are out (no pun intended) for a bit.
Live in a Life + 70 or Life + 50 country? Record with us on legamus.eu too. It's like LibriVox but for those who obey different ridiculous rules on what's public domain.
LouChai
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Post by LouChai »

Hello there!
I just wanted to say that Charles Baudelaire has written at least 2 poems about lesbians : Femmes damnées in Les fleurs du mal and Femmes damnées, Delphine et Hippolyte in Les épaves. Delphine et Hippolyte is a lot more explicit, but both poems are strong and beautiful. I haven't found those poems in LibriVox and there is no complete recording of Les fleurs du mal, only compilations of different poems... (I also would like to say that I would love to participate to a french recording of Les fleurs du mal... :mrgreen: )
BellonaTimes
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Post by BellonaTimes »

Bill Maher suggested that G K Chesterton was gay (not the word he used unfortunately) on his show last week.
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Availle
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Post by Availle »

The House of the Vampire by George S. Viereck apparently belongs to homosexual literature (according to the keywords added in the database). No idea if this is true, I did not read the book.

I hesitated a bit to put the book in here ... maybe I should read it after all? :lol:
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HoosierMary
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Post by HoosierMary »

A few thoughts:

Browsing this thread, my mind kept going back to Well of Loneliness (Radclyffe Hall), but I was dismayed to find it was published in 1928. :( Which brings me to a PD question I've always had but that has never come up: When will such works (published shortly after the 1923 cut-off) become PD?
And, um, here's where I have to admit that I haven't read this book :oops: . Well, now it's on my to-read list.

I'll also do a little research on some Italian works I'm thinking of that may or may not have PD translations and, with a little luck, post here later with more info.

Also, Elizabeth, since it came up earlier in the thread, I just wanted to say that I listened to your Carmilla recording this Halloween and loved it!

Martin, I'd like to add that I, too, appreciated your comments and contributions earlier.
Mary

I'll be away from LV until mid January.
Dramatic reading: Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment
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Darvinia
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Post by Darvinia »

HoosierMary wrote:When will such works (published shortly after the 1923 cut-off) become PD?
After 1922 (1923 and onwards) it gets a little messy. The simple answer is 95 years after publication date. I found this page quite useful in explaining some of the confusion:

https://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm
Bev

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annise
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Post by annise »

So there is still a wait , Even if they published in 1923 and died immediately 1923 + 95 +1 is 2019 ( copyright expires on January 1st of the next year for most books)

Anne
HoosierMary
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Post by HoosierMary »

Darvinia wrote:
HoosierMary wrote:When will such works (published shortly after the 1923 cut-off) become PD?
After 1922 (1923 and onwards) it gets a little messy. The simple answer is 95 years after publication date. I found this page quite useful in explaining some of the confusion:

https://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm
Thanks for the clarification! Huh. Guess we've got awhile to wait on that one. But, on the bright side, think of all the books that will be newly available to LV in the next decade...
Mary

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Dramatic reading: Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment
In italiano: Rime
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