Reading Sideways: The Queer Politics of Art in Modern American Fiction

209 Pages·2019·2.553 MB·English

by  Dana Seitler

Reading Sideways

Reading Sideways
The Queer Politics of Art in Modern
American Fiction
Dana Seitler
fordham university press
New York 2019
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
available online at https:// catalog . loc . gov.
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
21 2 0 1 9 5 4 3 2 1
First edition
contents
List of Illustrations vii
Introduction 1
1. Strange Beauty 15
2. Small Collectivity and the Low Arts 43
3. The Impossible Art Object of Desire 75
4. Willa Cather and W. E. B. Du Bois Go to the Opera 112
Part One: A Continuous Repetition of Sound 116
Part Two: Endless Melody 138
Conclusion 159
Acknowl edgments 163
Notes 167
Index 187

illustrations
1 Hiram Powers, The Greek Slave (1844) 36
2 Harriet Hosmer, Zenobia in Chains (1859) 38
3 Gold leaf frame (c. 1867) 51
4 Oil- gilded tulle net frame (c. 1870) 52
5 Rock patterns in the main cove (c. 1850) 53
6 Walking Dress pattern (1853) 62
7 “Informal Conference,” advertisement from Exhibition
of Sewing (1897) 64
8 Titian, Portrait of a Young En glishman (1540–45) 92
9 Titian, Portrait of a Lady (1555) 97
10 Titian, La Bella (c. 1536) 98
11 Winslow Homer, Portrait of a Lady (1875) 100
12 The Dying Gaul (c. 230) 103
13 The Faun, red marble, Roman copy from late
Hellenism (1736) 105
14 Antinous (c.130–150 AD) 106
15 Jules Adolphe Breton, “The Song of the Lark” (1884) 124
16 Olive Fremstad (1871–1951). “Enjoys Wood Chopping” 128
17 “ Women Beat Upon Metropolitan’s Doors to Hear
Uncanny Opera,” New York World (February 10, 1907) 129
18 W. E. B. Du Bois’s ticket to a per for mance of Lohengrin
at Bayreuth in 1936 153
vii

Reading Sideways