Most of the queerness just gets erased, because you study Classical Authors in high school and if someone might have been queer, the thundering herd of religious and other conservative parents and/or staffers will scream "INDOCTRINATION OF CHILDRENS IN THE SINFUL HOMOSEXUAL LIFESTYLE!"
Unless it's Whitman. Whitman can be as queer as he likes, because he's sort of the Token Queer Classical Author.
In college, however, you can talk about those things, but by then most people have been turned off of the Serious Classical Authors because they were treated as such with boring literary themes and books that were designed to squeeze any enjoyment of reading you might have.
It's like trying to get people interested in Shakespeare. Most of his comedies are full of rude jokes, Jew-baiting, sexual references, murder, revenge, and more than a few insult duels. But most people can't make it past the language to get to it, because they haven't been taught how to read it to see them. Hamlet is a tragedy, but there are sex jokes everywhere, and not just with the gravediggers.
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Date: 2010-09-13 08:05 pm (UTC)Unless it's Whitman. Whitman can be as queer as he likes, because he's sort of the Token Queer Classical Author.
In college, however, you can talk about those things, but by then most people have been turned off of the Serious Classical Authors because they were treated as such with boring literary themes and books that were designed to squeeze any enjoyment of reading you might have.
It's like trying to get people interested in Shakespeare. Most of his comedies are full of rude jokes, Jew-baiting, sexual references, murder, revenge, and more than a few insult duels. But most people can't make it past the language to get to it, because they haven't been taught how to read it to see them. Hamlet is a tragedy, but there are sex jokes everywhere, and not just with the gravediggers.