Abstract

In “Charles Warren Stoddard: From Bohemian Effete to Homosexual,” Elwood Miller attempts to identify some of the shifts in transhistorical continuities of discourse during the end of the nineteenth century which begin to signify the generation of our modern conception of homosexuality. He analyzes the life, and friendships of nineteenth century writer Charles Warren Stoddard relative to their particular place in the changing definitions of nineteenth century homo-social relationships and looks for clues which indicate a shift, however subtle, in attitudes of these historical subjects around those definitions. By examining these shifts in attitude, Elwood believes we may begin to see the groundwork being laid for the shift to the twentieth century’s binary regulatory system of male/female, heterosexual/homosexual, masculine/effeminate which comes to dominate the nineteenth century’s system of separate spheres for the sexes where both men and women were free to explore deep and loving friendships with members of their own sex.