Dr. Andrew Rimby | SUNY: Stony Brook University (original) (raw)

Papers by Dr. Andrew Rimby

Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, 2023

The following entry provides a queer critical genealogy of responses to Walt Whitman’s work, with... more The following entry provides a queer critical genealogy of responses to Walt Whitman’s work, with “queer” acting as an umbrella term encompassing a variety of approaches. This survey covers a selection of early reactions to Whitman’s homoerotic themes, twentieth-century readings emerging from gay/lesbian academic scholarship, and studies published amid the flourishing of queer theory in the early twenty-first century.

Nineteenth Century Gender Studies, 2021

As a queer, white, cisgender, male Whitman scholar, this quotation from Toni Morrision’s Playing ... more As a queer, white, cisgender, male Whitman scholar, this quotation from Toni Morrision’s Playing in the Dark (1992) speaks to how I am still in the act of confronting and critiquing Whitman’s contradictory stance as the “Poet of Democracy.” I recognize that, for far too long, Whitman’s inheritance of America’s white supremacist history has been overlooked or swept under the rug by many white Whitman scholars.

Books by Dr. Andrew Rimby

ProQuest , 2023

The deployment of the myth of Narcissus in mid- to late nineteenth century American literature al... more The deployment of the myth of Narcissus in mid- to late nineteenth century American literature allows for a homoerotic imaginary to be built around romantic and sexual relations between men at a time when homosexuality had not yet been medicalized or theorized in the US. In this dissertation, I trace the influence of the Narcissus myth primarily in the writings of Walt Whitman to explore how male homoerotic desire becomes a structuring principle of Whitman’s poetics and his vision of American democracy.

Whitman creates the foundation for how homoeroticism will poetically appear, in both American and British literature, in his 1855 and 1860 editions of Leaves of Grass. His early poem “Pictures” (before 1855) provides the blueprint for Whitman’s experimentation with his vision of comradeship which becomes inextricably linked to his ideas on democracy and male same-sex desire. In “Pictures,” Whitman lays the poetic foundation for looking towards classical Athens as a means to represent homoeroticism in mid-19th-century America. Whitman turns to the novel A Few Days in Athens, by early-19th-century Scottish philosopher Frances Wright, for homoerotic ancient Greek creative inspiration. The queer influence of this novel, largely overlooked by Whitman scholars, shapes Whitman's homoerotic poetics, especially how he links democracy to comradeship.

I open my study with the meeting, in Camden, New Jersey, between Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde because Whitman and Wilde’s contrasting views on the emerging category of homosexuality illustrate its uneven development in a transatlantic context. The study concludes by examining how queer male nineteenth-century readers of Whitman’s poetry recognized that his homoerotic poetics speak to their own desire. The differences between American and British responses to Whitman’s poetry will illuminate how American and British theorizations on male same-sex desire appear before the invention of homosexuality as a sexual orientation. Exploring why Whitman turns to ancient Greek mythology for his homoerotic poetics contributes significantly to Whitman scholarship and queer reception theory.

Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, 2023

The following entry provides a queer critical genealogy of responses to Walt Whitman’s work, with... more The following entry provides a queer critical genealogy of responses to Walt Whitman’s work, with “queer” acting as an umbrella term encompassing a variety of approaches. This survey covers a selection of early reactions to Whitman’s homoerotic themes, twentieth-century readings emerging from gay/lesbian academic scholarship, and studies published amid the flourishing of queer theory in the early twenty-first century.

Nineteenth Century Gender Studies, 2021

As a queer, white, cisgender, male Whitman scholar, this quotation from Toni Morrision’s Playing ... more As a queer, white, cisgender, male Whitman scholar, this quotation from Toni Morrision’s Playing in the Dark (1992) speaks to how I am still in the act of confronting and critiquing Whitman’s contradictory stance as the “Poet of Democracy.” I recognize that, for far too long, Whitman’s inheritance of America’s white supremacist history has been overlooked or swept under the rug by many white Whitman scholars.

ProQuest , 2023

The deployment of the myth of Narcissus in mid- to late nineteenth century American literature al... more The deployment of the myth of Narcissus in mid- to late nineteenth century American literature allows for a homoerotic imaginary to be built around romantic and sexual relations between men at a time when homosexuality had not yet been medicalized or theorized in the US. In this dissertation, I trace the influence of the Narcissus myth primarily in the writings of Walt Whitman to explore how male homoerotic desire becomes a structuring principle of Whitman’s poetics and his vision of American democracy.

Whitman creates the foundation for how homoeroticism will poetically appear, in both American and British literature, in his 1855 and 1860 editions of Leaves of Grass. His early poem “Pictures” (before 1855) provides the blueprint for Whitman’s experimentation with his vision of comradeship which becomes inextricably linked to his ideas on democracy and male same-sex desire. In “Pictures,” Whitman lays the poetic foundation for looking towards classical Athens as a means to represent homoeroticism in mid-19th-century America. Whitman turns to the novel A Few Days in Athens, by early-19th-century Scottish philosopher Frances Wright, for homoerotic ancient Greek creative inspiration. The queer influence of this novel, largely overlooked by Whitman scholars, shapes Whitman's homoerotic poetics, especially how he links democracy to comradeship.

I open my study with the meeting, in Camden, New Jersey, between Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde because Whitman and Wilde’s contrasting views on the emerging category of homosexuality illustrate its uneven development in a transatlantic context. The study concludes by examining how queer male nineteenth-century readers of Whitman’s poetry recognized that his homoerotic poetics speak to their own desire. The differences between American and British responses to Whitman’s poetry will illuminate how American and British theorizations on male same-sex desire appear before the invention of homosexuality as a sexual orientation. Exploring why Whitman turns to ancient Greek mythology for his homoerotic poetics contributes significantly to Whitman scholarship and queer reception theory.