Before the Closet: Same-Sex Love from "Beowulf" to "Angels in America"

Historical studies of sexuality and homosexuality are often time- and place-specific. It is a refreshing surprise that Allen J. Frantzen's Before the Closet moves deftly from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance to the present and back again, but even the book's subtitle--Same-Sex Love from Beowulf to Angels in America--does not give a clear sense of its breadth and expansiveness. Arguing that John Boswell's critically acclaimed Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality misrepresents the easy acceptance of homosexuality in the early and medieval Catholic church, Frantzen postulates that, while same-sex activity and relationships were strictly forbidden, they existed and manifested themselves in various "shadow" forms.

Frantzen's argument for the existence of this "shadow" homosexuality relies on myriad examples from a wide range of Western culture. From 19th-century trouser roles (male operatic characters sung by women) to Mark Morris's choreography to Tony Kushner's award-winning Angels in America, Frantzen finds correspondences and analogues to far older works of Anglo-Saxon literature such as Beowulf and The Wanderer, along with medieval penitentials (books used by priests to assess the penance for a specific sin). Always enlightening and endlessly provocative, Before the Closet will challenge your preconceptions about both early English poetry and contemporary depictions of gayness. --Michael Bronski