Gide in the first person: The "I" of religion and same-sex sexual desire
Item
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Title
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Gide in the first person: The "I" of religion and same-sex sexual desire
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:1ff733d05342:11822
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identifier
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12463
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Creator
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Sorrentino, John F.,
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Contributor
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Royal S. Brown
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Date
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2013
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Romance literature | Modern language | LGBTQ studies | Gide | Religion | Sexuality
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Abstract
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Andre Gide's works are marked by a continual struggle what he perceived as the incompatible nature between his homosexuality and the religious morality that excluded it. This dissertation examines the ways in which Andre Gide deals with this struggle, and how through his fiction, he negotiates the lines between a belief in God and his personal sense of sexual otherness, while trying to achieve an authentic voice that mitigated the two. Drawing from a range of theory and criticism from Gide studies and Queer studies, this work analyzes the themes of sexuality and religion in a range of Gide's works from the mid 1890s through 1925, including Les Nourritures terrestres, Paludes, Le Promethee mal-enchaine, Les Caves du Vatican, L'Immoraliste, Le Retour de l'Enfant Prodigue, La Porte etroite, La Symphonie pastorale, and Les Faux-monnayeurs..;Within the corpus of Gide's work, a timeline is revealed of the fluctuation between Gide's exaltation and his disenchantment as he contemplated - either in the first person or through his characters - issues of God and sex, of pleasure and suffering. Sexuality and religion are inter-reliant factors that work sometimes to negate each other, other times to reinforce each other, revealing a complexity both of the author and his texts. This dissertation explores the relationships between religion and same-sex desire and finds the links that exist between his religious thought and the "I"/"je" of his desire, as Gide, throughout his body of work, negotiates the uncertain landscape of creating a queer "discourse" and finding within it a sense of personal authenticity both with regard to his religious beliefs and his same-sex desire.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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French
