Henry James's family tried to keep him in the closet (2016)
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Throbbing platonic love.
You are reading modern language. Sexual identity was already a thing at this point in history and had been for several decades.
Why on earth are you looking for definitive proof of specific claims when it comes to history? That just seems like a fool's errand.
To be honest, the title did seem click baity leading to one to assume there was a possible misreading of the era. But I think this should be unflagged because as foldr points out downthread [0], the family wanted the passages removed not some editors generations later?
I think only mathematicians and computer scientists can deliver this.
Too, there's the "anything's better than a well-born straight white man" bias in most of modern academia, and The Guardian's audience. Saying "Henry James was straight" would sell about as well as "2 + 2 = 4".
The Guardian's final 2 paragraphs acknowledge that the case is weak:
> But the book that made all the difference was published in 1990. Epistemology of the Closet by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick became the bible for gay studies and queer theory in universities. It proposed an entire new way of reading James as a gay writer whose efforts to remain in the closet gave him his style and may, in fact, have been his real subject, all the more present for being secret and submerged.
> Kosofsky Segdwick’s argument is dense and brilliant, and, at times, far-fetched and unconvincing. But it removed James from the realm of dead white males who wrote about posh people. He became our contemporary. Thus James’s artistry, his skill at creating scenes and drama, his sly sexuality, his wonderful prose style, his genius with form and tone and structure, make him a subject of fascination not only for ordinary readers but also for students and teachers of literature, and indeed for many, if not all, of the novelists who have come after him. James’s dying words – “Tell them to follow, to be faithful, to take me seriously” – continue to resonate a hundred years after his death.
What labels would work to describe his sexuality, do you think?
I suppose that resisting the application of a modern label could be read as a kind of erasure of gay/bi people from history. That's why in an edit I added the qualification that it would be equally anachronistic to call him 'straight'.
> I don't see the need for a label as those are primarily used by living people to self-identify.
Are they...? Labels are used by... everyone... straight or not. And I can assure you I wasn't the first one to apply certain labels to myself as a child...
And yeah I mean people obviously use labels as part of homophobic abuse, but that’s not going to be helpful as part of an argument that such labels are useful or valuable. I don’t really see why it’s necessary to decide whether Henry James is straight bi or gay just because those are the major classifications in our present social context.
I'm ambivalent on his actual sexual interest in men. Wikipedia concludes that direct evidence is nonexistent. "In private correspondence" doesn't somehow force the baring of his true soul. And the article notes his propensity to burn manuscripts and letters - so his preserving so much evidence of an actual dire (by standards of the time) character flaw seem pretty dubious.
Yes, obviously his family wanted to prevent scandal. But that'd be true whether or not the scandal had any basis in fact.
> And the article notes his propensity to burn manuscripts and letters - so his preserving so much evidence of an actual dire (by standards of the time) character flaw seem pretty dubious.
People obviously received the letters, and may have kept them whether James retained copies of them or not.
> so his preserving so much evidence of an actual dire (by standards of the time) character flaw seem pretty dubious.
Another explanation would be that he didn't consider it a character flaw.