Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Before the Closet: Same-Sex Love from Beowulf to Angels in America

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

Frantzen, Allen J.

Hardcover

Medieval & Renaissance HistoryLiterary CriticismGLBTQIA Studies

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0226260917
ISBN13: 9780226260914
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: Nov 15 1998
Pages: 380
Weight: 1.41
Height: 1.09 Width: 6.34 Depth: 9.33
Language: English
Allen J. Frantzen challenges the long accepted view that the early Middle Ages tolerated and even fostered same-sex relations and that intolerance of homosexuality developed only late in the medieval period. Frantzen shows that in early medieval Europe, the Church did not tolerate same-sex acts, in fact it was an age before people recognized the existence--or the possibility--of the closet.

With its ambitious scope and elegant style, Before the Closet sets same-sex relations in Anglo-Saxon sources in relation to the sexual themes of contemporary opera, dance, and theatre. Frantzen offers a comprehensive analysis of sources from the seventh to the twelfth century and traces Anglo-Saxon same-sex behavior through the age of Chaucer and into the Renaissance.

Frantzen's marvelous book . . . opens up a world most readers will never have even known was there. It's a difficult topic, but Frantzen's comprehensive, readable and even wryly funny treatment makes this an unexpected pleasure.--Publishers Weekly, starred review

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