Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture [Hardcover]

Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture examines the role of Christian history in nineteenth-century definitions of homosexual identity. Roden charts the emergence of the modern homosexual in relation to religious, not exclusively sociological discourses. Positing Catholicism as complementary to classical Greece, he challenges the separatism of sexuality and religion in critical practice. Moving from Newman and Rossetti, to Hopkins, Wilde, and Michael Field amongst others, Same-Sex Desire claims a new literary history, bringing together gay studies and theology in Victorian literature.Acknowledgements Introduction PART I: COMMUNITY Queer Virginity and the Oxford Movement: Newman and Dalgairns Christina Rossetti: The Female Queer Virgin PART II: CONSCIOUSNESS Female Religious Homoeroticism: The Sisters Rossetti and Keary Eremitic Homoerotics: The Religious Culture of Gerard Manley Hopkins PART III: COMSUMMATION Oscar Wilde as Queer Theologian Queer Hagiography: John Gray and Andr? Raffalovich Lesbian Trinitarianism, Canine Catholicism: Michael Field Catholic Homosexuality at the Fin-de Si?cle Conclusion Notes Works Cited Index

'Roden's rich book shows how Victorian Catholicisms could provide both faces and disguises for same-sex love. From Newman to Wilde and Christina Rossetti to Michael Field, he recovers the power of religion to sustain homoerotic lives for women and men who were and were not homosexual. Consider it an Introduction to the Devout Queer Life by a deft reader and astute believer.' - Mark Jordan, Emory University

'In charting this fascinating, difficulty territory of cultural history, Roden deploys an impressive and formidable scholarship. He draws on stimulating recent critical perspectives on Victorian religious culture to draw together a disparate group of women and men writing towards what he terms 'the creation of a homosexual Catholicism for modernity.' - The Oscholars

'Roden's rich book shows hl³Q