Seductive Snakes and Asexual Angels: Queer Undercurrents in Harriet Prescott Spofford’s “Desert Sands”

Harriet Prescott Spofford’s 1863 short story “Desert Sands” recounts, at first glance, the jealous rivalry between an artist’s two muses. Yet when one applies a thin layer of turpentine to the top layer of the canvas that makes up the narrative of “Desert Sands,” it becomes clear that there is another, much more unusual, image underneath. This article proposes a palimpsestic reading of the short story, one which attempts to underline the queer nature of the relationship between the muses Eos and Vespasia and goes on to pose questions about gender roles, deviant sexuality and transgression as related to women in the nineteenth century

Queering Louisa May Alcott: Gender and Genius in Diana and Persis

Gender confusion and queer sexual feelings can be found throughout Alcott’s fictional and autobiographical writing, with the boundaries between both often ambiguous. This paper traces the queer nuances found in Alcott’s unfinished novel Diana and Persis. It analyzes Diana’s association with Stafford in Rome and Alcott’s references to Charlotte Cushman and Harriet Hosmer in order to explore Alcott’s reflections on (trans)gender identity. This curious line of questioning may offer alternative ways of framing the debate on Alcott’s ambiguous gender and sexuality

AmLit / Queer Landscapes:New England Female Farmers andMasculinity in the Midwest

This article outlines expressions of female masculinity in writing from rural NewEngland. An initial framing of the enclosed New England garden as symbolicof feminine normalization allows for an analysis of two forms of subversionof this norm in regional short stories from the nineteenth century. The articlebegins with an exploration of the figure of the female farmer (and the resultingrejection of the traditional True Woman) in short stories by Mary E. WilkinsFreeman and Sarah Orne Jewett. It continues with a comparison to newlyemerging depictions of the masculine New Woman symbolically situated in theopen expanse of the Midwest, as found in Willa Cather\u2019s short story \u201cTommy,the Unsentimental.\u201d Such a comparative line of questioning enables deeperreflection on regional literary expressions of female masculinity at the end ofthe nineteenth century

Seductive Snakes and Asexual Angels: Queer Undercurrents in Harriet Prescott Spofford’s “Desert Sands”

Harriet Prescott Spofford’s 1863 short story “Desert Sands” recounts, at first glance, the jealous rivalry between an artist’s two muses. Yet when one applies a thin layer of turpentine to the top layer of the canvas that makes up the narrative of “Desert Sands,” it becomes clear that there is another, much more unusual, image underneath. This article proposes a palimpsestic reading of the short story, one which attempts to underline the queer nature of the relationship between the muses Eos and Vespasia and goes on to pose questions about gender roles, deviant sexuality and transgression as related to women in the nineteenth century

Queering Louisa May Alcott: Gender and Genius in Diana and Persis

Gender confusion and queer sexual feelings can be found throughout Alcott’s fictional and autobiographical writing, with the boundaries between both often ambiguous. This paper traces the queer nuances found in Alcott’s unfinished novel Diana and Persis. It analyzes Diana’s association with Stafford in Rome and Alcott’s references to Charlotte Cushman and Harriet Hosmer in order to explore Alcott’s reflections on (trans)gender identity. This curious line of questioning may offer alternative ways of framing the debate on Alcott’s ambiguous gender and sexuality