Novelist Virginia Woolf

As LGBT Pride Month comes to a close, we’re honoring the accomplishments of the LGBT community by sharing a few interesting facts on the five most researched LGBT novelists in our library. To celebrate, we’ve opened up our library to make reference works on each novelist free for a whole month. Continue the celebration with a newer face in writing by checking out the Books on the Radio blog post, “Amber Dawn Wins Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBT Authors” covering 2012′s winner of the award for emerging LGBT writers.

1. Virginia Woolf: Born on January 25, 1882 as Adeline Virginia Stephen, Woolf was homeschooled, spending a great deal of time reading books picked from the library of her father, Leslie Stephen. Her mother Julia passed away when Virginia was 13, and her father when she was 22. Both of their deaths “but especially her father, influenced her work as well as her character in no small degree” (Hafley 3). Woolf wrote her first novel, The Voyage Out, in 1906, though it was not published until nine years later. Virginia married Leonard Woolf, a journalist and political figure, in 1912, and shortly thereafter became involved in the “Bloomsbury Group,” a collection of writers and intellectuals. In addition to nine novels, Woolf was the author of many short stories, lectures, biographies and essays. Woolf committed suicide in March of 1941, drowning herself in the River Ouse. [Hafley, James. Glass Roof: Virginia Woolf as Novelist. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1954. Questia. Web.]
2. Truman Capote: Born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1924, Capote is known for his Southern gothic short stories and fiction in an innovative style which he referred to as the “nonfiction novel.” His most famous piece, In Cold Blood, came out in 1966 and established Capote as “a leader in the new fiction” (Shuman 233). In his twenties, Capote landed a brief stint at The New Yorker before returning to his home of New Orleans to work on Other Voices, Other Rooms, released in 1948. The piece became a best seller and caused a great deal of controversy due to a controversial dust jacket photo of Capote, an experience that taught him that “his private life could generate as much publicity as his writing, and perhaps more” (Shuman 234). He had a long term relationship with Jack Dunphy from the late 1940s until the late 1960s, when Capote’s life and career began to decline. After authoring multiple novels and screenplays, Truman Capote passed away in August of 1984 in Bel-Air, California at a friend’s home. [Shuman, R. Baird, ed. Great American Writers: Twentieth Century. Vol. 2. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 2002. Questia. Web.]
3. W. Somerset Maugham: During the final years of his life, W. Somerset Maugham, the acclaimed but very private novelist and playwright, burned his private affairs and asked friends to destroy all letters he had sent to them. In his will, he even instructed his literary executor not to “authorize the publication of any of his unpublished writing or to cooperate with any biographer,” or allow his daughter Liza or his lover, Alan Searle, to give any information (Calder). After his death, Liza and Alan went against Maugham’s wishes and allowed numerous private documents to be published. “Maugham often challenged sexual conventions; that his homosexuality, like that of Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt, had taught him how to be an undercover agent; and that his frequent use of clichés, for which he was much criticized, was a narrative strategy to match his narrator’s diction with that of his characters” (Calder). Maugham was also one of the first modern English writers to cover China and Spain. [Calder, Robert L. "Meyers, Jeffrey. Somerset Maugham: A Life." Studies in the Novel 37.3 (2005): 360+. Questia. Web.]
4. James Baldwin: In August of 1924, James Baldwin was born to an unwed mother in Harlem. At the age of three, his mother married a fundamentalist Baptist minister with whom she had eight children. Baldwin’s step-father became increasingly violent and abusive as he grew older, and as a step-child, Baldwin became a target for the anger. The abusive relationship haunted Baldwin for years. For three years as a teenager, Baldwin became a minister who preached in and around Harlem, an experience that “left its unmistakable imprint” on the writer (Nelson 12). Baldwin moved to New Jersey as a laborer after high school where he experienced brutal racism and hostility before returning to New York to work and write. As he gained more attention for his writing, his “everyday encounters with racism, coupled with his growing awareness of the personal and political implications of his homosexuality, left him deeply unsettled” (Nelson 13). This feeling of exclusion, both racially and sexually, led Baldwin to purchase a one-way ticket to Paris at the age of 24, where he fell in love with Lucien Happersberger and continued to develop as a writer. Race and sexuality are two common themes in many of Baldwin’s works, including 1953’s Go Tell It On the Mountain. After a long and fruitful career, James Baldwin passed away in Paris in December of 1987. [Nelson, Emmanuel S., ed. Contemporary African American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999. Questia. Web.]
5. William S. Burroughs: Born in 1914, William S. Burroughs was a postmodernist known for his controversial life and works, as well as his involvement with the Beat movement, among many other things. “These factors are also the source of extreme emotional responses that have often prevented critics from looking at the work itself” (Lydenberg and Skerl 3). In the 1950s, Burroughs produced a handful of unpublished manuscripts, including “In Search of Yage,” which would go on to become the basis of one of his most celebrated pieces, Naked Lunch. His close friendships with both Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac helped lead to the development of his “underground reputation” (Lydenberg and Skerl 3). Much of Burroughs work, including Naked Lunch, was attacked on questions of morality, as critics claimed that his work was obscene in the sense of his “immorally ambivalent stance toward the world of violence, sexuality, and drugs” (Lydenberg and Skerl 6). Burroughs passed away in 1997. [Lydenberg, Robin, and Jennie Skerl, eds. William S. Burroughs at the Front: Critical Reception, 1959-1989. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991. Questia. Web.]

For further tribute to LGBT Pride Month, take a look last week’s blog post honoring the work of famous LGBT painters!

Artist Andy Warhol (© AP Images)

Questia is honoring LGBT Pride Month by sharing a few interesting facts on the five most researched LGBT painters in our library. To celebrate, we’ve even opened up our library to make reference works on each of these artist free for a whole month. Continue the celebration by checking out the Huffington Post‘s slideshow of 15 LGBT art exhibits you can visit around the country this month. Enjoy!

1. Andy Warhol:  In the visual art movement known as pop art, Warhol was a leading figure and created iconic masterpieces that are engrained within American pop culture, such as the infamous Campbell’s Soup Cans paintings.  While Warhol may be most well-known for his paintings, he expressed his art through many other mediums such as sculpture, fashion and theater. Throughout his career, Warhol allowed his sexuality to be reflected in his work and openly explored the complexities of sexuality and desire, with some of his homoerotic drawings of male nudes receiving rejection from galleries for being too openly gay at the time.  [Horne, Peter.  Lesbian and Gay Sexualities and Visual Cultures.  Routledge: 1996]
2. Rosa Bonheur:  Bonheur is widely considered to be one of the most famous female painters of the nineteenth century and his work can be viewed in world-class museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musée d’Orsay. Bonheur’s sexual identity is said to be expressed through her art, with many of the animals in her work depicting the constraints felt by many homosexuals at that time.  Bonheur was also notorious for dressing in masculine attire, often opting for trousers, and many scholars view this as an overt expression of her lesbian identity.  [Broude, Norma, et al.  The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History.  Westview Press: 1992]
3. Keith Haring:  Greatly enthused by New York City’s street culture in the 1980s, Haring received inspiration from graffiti art and studied at the city’s School of Visual Arts.  His legendary chalk drawings graced the surfaces of everything from subway walls and lamp posts to black paper and painted plastic or metal.  Haring was openly gay, and much of his personal sexual politics was injected into his artwork, reflecting socio-political themes in the public sphere, such as AIDS awareness and the crack cocaine epidemic. Although he passed away as a result of AIDS-related complications in 1990, his legacy and messages live on through his foundation.  [Aldrich, Robert, et al.  Who’s Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History.  Routledge: 2001]
4. Robert Rauschenberg:  One of the most important figures in art history of the late-twentieth century, Rauschenberg developed a technique for screen printing images from popular media such as newspapers and magazines. Through this technique, Rauschenberg was able to juxtapose recognizable images yet highlight the complexity and vibrancy of modern visual culture. Rauschenberg developed a powerful friendship with fellow artist Jasper Johns, and it has been theorized the two pursued an intimate relationship.  [Bossy, Michel- Andre.  Lives and Legacies: An Encyclopedia of People who Changed the World.  Oryx Press: 2001]
5. David Hockney:  One of the most widely known and appreciated British artists, Hockney is the self-proclaimed “Playboy of the art world.” He received early success with a series of etchings, The Rake’s Progress, but unlike many of his fellow contemporaries, he did not become closely associated with any one movement.  Throughout his career, Hockney adopted a more naturalistic style of painting, depicting beach houses, swimming pools and scenes of pleasure and leisure.  [Christopher, David.  British Culture.  Routledge: 1999]

For further tribute to LGBT Pride Month, take a look at our recent blog post honoring the work of famous LGBT playwrights!

Oscar Wilde

In honor of LGBT Pride Month, we’re featuring the five most researched LGBT playwrights on Questia and making reference works on each of them free for an entire month. Society has fortunately come a long way from the times of Oscar Wilde. President Barack Obama has come out in support of gay rights, and now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has as well. For more insight and to hear her supportive thoughts on LGBT Pride Month, check out Nick Wing’s article for The Huffington Post, “Hillary Clinton Honors LGBT Pride Month.”

1. Oscar Wilde: Born in Ireland in 1854, Wilde was a self-proclaimed aesthete. His various poems, short stories, fairy tales, plays, dialogues and novels are some of the most highly regarded and notorious works of the nineteenth-century. Wilde achieved public success as a comic playwright, crowned by The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895 (Murray and Wilde 1). In that same year, Wilde was tried and found guilty of “homosexual offenses.” After his imprisonment, he wrote the poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol, which is one of his most famous works. [Murray, Isobel, ed. Oscar Wilde: The Major Works.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Questia. Web]
2. Tennessee Williams: Beginning in Mississippi and known as Thomas Lanier Williams, Tennessee Williams was born in an Episcopal rectory and was doted on by his grandmother, grandfather (an Episcopal priest), mother and sister. It wasn’t until after college that he took on the name “Tennessee” and decided to become a writer. Much of what the public knew about his personal life was orchestrated by Williams himself, including the year he was born. “His devil-may-care attitude, bringing him fame and fortune as a playwright of sexuality and violence, really was a rebellion against his Puritan upbringing. Deep down, he was an intensely serious writer who saw his creativity as a gift and writing as a vocation” (Tischler 1). [Tischler, Nancy M. Student Companion to Tennessee Williams. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. Questia. Web.]
3. Edward Albee: Albee was born in March of 1928 and was the adopted son of Reed A. and Frances Cotter Albee of New York. Albee’s contribution to the theatre community has not gone un-noticed. He has received three Pulitzer Prizes, one of which was for Three Tall Women. “In 2002, Albee won the Tony Award for Best Play for The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? Through it all, Albee has not missed a step, continuing to teach, direct, and write new plays” (Mann 1).  Some of his most famous works include Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, A Delicate Balance, The Zoo Story and The Lady from Dubuque. [Mann, Bruce J. "Introduction." Edward Albee: A Casebook. Ed. Bruce J. Mann. New York: Routledge, 2003. 1-5. Questia. Web.]
4. Tony Kushner: Kushner was born in New York to parents who were symphony musicians. At age two, the family moved to New Orleans after they inherited a lumber business, but Kushner returned to New York to attend college. He attended Columbia College and received a bachelor’s degree in medieval studies—his evident love for history carried over into some of his greatest works. He also received a Masters of fine Arts degree from New York University (NYU). “In his undergraduate and graduate years, he saw as many plays in Manhattan as he possibly could. During these years, he was in therapy to try to change his sexual orientation, but in 1981, he called his mother from a pay phone in New York to tell her he was gay” (Nelson 248). Some of his most famous works include Angels in America, Slavs! and Homebody/Kabul. [Wolf, Janet S. "Tony Kushner (1956–)." Contemporary Gay American Poets and Playwrights : An A-to-Z Guide. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003. 246-259. Questia. Web.]
5. Noël Coward:  Coward was so influential that the name “Coward” has become synonymous with an English style. The style is reflected in silk gowns, sophisticated cigarette holders, upper-class accents, wit and sex appeal. “His plays reinforced image, and Coward was not averse to audiences confusing him with his leading male heterosexual characters” (Duerden 81). Coward’s humor was found and written within common phrases that were perfectly timed, so the delivery itself was funny, not the words he used. Some of his most notable works include I’ll Leave It to You, Hay Fever, Easy Virtue and Private Lives. [Duerden, Sarah. "Noël Coward (1899-1973)." British Playwrights, 1880-1956: A Research and Production Sourcebook. Ed. William W. Demastes andKatherine E. Kelly. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996. 81-96. Questia. Web.]

For further tribute to LGBT Pride Month, take a look at our recent blog post honoring the work of famous LGBT poets!

Poet Gertrude Stein

Gay rights have come a long way over the years. Even President Obama took the time to honor LGBT pride with his recent LGBT Pride Month Proclamation that you can read on Bilerico.com. We’re honoring LGBT Pride Month by sharing poetry analysis on the five most researched LGBT poets on Questia. We’ve opened up our library to make the reference works on the poets cited below free for a whole month. Visit our topic page on poetry for even more poetry analysis and quality research.

Allen Ginsberg:  A self-proclaimed “novelist in the making,” Ginsberg is remembered for writing about taboo topics and alternative form of sexuality and was also a leading figure in the Beat Generation, which was a group of post-World War II writers and poets who helped introduce a liberalized culture. Ginsberg vigorously opposed sexual repression and was an early proponent of freedom for gay people, expressing himself and his beliefs openly within his poetry.  [Raskin, Jonah.  American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation. University ofCalifornia Press: 2004]

W.H. Auden:  One of the greatest writers of the 20^th Century, Auden penned nearly 400 poems throughout his lifetime and is credited with being “The Modern Poet” for his use of regular stanzas. To avoid persecution in Nazi Germany for his sexual orientation, Auden married the daughter of a fellow writer in a marriage of convenience, but later met poet Chester Kallman who would become his lifelong companion.  [Bucknell, Katherine, et al.  ‘In Solitude, for Company’: W.H. Auden After 1940.  Clarendon Press: 1995]

Gertrude Stein:  The author of one of the earliest coming out stories, Things as They Are, Stein based the book on a three-person romantic affair she joined while studying at John Hopkins University. As Stein became more involved in the homosexual community, she authored essays such as “Miss Furr and Miss Skeene,” which is one of the first homosexual revelation stories to be published, however historians believe many of the references were missed by readers at the time due to it being one of the first published works to use the word “gay.”  [Gygax, Franziska.  Gender and Genre in Gertrude Stein. Greenwood Press: 1998]

Frank O’Hara:  A member of the New York School of Poetry, Frank O’Hara is known for both his groundbreaking works during his lifetime as well as posthumous works.  Many of O’Hara’s poems followed an “I do this, I do that” format that invoked emotion and declared a moment, with works such as “Second Avenue” delivering a brash and avant-garde side.  Many of his pieces were influenced by Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism.  [Smith, Hazel.  Hyperscapes in the Poetry of Frank O’Hara. LiverpoolUniversity Press: 2000]

Adrienne Rich:  Rich was an American poet, essayist and feminist and is credited with bringing the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse.  She became actively involved in the New Left and supported anti-war, civil rights and feminist causes.  Rich’s style and subject matter earned her a National Medal of Arts, which she declined in protest to the House of Representatives voting to end funding for the National Endowment of Arts.  [Scanlon, Jennifer.  Significant American Feminists. Greenwood Press: 1999]

For a poetic look farther back in time, take a look at our recent blog post on popular poems from the Renaissance to today.