ENGL 495 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Heteronormativity, High Standard Manufacturing Company, Panti
4 Jun 2018
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9 April, 2018
Toibin, on the queer aspect of The Blackwater Lightship: I think that TBL can be read as a novel
more about Ireland than about homosexuality, recurrent images found in a society that is
fundamentally changing, the gay thing isn’t essential to the story
- Hepburn: this is bullshit
- Toibin might mean that queerness is one aspect of change in society, but the novel
would not have the same meaning without the theme of queerness
- Queerness and Irishness are troubled, queerness in Ireland only discussed in past few
decades
- Toibin is gay
The Blackwater Lightship
- Dominant theme is shoreline, house falling into sea, shoreline is shifting; emblematic of
shifting Ireland, political and cultural, shifting family dynamics
- What is a lightship? A boat with a light on it to warn ships at sea (lighthouse on a boat)
- p 192, Lily talking about the lightship from her childhood; lightship has
disappeared, Ireland changing
- Lightship extrapolates human relationship, relationships are changing, lightship is
both male and female, matriarchal line in novel and in Ireland
- Sean O'Faolain, Frank O’Connor, Seamus Heaney, Elizabeth Bowen, Colm Toibin --
international audience, all were Irish writers living and writing abroad
- The gay thing
- Constitution enshrined women in homes, changes for women happen slowly due
to conservative Catholic culture; changes for queerness even slower
- Homage to Barcelona (1990) -- fall of Franco dictatorship, Toibin lived in
Barcelona for a few years after undergrad, book about being nervous Irish gay
man in Spanish bars, gay international
- Toibin puts Irish queer culture against other nations’ queer cultures,
leveraging world culture to change queer culture in Ireland
- Heaney speaks to world audience; so does Toibin
- Love in a Dark Time: Oscar Wilde to Almodova (2002) -- about queer creativity, if
there’s queer culture that’s trans-historical
- Thomas Mann, crypto-queer career; enlists historical figures as queer to
justify queer identity
- What is different about queer creativity, queer tragedy, the AIDS crisis;
historical access
- The Story of the Night (1996) -- story in there about Irish man with AIDS
- The Master (2004) -- fantasia on Henry James, also had a crypto-queer identity,
hard to know if he was practicing homesexual or lifelong celibate; connecting to
universal, international, transhistorical queerness
- Thinking of Toibin as queer writer; Toibin has raised queer consciousness in
Ireland almost single handedly
Document Summary
Toibin might mean that queerness is one aspect of change in society, but the novel would not have the same meaning without the theme of queerness. Queerness and irishness are troubled, queerness in ireland only discussed in past few decades. Dominant theme is shoreline, house falling into sea, shoreline is shifting; emblematic of shifting ireland, political and cultural, shifting family dynamics. A boat with a light on it to warn ships at sea (lighthouse on a boat) p 192, lily talking about the lightship from her childhood; lightship has disappeared, ireland changing. Lightship extrapolates human relationship, relationships are changing, lightship is both male and female, matriarchal line in novel and in ireland. Sean o"faolain, frank o"connor, seamus heaney, elizabeth bowen, colm toibin -- international audience, all were irish writers living and writing abroad. Constitution enshrined women in homes, changes for women happen slowly due to conservative catholic culture; changes for queerness even slower.
