Before Queer Theory: Victorian Aestheticism and the Self

by Dustin Friedman

Book Overview

Late Victorian aesthetes were dedicated to the belief that an artwork's value derived solely from its beauty, rather than any moral or utilitarian purpose. Works by these queer artists have rarely been taken seriously as contributions to the theories of sexuality or aesthetics. But in Before Queer Theory, Dustin Friedman argues that aestheticism deploys its art for art's sake rhetoric to establish a nascent sense of sexual identity and community.

Friedman...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1421431483
• ISBN13: 9781421431482
• Release Date: September 2019
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.2" x 9.0"