Molly Farrell
Published: 21 January 2019
DORIC DAUGHTERS 1895-1928: Codes of same-sex desire in Sapphic modernism.
University of Glasgow
DORIC DAUGHTERS 1895-1928: Codes of same-sex desire in Sapphic modernism.
My research is a study of the classical codes used to express same-sex desire by Sapphic modernist writers such as H.D., Frances Gregg and Alice Groff. Specifically, I study the ways in which the use of classical codes by the female modernists reflect and/or challenge prevailing narratives of same sex desire. I draw parallels within the contemporary medical andsexological conversation, and to the homoerotic codes used by male Decadent- Romantics of the previous century.
Critically, I focus on how the Sapphic modernists separate themselves from the narratives of their male counterparts in a phenomenological sense, to argue that the writers took a subtly different approach to embodied desire. The wider scope of my research will be to connect existing scholarship on ‘minor’ female writers in modernism with a critical focus on female same-sex desire, working at the intersections of modern sexology, literary inheritance, and contemporary queer feminist elaborations of embodiment.
First published: 21 January 2019