hi I know you from your playlist about my girl Julie and TELL ME SOME QUEER HISTORY PLEASE THANKS
tumblr dot hell never told me i got this message so sorry! i just saw this! AHHH queer history is so broad and vast and i have no idea where to start!!!
one of my fave things about history is that it’s so much gayer than ppl want you to know. if you like julie d’aubigny, reading about anne bonny and mary read will interest you! historical queer lady pirates are very similar to the vibe julie gave off too.
also i’m particularly fond of thinking about renaissance gays cos i’m an early modernist by like trade in a way (or i like to think of myself as an early modernist and it is the period i’m most interested in and the period my thesis was set in so i’ve done a lot of work re: early modern france and the nature of monastic institutions creating spaces for queer ppl, particularly women if only cos that’s what my thesis was specific to but also tru for men, to escape to and be able to deviate from expected norms like marriage, traditional gender roles, but then also remain safe). it’s very interesting as a period of time of heightened art making, which always reveals and/or allows gathering spaces for queer ppl. it also was the period of time with the rise of poetry and the novel, which is similar and a lot of intellectual salons where ppl were writing things that weren’t strictly religious and/or political drew a lot of queer ppl. also the early modern period as a neoclassical era also has a lot of echos back to the queerness of classics, with calls to achilles and patroclus as well as a bunch of others.
you see that with the english romantics of the early 19th century too. which brings me to one of my fave things which is my wife and love of my life mary shelley was just as bi as her husband and male literary friends and definitely had a thing for if not a fling with jane williams, the wife of edward williams (the dude who died in the same ship wreck as percy). check out this letter that mary wrote to jane. most of their correspondence is not easily found, if it has been preserved at all. i’ve looked a lot, but i don’t have the resources i once had at school now that i’ve graduated and so that makes it harder to find primary sources. secondary sources that are credible too :( lol
hope this was interesting and not only rambling nonsense. let me know if you want to know about anything more in particular or anything! i love talking about queer history. also check out my tag for it :)
