Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture

Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture examines the role of Christian history in nineteenth-century definitions of homosexual identity. Roden charts the emergence of the modern homosexual in relation to religious, not exclusively sociological discourses. Positing Catholicism as complementary to classical Greece, he challenges the separatism of sexuality and religion in critical practice. Moving from Newman and Rossetti, to Hopkins, Wilde, and Michael Field amongst others, Same-Sex Desire claims a new literary history, bringing together gay studies and theology in Victorian literature.

'Roden's rich book shows how Victorian Catholicisms could provide both faces and disguises for same-sex love. From Newman to Wilde and Christina Rossetti to Michael Field, he recovers the power of religion to sustain homoerotic lives for women and men who were and were not homosexual. Consider it an Introduction to the Devout Queer Life by a deft reader and astute believer.' - Mark Jordan, Emory University 'In charting this fascinating, difficulty territory of cultural history, Roden deploys an impressive and formidable scholarship. He draws on stimulating recent critical perspectives on Victorian religious culture to draw together a disparate group of women and men writing towards what he terms 'the creation of a homosexual Catholicism for modernity.' - The Oscholars 'Roden's rich book shows how Victorian catholicisms could provide both faces and disguises for same-sex love. From Newman to Wilde and Christina Rossetti to Michael Field, he recovers the power of religion to sustain homoerotic lives for women and men who were and were not homosexual. Consider it an Introduction to the Devout Queer Life by a deft reader and astute believer.' - Mark Jordan, Department of Religion, Emory University 'His book represents a valuable synthesis of contemporary queer scholarship...profoundly worthwhile for the original reseach...' - Eibhear Walshe, The Oscholars 'Highly informative and insightful study proves essential for an understanding of lesbian writing in the first half of the twentieth-century, even as it illuminates the second half of the nineteenth...Roden does a masterful job of rescuing these 'queer' facts from the realm of the potentially ridiculous and returning them to the serious...I only wish that I had had access sooner to Roden's chapter, to lift the cloud of my undergraduate students' confusion.' - Margaret D. Stetz, Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature

FREDERICK S. RODEN is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Connecticut, USA. He has published articles on Victorian literature and culture, religion and homosexuality, gender theory, and medievalism.