Queer Friendship

Friendship in the classical world was celebrated as among the highest human achievements:Nothing was more likely to lead to the divine than looking for it in the eyes of a friend. In exploring the com- plexities of male– male relations beyond the simple labels of sexuality, Queer Friendship shows how love between men has a rich and varied history in English literature. The friend could offer a reflection of one’s own worth and a celebration of a kind of mutuality that was not connected to family or home. These same- sex friendships are memorable because they give shape to the novels of which they are a part, and theyquestion the assumption that the love between friends is different from the love between lovers. Queer Friendship explores English literary friendship in three ways:the elegiac, the erotic, and the platonic, by considering a myriad of works, including Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, Tennyson’s In MemoriamA.H.H, and Dickens’ Great Expectations.

George E.Haggerty is Distinguished Professor and Chair in the Department of English, University of California, Riverside.