Download or read book Gay Men's Literature in the Twentieth Century written by Mark Lilly and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1993-11 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In gay men's writing, tenderness lies side by side with rage; existential rejection of convention rubs shoulders with sexual hedonism. Beginning with Wilde's and Byron's existentialist outlaw, the theme of social rebellion, and the fight against conformity, form a common link among the literary works of the twentieth century. But mainstream academic criticism has shown itself for the most part incapable of engaging gay work without distorting or ignoring its most central features.