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CONSTRUCTING MODERNIST LESBIAN AFFECT FROM LATE VICTORIAN MASCULINE EMOTIONALISM: WILLA CATHER'S “TOMMY, THE UNSENTIMENTAL” AND J.M. BARRIE'S SENTIMENTAL TOMMY

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 18; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09699082.2011.600044

1747-5848

Michelle Ann Abate,

American Literature and Culture

This article recoups the once powerfully present but now largely forgotten link between J.M. Barrie's Sentimental Tommy (1896) and Willa Cather's “Tommy, the Unsentimental” (1896). As the original fin-de-siècle readers would have recognized—and as Cather herself undoubtedly intended—her short story about a figure who adamantly rejects sentimentalism was written in response to Barrie's book about one who enthusiastically embraces it. Sentimentality has long been seen as a central component to the formulation of gender roles during the late Victorian period, but placing Barrie's novel and Cather's story back within their original cultural conversation reveals that it was also equally central to emerging modernist forms of queer sexuality.