Willow, Jack, Ashley, Cleveland, Lindsay

Boston Marriage and Romantic Friendship in the 19th Century

Romantic FriendshipNicknamesLove lettersGifts and tokensFemale MasculinityDevoted

faithfulness Intelligence

Boston MarriageIndependent of Males, financially and otherwise

Career Women

FeminismNew Women

The BostoniansBy Henry James 1885Olive and VerenaBroken apart by Olive’s

cousin Basil Ransom who convinces Venera to elope with him rather than give a speech at one of Olive’s feminist gathering

Ending implies marriage will not lead to happiness

Boston Marriage by David MametPortrays two women in a

Boston MarriageAnna a mistress to a

wealthy gentlemanClaire falls in love with a

young woman and conspires to seduce her in their home while Anna is busy entertaining the girls mother.

Things are complicated when the young girl recognizes the necklace Anna is wearing, given to her by her lover, as her own mothers.

Letter from Emily Dickenson“Susie, Forgive me darling, for every word I say, my heart is full of you, Yet when I seek to say to you something not for the words fail me.”

Edited version

Letter from Emily DickensonSusie, forgive me darling, for every

word I say-my heart is full of you, none other than you in my thoughts, yet when I seek you to say to you something not for for the world, words fail me. If you were here-and oh that you were, my Susie, we need not talk at all, our eyes whisper for us, and your hand fast in mine, we would not ask for language.

The Letters of Cyril Connolly to Noel Blakiston

The Letters of Cyril Connolly to Noel Blakiston

“My mother will be here and wants to see you…”

“I would love to have you…”

“…We could have my sitting room to be unmolested in and the country…”

“ You must come and live here with me when it is mine…”

Bromancenon-sexual relationship between two men, a

form of homosocial intimacy. Coined in the 1990s, the term has historically referred to a relationship between heterosexuals, but the term has gained currency in describing such relationships when one of the men is gay

“defined Male romantic friendships in the nineteenth century United States as “noninstitutionalized”, socially sanctioned…premarital… between young, coeval, coequal, white men.”

Axel Nissen Manly Love“This was the period when homosexual became

a species”

Novels that represent “Manly Love” How is one able to

recognize romantic relationships with in fiction?

John Godfrey’s Fortunes 1864

Temple house 1888St Elmo 1867Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn 1885

Examples of Romantic Friendships in Literature:Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh The opening chapter, Et In Arcadia

Ego, is an effective example of a Romantic Friendship, while the rest of the novel tends toward debate over religion, the loss of love and the significance of heritage and the past.

The opening portrays the story of Charles Ryder during his formative years at Oxford university in the 1920s, where he encounters the enigmatic, charming, and, to him at least, irresistible Sebastian Flyte.

‘I was in search of love in those days.’

Description of Sebastian‘He was magically beautiful, with that epicene

quality which in extreme youth sings aloud for love and withers at the first cold wind.’

‘I knew Sebastian by sight long before I met him. That was unavoidable for, from his first week, he was the most conspicuous man of his year by reason of his beauty, which was arresting, and his eccentricities of behaviour which seemed to know no bounds.’

‘I know of these romantic friendships of the English…I think they are very good if they do not go on too long.’