Abstract
Leo Bersani was an enormously seductive critic, and he frequently wrote about seductiveness, beginning with his first book, Marcel Proust: The Fictions of Life and Art. This essay focuses on a passage in that book where Bersani discusses Proust’s character, the Baron de Charlus, whose seductive orientation toward the world Bersani relates to Charlus’s “homosexual talk.” This essay considers the fate of seductiveness within Bersani’s own career-long homosexual talk. It moves, by way of his queer provocations of the 1980s and 1990s, from his first book to his 2013 preface to that book, and shows how, even as Bersani reformulated the seductive in increasingly austere terms, he continued to deploy it, never forgetting how close it is to the intolerable.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
