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40 THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF CAMP NOTES Earlier versions of this essay were presented under the title “The Politics of Surfaces: Notes on Eighteenth-Century Camp,” at the annual conference of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Seattle, Washington, 8 August 1991; and Camp/Out, Symposium on Camp Theory, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, 10 April 1992. I am indebted to Margaret Thompson Drewal for her comments on early versions of this essay. 1 See, especially, Cynthia Morrill’s critique of Sontag elsewhere in this volume. 2 In all quotations from original texts, I have modernized the “s” but have left all other spellings and punctuation as found. 3 Sometimes explicitly: “Our norm will be that of the healthy man in the prime of his life” (Jelgerhuis 264). 4 For background on the mollies see: Trumbach 1977; Trumbach 1989; and Senelick. For the rise of the “companionate marriage,” see Stone 1979: 217ff. 5 See “Akimbo” 1989; “Cambrel” 1989; and “Cammock” 1989. 6 See Gifford 18–35. Gifford points out that the costume of the fifteenth-century European fool was associated with that of the courtier—an interesting parallel to the court/homosexual/trickster transcodings I am tracing here. 7 See Lambert (passim). 8 The author of The Phoenix of Sodom asserted that the “crime” of sodomy “is so detestable, that the law of England blushes to name it; and in all legal process, treats it as a crime not fit to be named among Christians; a silence, which is also preserved by the edict of Constantius, and others” (24). 9 Shaftesbury suggested that men’s effeminate interest in feminine politeness was responsible for the virtuosi’s “violent desire at least to know the knack or secret by which Nature does it all” (1709:8). 10 For a description of some of these oddities see Houghton 193. 11 In this later-eighteenth-century drawing, the arm set akimbo now holds a hat; and the hand, formerly turned back on the hip, has been tucked inside a pocket. The fribble’s stylistic excess is thereby contrasted to the “man’s” more neutral bodily style. 12 For the historical overtake of midwifery by men, see Ehrenreich and English 34; Fraser 441; and Rich 139. I am indebted to Salome Chasnoff for these sources. 13 This point has been developed at length by Barbara Freedman 7–12, 44–46. 14 Mary Ann Caws has described mannerism as a “style of excess and self-conscious contradiction,” and a “composition in contrary motions or contrapposto” (37). Caws isolated mannerist art by its frequent pointing at pointing; the mannerist gesture, that is, slowed down the gazing eye, forcing the eye to linger on and move across the surface of things, returning the gaze to the gesture itself. 15 “To emphasize style is to slight content, or to introduce an attitude which is neutral with respect to content. It goes without saying that the Camp sensibility is disengaged, depoliticized—or at least apolitical” (Sontag 107, emphasis mine); and:
It might seem that the man in drag has put his identity in jeopardy by confusing the very oppositions which sustain the gendered difference our symbolic legislates. …However, analysts note, he has feminized himself only in order to “masculinize” (phallicize) himself, attempting to better secure a masculine or phallic and “whole” identity through cross-dressing. (Tyler 42) BIBLIOGRAPHY PERFORMING “AKIMBO” 41 “Akimbo.” 1989. Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Austin, Gilbert. 1806. Chironomia, or a Treatise on Rhetorical Delivery. 1966. Eds Mary Margaret Robb and Lester Thonssen. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. “Beldame.” 1989. Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Bloomfield, Morton W. 1952. The Seven Deadly Sins: An Introduction to the History of a Religious Concept with Special References to Medieval English Literature. East Lansing: Michigan State College Press. Bray, Alan. 1982. Homosexuality in Renaissance England. London: Gay Men’s Press. Brown, Ivor. 1943. Just Another Word. London: Jonathan Cape. Bulwer, John. 1644. Chirologia: or the Natural Language of the Hand and Chironomia: or the Art of Manual Rhetoric. 1974. Ed. James W.Cleary. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. “Cambrel” 1989. Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd edn. “Cammock.” 1989. Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Castiglione, Baldesar. 1528. The Book of the Courtier. 1959. Trans. Charles S. Singleton. Garden City, New Jersey: Doubleday. Caws, Mary Ann. 1981. The Eye in the Text: Essays in Perception, Mannerist to Modern. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chalmers, Alexander (ed.). 1806. The Spectator: A Corrected Edition: With Prefaces Historical and Biographical. 8 vols. London: T. Bensley. Dollimore, Jonathan. 1991. Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Du Bos, Jean-Baptiste. 1719. Reflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture. Paris: J.Mariette. Ehrenreich, Barbara and Dierdre English. 1979. For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women. New York: Doubleday. Fraser, Antonia. 1985. The Weaker Vessel. New York: Vintage Books. Freedman, Barbara. 1991. Staging the Gaze: Postmodernism, Psychoanalysis, and Shakespearean Comedy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. “Fribble.” 1989. Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd edn. Garrick, David. 1761. The Fribbleriad. The Poetical Works of David Garrick, Esq. 1785. 2 vols. London: George Kearsley, 1:21–34. Gifford, D.J. 1979. “Iconographical Notes toward a Definition of the Medieval Fool.” In Paul V.A. William (ed.). The Fool and the Trickster: Studies in Honour of Enid Welsford. Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield, 18–35.
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THE CAMP TRACE IN CORPORATE AMERICA
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homosocialism 35-6, 43-4 Hutcheon,
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