First American Gay Novel

They took each other's hands. Each gave way to the impulse of his manly love, rarer, alas! but as tender and true as the love of woman, and they drew nearer and kissed each other.

These words are from what is generally agreed to be America’s first gay novel.  Stick with this podcast as we delve into the 1870 novel Joseph and His Friend, and this is Episode 385 - America’s First Gay Novel.

Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Poe.

Transcript

They took each other's hands. Each gave way to the impulse of his manly love, rarer, alas! but as tender and true as the love of woman, and they drew nearer and kissed each other.

These words are from what is generally agreed to be America’s first gay novel.  Stick with this podcast as we delve into the 1870 novel Joseph and His Friend, and this is Episode 385 - America’s First Gay Novel.

Before I go any further, I want to address something that I have been asked several times before.  Was Poe ever involved in a same sex relationship - or was Poe gay?  Well, for one thing the word gay would not be used - except to mean happy - until the 20th century.  And we have no historical records saying that Poe was ever involved in a same-sex relationship - none whatsoever.  But it is not far a stretch to imagine that Poe socialized with others involved in a same-sex relationship when the writer lived in Greenwich Village in 1845.  And personally, my opinion is that Poe was so much of the outsider figure, that he could empathize with others who were considered outsiders. Poe certainly faced his share of challenges, but I don’t know of anything in Poe’s nature that would lead him to reject others because of their sexual orientation.

The rest of this month is dedicated to podcast episodes about some of the individuals important to gay history who may have crossed paths with Edgar Allan Poe.  Today’s episode is about Bayard Taylor - for a memory aid - and you know I like my memory aids - think Taylor - like Taylor Swift - or if you are a little bit older - ELIZABETH Taylor.  And for the first name Bayard - think BAY like Baywatch and imagine Taylor Swift or Elizabeth Taylor on a beach.   OK  - silly images - but that’s what makes a good memory aid - something that sticks out in your mind.  Bayard Taylor.

Now I ran into the text from an interesting book from 1899 edited by Dr. James Baldwin called Four American Writers.  The book was written for young people, and is actually quite good.  Dr. Baldwin chose four writers - the first two were Washington Irving - the author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, as well as James Russell Lowell - a England writer who was among the first poets to rival the popularity of English poets.  Dr. Baldwin also choose Edgar Allan Poe - especially interesting because Rufus Griswold had published a highly critical biography of Poe shortly after the poet died in 1849, and it was the only biography of Poe for almost 50 years.  And the fourth writer was Bayard Taylor - a man who was extremely popular during the nineteenth century, but is little known today.  That is probably because his writing style is largely out of fashion, but I also think it is because of his last novel, Joseph and His Friend - generally agreed to be the first American novel about a same sex relationship.

Bayard was born in 1825 in Chester County, Pennslyvania.  When he was seventeen, he was apprenticed to a local printer.  Then the highly influential critic and editor Rufus Wilmont Griswold encouraged Bayard to write poetry.   Taylor’s poems were very successful, and he began traveling through Europe, writing many accounts describing his journals.  He began a series of public lectures, and even ended up as a diplomat to Russia.  He also wrote several novels (which are seen as melodramatic today.)  

Taylor continued to write popular fiction, travel books, and poetry, and began to touch on homoerotic themes. A recurring subject was the fantasy of a mystical location, where human beings would be free to express their true feelings toward each other. Taylor found that Greece and the Near East were imaginatively open to a wider interpretation of love than the more puritanical United States of the ninetieth century.

In April 1849, Edgar Allan Poe wrote regarding Bayard Taylor - He is, unquestionably, the most terse, glowing, and vigorous of all our poets, young or old.    Now this is high praise, especially considering that Poe was often referred to as the Tomahawk man because he could be so hard to please as a literary critic.

Taylor’s last novel, Joseph and His Friend, was written in 1870.  The preface to the novel includes the words “To those who prefer quiet pictures of life to startling incidents, who believe in the truth and tenderness of man’s love for man, as of man’s love for woman: who recognize the trouble which confused ideas of life and the lack of intelligent culture —to all such, no explanation of this volume is necessary. Others will not read it.”

Not surprisingly, Joseph and His Friend was not even mentioned in the 1899 book of great American writers I mentioned early - even thought it covered Bayard Taylor.  After all, the book mentioned about great writers was for young readers. And I think the same reasoning is true with the complete elimination of Walt Whitman from the book of writers - Bayard did not write a book about same-sex romance until his last novel - Walt Whitman, on the other hand, was a bit more explicit in even his earliest writings.

But first - a little sidebar - I know in Virginia, if there was a gay couple, they were always introduced - if they were introduced at all - as John and his friend.   Even bad sitcoms of the 70s and 80s would have a gay episode, and the gay person was always introduced as John and his friend.  Then, the two gay characters would leave, and the ditsy lead character would say “I thought they were friends, but they are FRIENDS! -.”  And the audience laughs as the the actor slowly realizes how the word friend was used.

Anyway, getting back to Joseph and His Friend.

The novel’s full title is Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania. It presented a special attachment between two men and discussed the nature and significance of such a relationship.  The novel is romantic but not sexual - after all this 1870 in America.  Joseph and His Friend was partially inspired in part by the real-life relationship of poets Fitz-Greene Halleck and Joseph Rodman Drake. 

The title page to Joseph and His Friend contains a quote from Shakespeare's sonnets, Number 144, "Two loves I have of comfort and despair"
The better angel is a man right fair; The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.

Many scholars believe this sonnet was originally written by Shakespeare to or about another man.

Now in the novel, Joseph Aster - that’s ASTER - is a wealthy young farmer in his twenties, with little experience of the world outside of his rural Pennsylvania community - kinda like the young Baryard Taylor.   Joseph meets Julia Blessing, a lady from the city, at a gathering of young people from his community.  Joseph becomes interested in Julia, who seems to feel the same way.  Within a few months, they are engaged. While returning from a visit to Julia’s family in the city, Joseph is involved in a train crash.

He is cared for by a fellow passenger, Philip Held, who is moving to the countryside to oversee a forge. Philip is much worldlier than Joseph, and is charmed by Joseph’s innocence. Joseph and Philip immediately take to each other, and soon develop a strong friendship. The romantic undertones of their relationship is shown in Philip’s profession of love and “a man’s perfect friendship.”  - You can probably see where this is going.

Joseph goes ahead and marries Julia, but quickly discovers that she is manipulative and cold-hearted. Julia pushes Joseph to invest more and more in an oil operation for her father. Meanwhile, she squanders Joseph’s existing wealth on all kinds of unnecessary additions to his farmhouse. When Joseph finally visits the oil well he has been investing in, he discovers that it has little monetary potential. He returns to the countryside, reveals his imminent losses to Julia, and demands that she give up her scheming and greed. Julia’s becomes excited, angry, and then totally out of control before collapsing. The doctor is called, and announced that she has died, most likely from consuming arsenic.

The community begins to suspect that Joseph was involved in his wife's death. Philip launches an extensive investigation to prove Joseph’s innocence. Over the course of a trial, it is revealed that Julia’s death was accidental, and that she had been regularly consuming arsenic in order to improve her complexion.

After the trial, Joseph leaves his community and travels through the frontier on Philip’s advice. When he returns home, he is worldlier and happier with his farming life. Philip realizes that Joseph has fallen in love with Madeline Held, Philip’s sister. He laments that Joseph and Madeline’s romance will “take Joseph further from his heart,” but decides that he “must be vicariously happy” for their sake.

The book was received poorly - remember this was the 1870s.  For example, critic Albert Smyth, found Joseph and His Friend to be "an unpleasant story of mean duplicity and painful mistakes. The characters are shallow and their surroundings mean. There is not a single pleasing situation or incident in the book.

I don’t agree with that opinion at all - sure there are wordy and sentimental accounts in the novel - after all this was 1870.  But it seemed that the critic was afraid to even mention the topic that he felt uncomfortable with, and invented reasons to criticize Joseph and His Friend.

The novel became Taylor’s least successful and most disliked novel, but I don’t think it bothered Bayard Taylor - like he kind of expected a backlash.  The Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor, edited by Marie Hansen-Taylor & Horace E. Scudder contains a letter to J.B. Phillips written by Taylor where he said, “What you say of ‘Joseph’ delights me, for you have recognized exactly what I attempted to do,— that is, to throw some indirect light on the great questions which underlie civilized life, and the existence of which is only dimly felt, not intelligently perceived, by most Americans. I allowed the plot to be directed by these cryptic forces; hence, a reader who does not feel them will hardly be interested in the external movement of the story. I will tell you, now, that I consider it my best novel, with all its deficiencies. So do a few others; but the blessed half-educated public sees nothing in the book but dullness”

I’d like to end this episode with a 5 minute section from Joseph and His Friend.  This is a moving account of the two men, Joseph and Phillip in a forest, as they try to communicate their feelings to each other - feelings that they cannot explain.  Society then did not have the words for the emotions of the two men - the word homosexual and gay as terms for same sex attraction were decades away,  This section begins with Joseph contemplating suicide.  And note how later Joseph muses about what we today might call gay rights.

It was a miserable strait in which he found himself; and the more he
thought—or, rather, seemed to think—the less was he able to foresee any
other than an unfortunate solution. What were his better impulses, if
men persisted in finding them evil? What was life, yoked to such
treachery and selfishness? Life had been to him a hope, an inspiration,
a sound, enduring joy; now it might never be so again! Then what a
release were death!
He walked forward to the edge of the rock. A few pebbles, dislodged by
his feet, slid from the brink, and plunged with a bubble and a musical
tinkle into the dark, sliding waters. One more step, and the release
which seemed so fair might be attained. He felt a morbid sense of
delight in playing with the thought. Gathering a handful of broken
stones, he let them fall one by one, thinking, "So I hold my fate in my
hand." He leaned over and saw a shifting, quivering image of himself
projected against the reflected sky, and a fancy, almost as clear as a
voice, said: "This is your present self: what will you do with it beyond
the gulf, where only the soul superior to circumstances here receives a
nobler destiny?"

He was still gazing down at the flickering figure, when a step came upon
the dead leaves. He turned and saw Philip, moving stealthily towards
him, pale, with outstretched hand. They looked at each other for a
moment without speaking.

"I guess your thought, Philip," Joseph then said. "But the things
easiest to do are sometimes the most impossible."

"The bravest man may allow a fancy to pass through his mind, Joseph,
which only the coward will carry into effect."

"I am not a coward!" Joseph exclaimed.

Philip took his hand, drew him nearer, and flinging his arms around him,
held him to his heart.

Then they sat down, side by side.

"Dear, dear friend," Joseph cried, "I did not mean to come to you until
I seemed stronger and more rational in my own eyes. If that were a
vanity, it is gone now: I confess my weakness and ignorance. Tell me, if
you can, why this has come upon me? Tell me why nothing that I have been taught, why no atom of the faith which I still must cling to, explains,
consoles, or remedies any wrong of my life!"

Joseph related to Philip the whole of his miserable story, not sparing
himself, nor concealing the weakness which allowed him to be entangled
to such an extent. Philip's brow grew dark as he listened, but at the
close of the recital his face was calm, though stern.

"Is there no way out of this labyrinth of wrong?" Philip exclaimed. "Two
natures, as far apart as Truth and Falsehood, monstrously held together
in the most intimate, the holiest of bonds,—two natures destined for
each other monstrously kept apart by the same bonds! Is life to be so
sacrificed to habit and prejudice? I said that Faith, like Law, was
fashioned for the average man: then there must be a loftier faith, a
juster law, for the men—and the women—who cannot shape themselves
according to the common-place pattern of society,—who were born with
instincts, needs, knowledge, and rights—ay, _rights_!—of their own!"
"But, Philip," said Joseph, "we were both to blame: you through too
little trust, I through too much. We have both been rash and impatient:
I cannot forget that; and how are we to know that the punishment,
terrible as it seems, is disproportioned to the offence?"
Rufus Griswold had published highly critical biography of Poe shortly after   Joseph was silent at first; but Philip could see, from the trembling of
his hands, and his quick breathing, that he was profoundly agitated.
"There is something within me," he said, at last, "which accepts
everything you say; and yet, it alarms me. I feel a mighty temptation in
your words: they could lead me to snap my chains, break violently away
from my past and present life, and surrender myself to will and
appetite. O Philip, if we could make our lives wholly our own! If we
could find a spot—"

"I know such a spot!" Philip cried, interrupting him,—"a great valley,
bounded by a hundred miles of snowy peaks; lakes in its bed; enormous
hillsides, orchards of orange and olive; a perfect climate, where it is bliss enough just to breathe, and freedom from the distorted laws of men, for none are near enough to enforce them! If there is no legal way of escape for you, here, at least, there is no force which can drag you back, once you are there: I will go with you, and perhaps—perhaps—"

Philip's face glowed, and the vague alarm in Joseph's heart took a
definite form. He guessed what words had been left unspoken.

"If we could be sure!" he said.

"Sure of what? Have I exaggerated the wrong in your case? Say we should
be outlaws there, in our freedom!—here we are fettered outlaws."

"I have been trying, Philip, to discover a law superior to that under
which we suffer, and I think I have found it. If it be true that
ignorance is equally punished with guilt; if causes and consequences, in
which there is neither pity nor justice, govern our lives,—then what
keeps our souls from despair but the infinite pity and perfect justice
of God? Yes, here is the difference between human and divine law! This
makes obedience safer than rebellion. If you and I, Philip, stand above
the level of common natures, feeling higher needs and claiming other
rights, let us shape them according to the law which is above, not that
which is below us!"

Philip grew pale. "Then you mean to endure in patience, and expect me to
do the same?" he asked.

"If I can. The old foundations upon which my life rested are broken up,
and I am too bewildered to venture on a random path. Give me time; nay,
let us both strive to wait a little. I see nothing clearly but this:
there is a Divine government, on which I lean now as never before. Yes,
I say again, the very wrong that has come upon us makes God necessary!"

It was Philip's turn to be agitated. There was a simple, solemn
conviction in Joseph's voice which struck to his heart. He had spoken
from the heat of his passion, it is true, but he had the courage to
disregard the judgment of men, and make his protest a reality. Both
natures shared the desire, and were enticed by the daring of his dream;
but out of Joseph's deeper conscience came a whisper, against which the
cry of passion was powerless.

"Yes, we will wait," said Philip, after a long pause. "You came to me,
Joseph, as you said, in weakness and confusion: I have been talking of
your innocence and ignorance. Let us not measure ourselves in this way.
It is not experience alone which creates manhood. What will become of us
I cannot tell, but I will not, I dare not, say you are wrong!"

They took each other's hands. The day was fading, the landscape was
silent, and only the twitter of nesting birds was heard in the boughs
above them. Each gave way to the impulse of his manly love, rarer, alas!
but as tender and true as the love of woman, and they drew nearer and
kissed each other. As they walked back and parted on the highway, each
felt that life was not wholly unkind, and that happiness was not yet
impossible.

Join \ Celebrate Poe for episode 386 - Celebrating Whitman - where this podcast begins an examination of the individual who is frequently referred to as America's greatest poet, Walt Whitman.

Sources for this episode include Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor; A Book for Young Americans by James Baldwin, Ph.D., Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography by Arthur Hobson Quinn, Edgar Allan Poe: The Man by Mary E. Phillips, and Joseph and His Friend by Bayard Taylor.

Thank you for listening to celebrate poe.