Perhaps nowhere else does Kipling articulate the powerful emotional bond that exists between men in a homosocial environment than in the moving monologue, "Follow Me 'Ome," in which one soldier laments the recent loss of his comrade. The speaker juxtaposes the loyalty of the dead man's horse, which "won't take 'er feed 'cause o' waitin' for 'is step," with the alacrity with which the dead man's girlfriend has found herself a new lover, "which is just what a girl would do." Such misogyny is the inevitable corollary of homosocial affection. "Oh, passin' the love o' women," the speaker exclaims at the close of the poem, echoing biblical David's lament for his beloved friend, Jonathan, and investing his love for the dead man with tragic grandeur.

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Perhaps no other book has been more influential--for better or worse--in determining the construction of gay and lesbian identity in the modern world, as well as social attitudes toward homosexuality, than the Bible.

From its beginning, the nineteenth century in England had a purposeful homosexual literature of considerable bulk, both male and female, though it was fettered by oppression.

Homosexuality, both male and female, has a rich, divergent, and increasingly open expression in the literature of the twentieth century.

Indian thought towards same-sex eroticism and gender variance was more tolerant in the past than it is today.

It is not surprising, since the Bible insists that David be looked at and admired, that he should emerge in Western art as the incarnation of male physical attractiveness, especially as rendered by Michelangelo.

One of the finest English novelists of the twentieth century and a tireless defender of humane values, Forster deserves a special place in the gay and lesbian literary heritage.

Though closeted, Henry James had a number of intimate relations with young men, and his sexual orientation imbued his fiction.

Sarah Orne Jewett is a major figure in the literature of female romantic friendship, the precursor of modern lesbian literature.

Throughout his adult life, Cecil Rhodes, one of nineteenth-century Britain's most ambitious imperialists, conducted romantic friendships with younger male associates.

Scattered throughout the novels and short stories of Sir Angus Wilson are a number of gay characters who are presented from a decidedly nonapologetic gay viewpoint.