Chapter 10 - Lesbian, Gay and Trans Bildungsromane

Summary

This chapter views the form of the Bildungsroman in terms of its mediation of the relationship between individual identities and grand narratives of national historical space and time. Women writers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries established the relation between plot structures which develop individual (hetero)sexual identity and socio-economic inclusion. At the turn of the twentieth century, writers creating cultural space for the inclusion of the queer individual naturally turned to this novelistic form. The chapter examines Anglo-American lesbian, gay and trans Bildungsroman of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in terms of their various mediations between queer individuals and national histories. The methodological approach leads to questions regarding generic form, publishing context and the communication of calls to cultural and political inclusion.