Reading Sideways Reading Sideways The Queer Politics of Art in Modern American Fiction Dana Seitler fordham university press New York 2019 Copyright © 2019 Fordham University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means— electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other— except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Fordham University Press has no responsibility for the per sis tence or accuracy of URLs for external or third- party Internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or w ill remain, accurate or appropriate. Fordham University Press also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Visit us online at www . fordhampress . com. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data available online at https:// catalog . loc . gov. Printed in the United States of Amer i ca 21 2 0 1 9 5 4 3 2 1 First edition contents List of Illustrations vii Introduction 1 1. Strange Beauty 15 2. Small Collectivity and the Low Arts 43 3. The Impossible Art Object of Desire 75 4. Willa Cather and W. E. B. Du Bois Go to the Opera 112 Part One: A Continuous Repetition of Sound 116 Part Two: Endless Melody 138 Conclusion 159 Acknowl edgments 163 Notes 167 Index 187 illustrations 1 Hiram Powers, The Greek Slave (1844) 36 2 Harriet Hosmer, Zenobia in Chains (1859) 38 3 Gold leaf frame (c. 1867) 51 4 Oil- gilded tulle net frame (c. 1870) 52 5 Rock patterns in the main cove (c. 1850) 53 6 Walking Dress pattern (1853) 62 7 “Informal Conference,” advertisement from Exhibition of Sewing (1897) 64 8 Titian, Portrait of a Young En glishman (1540–45) 92 9 Titian, Portrait of a Lady (1555) 97 10 Titian, La Bella (c. 1536) 98 11 Winslow Homer, Portrait of a Lady (1875) 100 12 The Dying Gaul (c. 230) 103 13 The Faun, red marble, Roman copy from late Hellenism (1736) 105 14 Antinous (c.130–150 AD) 106 15 Jules Adolphe Breton, “The Song of the Lark” (1884) 124 16 Olive Fremstad (1871–1951). “Enjoys Wood Chopping” 128 17 “ Women Beat Upon Metropolitan’s Doors to Hear Uncanny Opera,” New York World (February 10, 1907) 129 18 W. E. B. Du Bois’s ticket to a per for mance of Lohengrin at Bayreuth in 1936 153 vii Reading Sideways