ABSTRACT
The central confl ict explored in this study of gay male fi ction since Stonewall-the confl ict between assimilationism and radicalism: between a fundamental acceptance of social and sexual norms and an outright rejection of them-can also be traced in gay male fi ction from before Stonewall. I shall therefore attempt such a retrospective here in order to show the lineage of the fi ction discussed in the core chapters and to provide the study as a whole with some literary and historical background. However, in accordance with the study as a whole, I shall do this not through a survey, but through a brief examination of a few representative texts: texts that date from the late nineteenth century (Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891) to the mid twentieth (Isherwood’s A Single Man, 1964).
