Queering the Canon – Literary Greats with an LGBTQ+ Twist
Check out cinema showtimes about twenty years ago and you couldn’t move for rewrites of the greats – 10 Things I Hate About You was Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter became Easy A, and Cruel Intentions started out life as Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liasons) almost 200 years ago.
Dig a little more, and while that habit of tweaking the classics into films and books that speak more closely to a modern audience has dropped off, it certainly hasn’t disappeared; 2022’s The Northman is loosely based on another Shakespearian classic, Hamlet, and next year, we’ll see Christopher Nolan take a crack at one of the oldest surviving literary works with his star studded production of The Odyssey.
But while Hollywood seems to generally stick quite closely to the source material, the book world is no stranger to more of an interpretative adaptation. From the days of fairy tales and myth, rewrites and redo's have always been a staple of contemporary drama and literature. Whether it’s moving your setting or time period, adding in new faces, or giving a background character a voice in their own story, adaptation is a fundamental part of life, so also of literature.
In honour of pride month, we decided to delve into some books that took inspiration from literary classics and wrote queer characters and their experiences back into stories that they always belonged in.
The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller
The central character in The Iliad by Homer (the epic follow-up to Homer’s The Odyssey), Achilles, is a character most of us best know from half remembered Greek myths we were told as children. He plays a pivotal role in the Trojan War, and as son of a King and a sea nymph, is imbued with an almost-god like invulnerability. The death of his companion, Patroclus, is his ultimate motivation for joining the fight, yet The Iliad never officially labels their relationship as either romantic or platonic.
In TSOA, Miller turns that ambiguity to her advantage – where The Iliad starts with our central characters already preparing for battle, TSOA takes us back to a youth filled with attraction and longing. Told from Patroclus’ perspective, we’re given an entirely new viewpoint on the Greek myth, without any significant changes to the trajectory of the story. Both characters were doomed by the fates in Homer’s original text, and unfortunately, even Miller can’t change that – the end is always known, and it makes the book even more gut-wrenching for it.
More than ten years after its release, The Song of Achilles has ushered in a whole new phase of mythical rewrites and queer historical fiction and is now considered a literary classic in its own right.
Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
Now for something completely different, Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith doesn’t take one specific literary classic as her inspiration, but instead an entire genre of Victorian fiction! Think of Charles Dickens and his twisty-turny crime stories like Great Expectations or Bleak House, with their juxtapositions of upper- and lower-class society, roguish villains, and gothic sensibilities, and you’ll have a good idea of the style Waters is adopting here.
Our protagonist Sue, raised in the slums of London, is tasked by a family friend known as “Gentleman” to help him seduce a wealthy but sheltered heiress, Maud, after which they’ll commit her to an asylum and get away with all her money. Sue and Maud grow closer, and Sue begins to regret the con, yet continues on, until a double bluff sees her put away instead.
The story itself is split into three parts, mirroring the serialised nature of many novels during the Victorian period, with the character of Maud taking the reins for Part 2. It’s also filled with allusions to multiple fundamentals of Victorian-style literature – Sue and Maud are both orphans, a predominant state of play for Dickens characters, and plot twists galore take place. Waters also takes aim at hetero-patriarchal norms and leaves her female characters as masters (or mistresses) of their own fates, reproducing Dickens' own commentary on social norms and issues of the time.
Fingersmith, along with Waters other novels, seeks to cement queer characters firmly within the British history, and solidify that the LGBTQ+ community has always been here.
Self-Made Boys - Anna-Marie McLemore
With the copyright now expired for F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, it seems like only a matter of time before adaptations start coming out of the woodwork. Considering the queer undertones (and let’s face it, overtones) of the novel have been well debated for years, Self-Made Boys by Anna-Marie McLemore feels like the perfect introduction to more explicitly queer versions of the primary characters, Nick and Jay.
In Self-Made Boys, McLemore reimagines Nick as Nicolás Caraveo, a 17-year old Latine transgender man, exploring New York City’s glamour and decadence for the first time – while the character of Jay Gatsby, though also a transgender man, remains similarly immersed in his pursuit of the American Dream, at any cost.
A love story built on the subtlety and nuance generations of readers have observed in the original novel, combined with a struggle for identity and purpose in the roaring twenties, Self-Made Boys gives Gatsby’s novel a cultural reset, and perhaps, an American Dream that is worth searching for.
Wicked – Gregory Maguire
Yeah, so I’m taking liberties here! But since its release, Wicked’s alternative history for the infamous Witches of Oz, Elphaba and Glinda, has often been read as queer-coded, if not explicitly queer. L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz leaves the backstories of both characters completely blank, and Maguire takes that gap and runs with it, gifting especially Elphaba a complex history within a difficult society.
In Maguire’s version, Elphaba’s visible differences to her peers lead to a lifetime of social ostracisation and eventually, a personal realisation that while society may never accept her, she can accept herself. Glinda, on the other hand, while initially perceived by Elphaba as superficial and flighty, is intelligent but has a deep desire for approval and “normality”. Their tumultuous relationship throughout the novel, along with their individual personal journeys of acceptance and belonging, can be seen as reflective of many in the LGBTQ+ community.
Honorary Mentions – More Fantastical Queer Rewrites
A dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm’s Goose Girl, with witchcraft, sorcerers, and of course, a heroine on horseback.
Poetry and myth combine in this existential crisis of a novel, based on the Greek myth of the winged Icarus.
Taking inspiration from the classic Chinese tale Water Margin from the 14th Century, Huang brings a propulsive queer energy to this wuxia fantasy.
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