From Sappho to 'Fried Green Tomatoes'
By KATHRYN HARRISON
Published: May 20, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/books/review/Harrison-t.htmlWere an intelligent, determined scholar to set herself the task of sifting through the last thousand years of Western culture's literary output, would she be able to discern a "historical moment when something changed in the way women's love was experienced and interpreted"? The short answer is no, not really. The longer answer is "Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature," by the novelist, playwright and literary critic Emma Donoghue.
Those literary historians whose "scores of studies" Donoghue consulted identified two trends: After 1500, British literature betrays an "increasing interest" in love between women; and late-19th-century medicine introduced popular culture to lesbians as a "clearly defined type." Apart from these gross and easily observable shifts, the rest of Western literature has remained a relatively uncharted territory with respect to tracking the subject of desire between women.
