"Was hätten Verse von dieser Dezenz zu fürchten": On homsexuality and poetry

Concepts of homosexuality circulate in the societal domain and affect literary culture. The first half of the twentieth century saw an increasing domestication of the public domain regarding homosexual practices. Using three perspectives – text, authors’s posture, and reception – and focussing on a specific case, a volume of apparently homo-erotic poetry, this article show all kind of tensions: poems touching homo-erotic subjects and in the same move covering them up by complex poetic devices; the poet’s posture invoking homo-erotic icons, yet refusing to be outspoken; a progressive critic reading the volume and struggling to reconcile extra-literary and literary norms.