Wrestling with the rappel a l'ordre. Thom Gunn and the New Modernism of the Sixties

A central theme of Gunn’s poetry, from his first collection, Fighting Terms (1954), through to his latest, The Man With Night Sweats (1992) – which deals with people dying of AIDS –, has been his problematic coming to terms with his own homosexuality. It was only through the liberating experience of the Sixties (“the fullest years of my life, crowded with discovery both inner and outer”) that Gunn’s poetry underwent a radical metamorphosis, deeply affecting the poet’s lifestyle and his attitude towards his sexual identity. The Sixties was also a turning point in his life because they coincided with his escape to America, away from England and the oppressively claustrophobic teaching of F. R. Leavis. The second part of the paper (which will be delivered at the seminar), will focus on an analysis of a number of Gunn’s poems, some of which reveal the poet’s trapped and disguised homosexual identity, while others celebrate its having been let free.