| Contemporary fictional treatments of lesbian themes in historical settings mediate between a modern sense of sexual orientation as typifying a subjective identity, and the historical sense of homosexuality as indicating a set of behaviors. Three novels, Cassandra (1988) by Christa Wolf, Possession: A Romance (1991) by A. S. Byatt, and The Passion (1990) by Jeannette Winterson exemplify this tension. In these novels, the depictions of female relationships are marked by ambivalence. Late-twentieth-century readers, when faced with such ambiguity, must negotiate numerous challenges before accepting the possibility of lesbianism in an historical setting. While such ambiguity indicates readers are free to envision a diversity of sexual behaviors and meanings, it also contributes to the invisibility of lesbians and gays in literature. Readers can ignore or deny the sapphic elements in the text, and are never challenged to reach beyond the heterosexual norms which limit the acknowledgment of homosexual possibility. |
