«Det er Liv eller Død!»

Abstract

Abstract This survey explores homosexual characters in Danish and Norwegian literature in roughly the first half of last century which is the period where the first explicit literary depictions of modern homosexuality are found. I introduce the concept of heteronarrativity as a prism to describe the tendency to let homosexual characters die in order to restore textual harmony and secure happy ends. My material includes canonized texts (Blixen, Bang) but for the most part the novels, short stories, and dramas analyzed are forgotten texts by marginalized or anonymous writers. Two of them were banned as indecent. The article argues that although the narratives are very different, they all display surprisingly similar models for how homosexual characters survive or, more often, do not survive the murderous logics of heteronarrativity. The possibilities of existence consist typically of resignation, marriage, or death, or various combinations of the three. Starting with Herman Bang in 1880 the survey follows a number of homosexual characters and explores how and why they either die or survive, in an attempt to outline a paradigm concerning literary depictions and embodiments of homosexuality. I end on a happy note with a lesbian survivor.

Keywords

• Heteronarrativity
• homosexuality
• literature
• death