Gender protest and same-sex desire in antebellum American literature: Margaret Fuller, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melvile / by David Greven, University of South Carolina, USA.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: battle with the world: theorizing same-sex desire in antebellum American literature -- Phallic images: Fuller, Lacan, and gender politics -- Ligeia's lament: femininity and the erotics of race -- New girls and bandit brides: female narcissism and lesbian desire in Fuller's Summer on the lakes -- No country for melancholy young men: mourning and hypocrisy -- In Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym -- American shudders: race, representation, and sodomy in Redburn -- Hester is burning: desire and gendered grief in The scarlet letter.