This list includes exceptional works about Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender experience. Authors are usually limited to one title. All available public domain works (Shakespeare, Whitman, Wilde, many more) link to free, unabridged copies. For biographical and historical information, see the glbtq encyclopedia. And don't forget to check out 100 best gay and lesbian books.
[visit GLBT Literature for more info]
Poetry
GLBT poetry extends to the beginnings of civilization, and is found in all world cultures. Below is an overview of mostly Western poets, but other vital traditions include the Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese. The first anthology of same-sex poetry is Ioläus [free online], edited by Edward Carpenter in 1908. You will find an excellent selection of lesbian poets in Chloe Plus Olivia (1994), edited by Lillian Faderman; and for male poets, the Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature (1998), edited by Byrne R.S. Fone.
Ancient (before 500 BCE)
BABYLONIAN: Gilgamesh (2,000 BCE), oldest surviving work of literature and a moving gay love story. GREEK: Homer (8th c. BCE; Iliad with central bond of Achilles & Patroclus), Sappho (born 612? BCE).
Classical (500 BCE – 476 CE)
GREEK: Aeschylus (525 BCE – 456), Sophocles (496? BCE – 406), Euripides (480? BCE – 406) often treated same-sex themes, but those works were later destroyed by barbarians or the church; also Pindar (518 BCE – 438), Theocritus (308? BCE – 240). ROMAN: Catullus (84? BCE – 54), Virgil (70 BCE – 19; "Eclogue II" & Aeneid, Book IX), Horace (65 BCE – 8), Ovid (43 BCE – 17 CE), Martial (40 CE – 104), Juvenal (55 CE – 140).
Medieval (476 – 1453)
OLD ENGLISH: Beowulf (8th c.; relationship of Hrothgar & Beowulf). GERMAN: Hildegard of Bingen. FRENCH-NORMAN: Epics, including Song of Roland (11th c.), Lancelot-Grail (Galehaut & Lancelot). Lyric poetry from many countries. Passages in Dante (1265 – 1321; Inferno Cantos 11, 14 & 15; Purgatorio Canto 26), Chaucer (1340? – 1400; Canterbury Tales).
Renaissance & Baroque
ITALIAN: Michelangelo (1475 – 1564; Sonnets), Torquato Tasso (1544 – 1595). BRITISH: Edmund Spenser (1552 – 1599), Sir Philip Sidney (1554 – 1586), Christopher Marlowe (1564 – 1593), Shakespeare (1564 – 1616; Sonnets), Richard Barnfield (1574 – 1627), Katherine Philips (1632 – 1664), Aphra Behn (1640? – 1689). FRENCH: Théophile de Viau (1590 – 1626), Denis Sanguin de Saint-Pavin (1595 – 1670). MEXICAN: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648 – 1695).
18th & 19th Centuries
GERMAN: Friedrich Hölderlin, Heinrich von Kleist, August von Platen. BRITISH: Lord Byron, Thomas Gray, Edward Lear, Alexander Pope, Christina Rossetti, Anna Seward, Algernon Charles Swinburne, John Adington Symonds, Oscar Wilde. AMERICAN: Emily Dickinson, Bayard Taylor, Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass, esp. "Calamus" section). FRENCH: Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud (A Season in Hell), Paul Verlaine.
Early to Mid-20th Century
AMERICAN: Elizabeth Bishop, Countee Cullen, Hart Crane, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), T.S. Eliot, Langston Hughes, Amy Lowell, Edna Saint Vincent Millay, George Santayana, Gertrude Stein (Tender Buttons). BRITISH: W.H. Auden, Gerard Manley Hopkins, A.E. Housman (A Shropshire Lad), Rudyard Kipling, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Edith Sitwell, Stephen Spender. CHILEAN: Gabriela Mistral. FRENCH: Jean Cocteau, René Crevel, Jean Genet, Lautréamont, Renée Vivien. GERMAN: Stefan George, Bertolt Brecht. GREEK: Constantine Cavafy, Napoleon Lapathiotis. ITALIAN: Sandro Penna, Pier Paolo Pasolini. PORTUGUESE: Fernando Pessoa. RUSSIAN: Nikolai Klyuev, Sergei Esenin, Mikhail Kusmin, Sophia Parnok, Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva. SOUTH AFRICAN: William Plomer. SPANISH: Luis Cernuda, Federico García Lorca.
Contemporary
AMERICAN: Paula Gunn Allen, John Ashbery, Olga Broumas, Mark Doty, Robert Duncan, Edward Field, Allen Ginsberg, Judy Grahn, Marilyn Hacker, Essex Hemphill, Richard Howard, Maurice Kenny, Audre Lorde, J.D. McClatchy, James Merrill, Paul Monette, Mary Oliver, Robert Patrick, Adrienne Rich. BRITISH: Thom Gunn. JAPANESE: Mutsuo Takahashi. MEXICAN: Nancy Cárdenas.
