Abstract

This article explores the possibility of a `homosexual hermeneutic' by which the great literary works of the western canon can be taught. This `interpretative methodology' is based in the author's own individuation process as gay. The author details his personal journey from engulfment in heteronormativity to the first crisis of his homosexual adolescence whereby he suffers a severe illness and learns, with the help of a teacher, to apprehend the homosexuality hidden in Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser and so on. Psychological problems caused by co-dependency, homophobia and postmodernism eventually lead the author to embark on a gay-centered analysis wherein he learns how to descend into the inner world of internalized homophobia to encounter the `double' of the transformational psyche. This homosexual death-and-rebirth motif is discussed as ubiquitously present in literature, informing the individuation not just of gay-identified individuals but of all those who seek self-knowledge