I uploaded Edward Carpenter’s “To A Stranger.” The themes in the poem I found to be most relevant are being queer, shame, and unrequited love. In the poem, Carpenter writes to a stranger telling them that the love that they feel ashamed of will eventually be recognized as true. The theme of unrequited love can be applied to the quotes: “…that which you have desired — in silence — shall come abundantly to you.” (11-12) and “I know the truth the tenderness the courage, I know the longings hidden quiet there.” (5-6) Carpenter is telling the stranger that the love that they have hidden will one day be openly returned. The theme of shame comes into play with these quotes as well because this stranger is hiding his love because he is ashamed of both his feelings and the consequences of making queer love public. As for the queer theme, at no point does Carpenter explicitly say that the stranger is queer. It can only be assumed for the time period that a love that needs to be hidden is a queer one. Also, Carpenter himself was gay and it’s probably that at some point he was in a similar position.

The poem and archive have opened my eyes to the variety and great amount of queer Victorian literature. It’s also made me respect these authors so much more after reading their work because it’s pretty ballsy to publish poems that were at times explicitly queer, knowing the repercussions. I always knew that it was difficult to be queer in the 19th century because of the persecution and hatred but I didn’t know just how much poetry there is from the time period. I can’t remember ever encountering any in my literature classes or even in my reading outside of class. But now I know that I’ll for sure keep my eye out for any anthologies of Victorian queer literature.