'Drunk with the privilege of words': Rereading Gale Wilhelm, rewriting feminist literary history

This dissertation is guided by two questions. What happened to Gale Wilhelm? and What is and for what purpose do we study lesbian literature? Using Gale Wilhelm as a case study in lesbian literary history, I make connections between her disappearance from the horizon of lesbian literature and the trajectory of lesbian literary theory in the past three decades.;In Fixing the Horizon in Lesbian Literary Studies, I examine the growth of lesbian literary scholarship as it has been affected by Women's Studies, the feminist movement, Gay and Lesbian Studies, and the gay and lesbian political movement I theorize how the history of feminist as well as gay and lesbian scholarship has collaborated to create the current gap in lesbian literary history.;In Lesbian Literary Theory, Lesbian Literary History and the Horizon of Expectations for Lesbian Literature, I examine lesbian literary history using the work of Foster, Grier, Faderman, Stimpson, Farwell, and Zimmerman to reveal and analyze the significant consequences of the patterns in lesbian scholarship to lesbian literary history.;In The Creation and Consumption of the Lesbian Artist: Reading and Reception of We Too Are Drifting and Torchlight to Valhalla and in Readings Both Slanted and Straight: Repressed Lesbianism and Conflicted Heterosexuality in the Novels of Gale Wilhelm, I examine the reception of each of Wilhelm's six novels---including the readings of her work suggested by lesbian scholarship. I also suggest alternative readings of her novels can help restore her work to lesbian literary studies.;Lesbian literary studies can contribute to the future of gay and lesbian studies a restored sense of continuity with the past by re-reading works of lesbian literature that have been disregarded as useless to the future of gay and lesbian studies and the gay and lesbian political movement. Lesbian literature is political and is, therefore, vital to the political movement.