"It was difficult being a teacher and out of the closet in the '50s. By the time I retired, the English department was proud of having a gay poet of a certain minor fame. It was a very satisfactory change!"
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A whole social revolution gets smuggled in under Gunn's dry, almost amused understatement. "Difficult" does a lot of work here: in the 1950s, being an openly gay teacher wasn't just awkward office politics, it carried the real prospect of firing, blacklisting, or public scandal. Gunn doesn't list the penalties because he doesn't need to; the euphemism performs the era's enforced discretion, the very closet he's naming.
The pivot lands on status. By retirement, he's no longer merely tolerated as a private deviation from the norm; he's repackaged as institutional prestige: "the English department was proud". That word choice is scalpel-sharp. Pride isn't just acceptance, it's ownership. The department that once would've treated gayness as a liability now treats "a gay poet" as a brand asset, a diversity feather in the cap. Gunn undercuts any self-congratulation with "a certain minor fame" - a wry self-deprecation that also needles the machinery of academic cachet, where even "minor" celebrity can alchemize difference into value.
The subtext isn't a simple victory narrative. It's an account of how legitimacy gets granted in America: not through belated moral clarity, but through proof of usefulness and cultural capital. "Very satisfactory" sounds genial, yet it keeps a poet's distance, suggesting both gratitude and an eyebrow raised at how quickly institutions learn to love what they once feared - once it can be framed as accomplishment. In a few sentences, Gunn captures the shift from surveillance to celebration, and the quiet compromises embedded in both.
The pivot lands on status. By retirement, he's no longer merely tolerated as a private deviation from the norm; he's repackaged as institutional prestige: "the English department was proud". That word choice is scalpel-sharp. Pride isn't just acceptance, it's ownership. The department that once would've treated gayness as a liability now treats "a gay poet" as a brand asset, a diversity feather in the cap. Gunn undercuts any self-congratulation with "a certain minor fame" - a wry self-deprecation that also needles the machinery of academic cachet, where even "minor" celebrity can alchemize difference into value.
The subtext isn't a simple victory narrative. It's an account of how legitimacy gets granted in America: not through belated moral clarity, but through proof of usefulness and cultural capital. "Very satisfactory" sounds genial, yet it keeps a poet's distance, suggesting both gratitude and an eyebrow raised at how quickly institutions learn to love what they once feared - once it can be framed as accomplishment. In a few sentences, Gunn captures the shift from surveillance to celebration, and the quiet compromises embedded in both.
Quote Details
| Topic | Teaching |
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