Revision Against Censorship: A Genetic Reading of Nightwood ’s Queer Gothic Prose

ABSTRACT

This article argues that Djuna Barnes played a previously under-acknowledged role in preserving her vision of Nightwood (1936) as an explicitly queer novel while contending with editor T. S. Eliot’s revision process intended to remove queer and sexual content he believed would risk censorship. Although Barnes’s role in this editorial process has largely been characterized as passive, early manuscript drafts, marginalia, notes, and correspondence illustrate that she strategically advocated for the inclusion of critical words, phrases, and passages to preserve Nightwood’s queer themes. Although her editorial strategy of evasion has frequently been mistaken for deference, Barnes directly challenged Eliot and deliberately ignored proposed changes; she also occasionally proposed cuts anticipating his deletions and avoiding the possibility that he might cut further material. The success of these strategies resulted in Barnes’s preservation of the subversive intent of Nightwood, cloaking descriptions of homosexuality in innuendo, metaphor, or ornate allusive prose and queering the text in a way that subtly geared it toward a homosexual audience. Rather than a passive participant, Barnes served as an active agent in this process of revision. Thus, Barnes successfully adapted her novel to the publishing industry’s standards while maintaining the original subversive intent of Nightwood.